Category: Historical Images

As the public school is the lever by which the improvement of society must be worked, every effort to provide means of training for those who would otherwise be without it—every endeavour to give the children of the poor useful knowledge of common things—merits the support of every educational influence. And this brings us to the practical observation that toys ought to be made to advance education, whereas a majority of those furnished to children in this country do more harm than good. At least half of them should be burnt ignominiously as early corrupters of public taste.
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The writer of a popular tree book once stated that the white pine of our northeaster States was destined to disappear except for ornamental purposes. There are many reasons to believe that that time will never come, yet the nature and habits of the tree and the shortsightedness of the people make the statement more than a mere suspicion.

Not a great many years ago within the white pine region, there were magnificent stands of old growth pine. Every old inhabitant today will tell you how they stood on his father’s farm when he was a boy, their clear, straight trunks and gnarled flat tops high above everything else. Many an old house back in the country has floor boards and cupboard doors that are more than three feet wide which were made from such trees.

These old monarchs of the northern forests are gone now, except for the isolated trees or clumps scattered widely over the region. A woodlot owner recently guided me several miles back into the hills in order to point out three magnificent pines which have been standing probably for more than 250 years. One could never mistake them from others of a later generation.
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The woman who indulges in carpenter-work seldom does much harm. She contents herself with trying to drive nails into the wall, and with experiments with mucilage. She drives her nails with great caution, and when she has loosened an inch or two of plaster she becomes alarmed, and resolves to let her husband assume the responsibility of inflicting further injury on the wall.

She has a profound faith in the value of mucilage as a substitute for glue, and hopefully attempts to mend china and furniture with it; but mucilage is as harmless as it is inefficient, and it is only on the rare occasions when it is used to mend the wheels of the clock that it does any permanent injury to anything.
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I wish to enter a protest—“a kick,” as we say in the shop. I bought a magazine the other day, one of the dignified kind supposed to give a busy man a glimpse of some of the important things happening in the world, and to give it in a fair, open, unbiased way. In it I found an article at which I here kick.

It was one calling attention to a revival of certain kinds of skilled hand work whereby some people, with a good degree of skill and originality, are able to make wares that command a relatively large price because of the fact that they are made in small quantities and cannot be duplicated at the nearest store, the trade mark of the maker being the chief item of value as showing that the article is unique.

So far I have no reason to object, believing as I do that it is good business to work at that which brings in the best returns for the effort expended. What I do object to—and that most vigorously—is the insinuation that the every-day worker is below these in honesty and usefulness.
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In New England a good workman is described as a “Master-hand at his trade.” Within the past few years a new and superior workman has appeared who is his own designer, skilled worker and dealer—in brief, his own employer. There are women also who are designers and workers and are their own saleswomen.

The upper West-side apartment district of New York may not appear to be the best place to find the shop of a Master-hand. A few steps from prosaic Columbus Avenue, on One hundred and Fourth Street, lead to a small brick dwelling. There is a high stoop and a large basement window and a few stone steps lead down to a lofty basement room having a fine north light.
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