Go through the book, and see whether, here and there, you do not get some glimpses of what it means to take a pleasure in doing each particular thing, and you will find in every instance that it is a satisfaction because you have learned to perform it with ease.
I do not know of anything which has done as much to advance the arts and manufactures, during the last century, as the universal desire to improve the form, shape and structure of tools; and the effort to invent new ones. This finds its reflection everywhere in the production of new and improved products.
In this particular I have been led to formulate a homely sentence which expresses the idea: Invention consists in doing an old thing a new way; or a new thing any way.
Judging from the favorable comments of educators, on the general arrangement of the subject matter in the work on "Carpentry for Boys," I am disposed to follow that plan in this book in so far as it pertains to tools.
In this field, as in "Carpentry," I do not find any guide which is adapted to teach the boy the fundamentals of mechanics. Writers usually overlook the fact, that as the boy knows nothing whatever about the subject, he could not be expected to know anything about tools.
To describe them gives a start in the education, but it is far short of what is necessary for one in his condition. If he is told that the chisel or bit for a lathe has a diamond point, or is round-nosed, and must be ground at a certain angle, he naturally wants to know, as all boys do, _why_ it should be at that angle.
So in the setting of the tools with relation to the work, the holding and manipulation of the file, of the drill for accurate boring, together with numerous little things, are all taken for granted, and the boy blunders along with the ultimate object in sight, without having the pathway cleared so he may readily reach the goal.
VARIED REQUIREMENTS.--The machinist's trade is one which requires the most varied tools of all occupations, and they are by all odds the most expensive to be found in the entire list of vocations.
This arises from the fact that he must work with the most stubborn of all materials. He finds resistance at every step in bringing forth a product.