I take it for granted that the future boat-builder has, as a boy, been fond of boats. He has not only taken advantage of the rivers and ponds near his house, has navigated them in scow, in row-boat or in sail-boat, but I will suppose that, from the time he has been the owner of a jack-knife, he has been a constructor of toy boats. And, as he has grown older and become the possessor of a tool-chest, or, at least, of a gauge, a mallet, a saw, a plane, and a good knife, he has wrought out miniature cutters and schooners, possibly a square-rigged ship, all of which have been much admired by his young companions. If it has been his object in life to become a boat-builder, he could not have been better employed during the hours that have not been taken up with school duties.
In every business and profession there is some one object above all others sought after, upon which success may be said to depend. The orator endeavors to arouse our enthusiasm, the poet appeals to our sentiments, the lawyer to our reason, the clergyman to our conscience. The genius of the boat-builder lies in the one word "form." The one thing more than all others for which he aims to have a reputation is the ability to give a good shape to the mass of wood or iron coming from his hands, whether it be a man-of-war or a sail-boat. And so it was good for the boy that he made boats and models of boats. He was getting, as the naval architect would say, "form impressed upon his brain." It may have been, it probably was, a bad form, an incorrect form, but it was something from which to start. At all events, the boy has formed a speaking acquaintance with the occupation he is about to enter.
I shall assume that at the age of sixteen he has finished his school studies, has a good knowledge of arithmetic and algebra, and has gone through seven books in Euclid, with special reference to being proficient in the fourth and seventh books. Two years before this, we will suppose, he has expressed a desire to be a boat-builder. He has made a model of some kind of a boat, and he has, as occasions have permitted, visited such ship-yards as could be found in his vicinity, and carefully watched the men while they were at work. At last, at the age of sixteen, he enters the office of a thoroughly competent naval architect, who either is or has been a practical ship-builder. The naval architect stands in the same relation to ship-building that the architect of houses does to house-building, with this difference,--not only does he make the plan, but very often he executes it as well.