Every boy ought to know how to drive a nail and saw a board. Somewhere in connection with every well-ordered home there should be a workshop of some sort. An article could easily be written treating exclusively on the advantages accruing from even a slight dexterity in the use of a few tools, and it could easily be shown that these advantages are by no means confined to artisans, but that professional men and men of affairs find healthful exercise, pleasant diversion, and mental discipline “over the bench.”
But omitting all that, we start now with the postulate that a boy ought to have a workshop, and the only question for present consideration is how it ought to be fitted up. As the chief purpose of the boy’s workshop is rather to give the boy plenty of congenial work than for the sake of the work the boy will do, the more of the work of fitting up the shop that is left to the boy the better. We put four “works” in that sentence, and we are glad of it. Happiness depends almost wholly on occupation. Professor Albert Hopkins once gave as his idea of happiness, “right activity.”
(more…)
