Lost Art Press

8 thoughts on “Knife Work in the School-Room”

  1. Wow! How times have changed and not for the better IMHO. Now, you get suspended when you carry a pocket knife to school. I miss the days in elementary school when I could carry my “Old Timer” and slice an apple or cut an errant string. Sad, sad indeed. We’ve gone from teaching values of responsibility, self reliance and hard work, to instilling fear and enforcing political correctness. No more common since for the masses.

    -Aaron

  2. Milton Bradley! How wonderful. I, too, used to carry my pocket knife – then, when in high school, I would keep my .22 rifle in my locker for use at the school’s “Rifle Club” after the last class of the day. What fun that was! Sad times, these.

  3. Aaron’s comment above hits it on the head.
    I remember playing mumbly-peg at recess.
    Those really were “the good old days”.

  4. I know this isn’t the place for political or social commentary and I won’t go there but Aaron’s going to have a lot of us nodding our heads in agreement on this one. Learning how to use simple tools, like a knife, used to be such a natural part of growing up nobody gave it a second thought. Personally, I’m constantly dismayed at the lack of skill among many men today in performing even the simplest manual tasks.

    1. Mark you are correct, this is no place for politics. I try very hard not to be political in any forums as everyone has differing views and I want all my discourse to be friendly and helpful. I guess I am sad that such a good and influential part of my past has vanished and not been replaced with something as good or better, at least the tool use part of it.

      -Aaron

  5. My dad was born in 1940. When he was in the 5th grade, for Christmas the teacher got all the girls compact mirrors for their little purses and all the boys got a new pocket knife. He also said it was common for boys to carry switchblades although if you were caught with one it would be held in the teacher’s drawer until school ended for the day. The mind staggers.

  7. Maybe, I’m not trolling the bookstore or library enough, but I don’t think you can find a book like this today that is new? What an amazing book on carving/whittling and the layout process. So much information packed into 200 pages. This book is getting printed out and bound so I can teach myself. No more TV for me, out to the porch with a sharp knife. Then I can incorporate those skills into something bigger.

    Reading the intro in the book is a testament to how are society has changed as well from then. From my perspective its very eye-opening and almost heart-braking as to where we are as a society, and how far we are from common sense as an earlier post mentioned. Its interesting that the book is a four year program, today most people wouldn’t give you a weekend.

    Personally, I am glad there are still people out there like Chris S, and Jeff B, (Wish I could be going to Hand works!) that want to preserve that heritage and knowledge and then redistribute it out to the masses, because once its lost, its gone forever.

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