The customers of a country cooper caused him a vast deal of vexation by their saving habits and persistence in getting all their old tubs and casks repaired, and buying but little new work.
“I stood it however,” said he, “until one day old Sam Crabtree brought in an old ‘bung-hole’ to which he said he wanted a new barrel made. Then I quit the business in disgust!”
Town Talk – 1859
—Jeff Burks
No man ever finished his work, for each task is but a preparation, which, being completed, should be put under our feet, that we may thenceforward labor on a higher level. Thus, no true worker was ever satisfied with what he accomplished, for, by doing that, he had qualified himself to do something better.
George Houghton
The Hub – August, 1875
—Jeff Burks
If you don’t know what to do, don’t do anything, then you waste nothing but your time and are not likely to waste any material. It is better to do nothing than to do something wrong. It affects the nerves of the boss less, as well as leaving more money in his purse.
If you do not know what is the right thing to do, and do not find out from those that do know, and thereby do something wrong, the error is yours, and you alone are responsible. It is a poor excuse to say that you weren’t told not to do it the way you blindly went at it. It doesn’t cost near as much to ask questions as it does to do the job a second time.
If you start to do a job without a clear idea of the result you wish to attain you are like a man with his eyes blindfolded going over a rocky road: you will stumble often and make many a start only to fall down again. Whereas if you have planned your job beforehand you will see the rocks in the way and go around them instead of falling over them.
The able official who practically created the Forest Department of India once remarked to the writer that the strongest evidence of the wealth of the English landed proprietors was the large-minded way in which they refused to have anything to say to scientific forestry.
They keep enormous parks, in which the timber is intended solely for ornament, and ancient and decayed trees are left till they rot, beautiful ruins of trees; and in their woods and coverts the picturesque and not the profitable is the apparent aim of the British woodman. The trees are left at wide distances apart, they throw out branches from the sides, the stems deteriorate, and though British oak was famous stuff for making curly-grained dining-tables and the “knees” of old line-of-battle ships, builders will not buy British timber, and special clauses are inserted in contracts forbidding its use.
…Such are some of the considerations, which show the general utility of scientific education, for those engaged in the mechanical arts. Let us now advert to some of the circumstances, which ought, particularly in the United States of America, to act as encouragements to the young men of the country to apply themselves earnestly, and, as far as it can be done, systematically, to the attainment of such an education.
And, first, it is beyond all question, that what are called the mechanical trades of this country are on a much more liberal footing than they are in Europe. This circumstance not only ought to encourage those who pursue them, to take an honest pride in improvement, but it makes it their incumbent duty to do so.
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