Boys precede men and apprentices precede journeymen. The boy is the father of the man. It is an old saying and a true one. Almost all boys are naturally mechanics. The constructive and imitative faculties are developed, in part, at a very early age. All boys are not capable of being developed into good, practical, working mechanics, but most of them show their bent that way. There are a few cases in which the boy has no competent idea of the production of a fabricated result from inorganic material, but such cases are rare. Given the proper encouragement and the means, and many boys whose mechanical aptness is allowed to run to waste, or is diverted from its natural course, would become good workmen, useful, producing members of the industrial community.
Boys are always planning, contriving, and fabricating. Give a boy a good pocket knife, and, unless the trader is uppermost in his nature, he will use it instead of swapping it, and with its aid he will begin construction, the making of something useful, ornamental or attractive out of handy material. With this comprehensive tool he will do, in his crude way, what the experienced mechanic does with his planes, chisels, gouges, augurs, bits, &c., and be a shipwright, cabinet worker, joiner, carpenter and toymaker in one, and sometimes he will turn out specimens of work that the accomplished mechanic need not blush to own.
There are sold, all over the country miniature chests of wood-working tools ostensibly adapted to the hands of the boy mechanic. But in most cases these are play tools in another sense than that they are of diminutive size. The old notion that “anything is good enough for a boy,” or “any worn-out tool, is good enough for the apprentice” has not lost its force, and these beginners in art and neophytes in work are furnished with miserable apologies for tools that could not keep a place, after a single trial, on the bench of a workman. Such nonsense is reprehensible in theory and wicked in practice. Give your boy and your apprentice good tools and good materials. It is enough for the workman that he can do better work with his years of experience and his ripened judgment, without imposing upon the boy and apprentice with inefficient tools and improper material.
The mechanical boy ought to have a shop of his own. Let it be the attic, or an unused room, or a place in the barn or the woodshed. Give him a place and tools. Let him have a good pocket-knife, gimlets, chisels, gouges, planes, cutting nippers, saws, a foot rule, and material to work. Let the boy have a chance. If he is a mechanic it will come out, and he will do himself credit. If he fails he is to follow some calling that does not demand mechanical skill.
With a foot rule in his pocket the boy will be continually measuring. Before he is aware of it his eye has been educated to judge of dimensions and proportions. It is a good substratum on which to erect the knowledge of practical mechanics. Acquired as an amusement, this knowledge will become practically useful as the boy develops into the man. The employments suggested by the pocket-knife and rule will occupy many an otherwise idle hour, and afford a pleasant relief to the routine of school study and the weariness of oft-played games. The boy will become acquainted practically with substances and be interested in the mechanical operations he witnesses, and this will pave the way for his easy entrance on the vast field of useful endeavor before him. He will become an intelligent and willing apprentice, and a judicious and skillful workman.
Boston Journal of Commerce – c. 1882
– Jeff Burks
Today, kids only know how to use their hands for operating their electronic devices. Pocket knives are considered weapons.
I’d say that is a bit of a generalization. In general our society is moving away from things made by hand so this is becoming true for everyone (not just kids). But, evidenced by this blog and its following, there is beginning to be a backlash. My sons love working in the shop and making stuff just like I did as a kid. I’m guessing that a lot of other readers who have young kids are in the same boat.
The pocket knife thing is a shame. We’ve definitely become over sensitive to things like that after 9/11. But I think part of this is the media. If one kid in Minnesota gets suspended for saying something stupid the whole country knows about it. That just wasn’t true 20 years ago. It seems like our local school administrators actually use common sense more often than not. And that’s probably true of 1000s of schools all over the country. But the one that suspends a kid for a stupid drawing on his trapper keeper will be all over the internet…
Yep. I think you’ve got the situation described pretty accurately. Things are usually not as bad (or as good) as we think.
It was a huge eye opener when I first became interested in hand tool woodworking a couple of years ago. My dad had handsaws, chisels and planes, none of them sharp. He relied on power tools to get the job done. I remember struggling mightily with dull planes and chisels and wondering what was wrong with me that I couldn’t get the tools to do what I wanted.
Chris, I don’t know how old you are (I’m 63) but it’s not just this generation appearing to be backlashing. It’s a portion of every one, large enough to be noticed as substantial from the inside, but too small to seen to the uninitiated. It was a theme of one faction of the Sixties “Counter-Culture,” and hence the Whole Earth Catalogue: Access to Tools. That would take you straight to John Rushkin and the Arts and Crafts Movement of the latter half of the Nineteenth Century. And though the Luddites in England and the Saboteurs in France (the word saboteur derives from the practice of workers in France sticking their wooden shoes (sabots) into the machinery at factories) were rebelling against the industrial revolution’s depredations it was still a protest against the soulless machine and the capitalist reducing the craftsman to a semi-skilled laborer. I recommend the book Shop Class as Soul Craft. The author, Matt Crawford, is quite accessible. And on the first page he talks about my friend Tom Hull. I suggest anyone interested in the interaction of boys and men related to craft and industry and the education of all pick Tom’s brain. Not only a philosophy that makes perfect sense, but the heart to turn it to action and provide a venue for success for young men that often become the flotsam and jetsam of society due to our lack of interest (as a society) in them.