And it was with the industrial revolution that popular good taste disappeared. They had destroyed the craft and with it the standards and traditions built up over the centuries, and the craftsman was left, bewildered and defenceless, in an age that had no place for him.
Time brings its revenges. Today we are consciously, painstakingly, with infinite effort, trying to regain some of the good that was lost when the machine took over.
— The Woodworker, June 1951
So many men to-day, doing work that is far removed from the making of things, the many professional workers, office workers, salesmen, factory workers – whose work may seem to be making but whose sole contribution is constant repetitive action in one infinitesimal part – lack contact with that real world in which a man can exercise his creative gifts.
They barely realise that such a world exists.
Theirs is the world of hard bargaining, of nimble wits or the routine job, which leave a great part of their natural human instincts unsatisfied, even though in all probability they do not know the reason for their perennial feelings of dissatisfaction and frustration.
— The Woodworker, January 1954
A dog kennel carved and inlaid may be rare but it is not valuable, and the man who carved and inlaid it was not a genius but a lunatic.
— Herbert Cescinsky, 1924, antique furniture expert
New values have come in, new prospects of easy money are for ever enticing young men still further away, but it is doubtful they are happier for all that, for one can have easy money and an empty life, which is a poor substitute for creation. The wise ones will provide for it in their leisure and wood seems the natural medium for most of us. It is kind stuff to handle, it is creative work which keeps us close to first essentials by helping to provide necessities for the home, and it gives scope for every bit of skill and judgment we can develop, with always the promise of beauty in the end.
— The Woodworker, March 1951
Now and again in our topsy turvey world we get glimpses which show us with sudden clarity what an odd scale of values men are building up for themselves to-day. And that, in spite of the general scramble for money, the true riches for all of us lie in our tools and our skill.
These, in the dawn of the world were a man’s first, best friends. They remain his best friends still in a world grown old and infinitely complex. By means of them he can unlock the doors to a life of creative activity that is full of interest. Without them he is mere shadow of the man he might be.
— The Woodworker, May 1954