My earliest recollections are associated with my father’s workshop. In looking back to the youthful period of life, and the years immediately succeeding, it has often occurred to me that some particulars might be revived, which, in the present day, when the great questions of education, food, and work, are occupying the public mind, would assist in exposing a defect or suggesting a remedy. Perhaps one of the most effectual means of arriving at just conclusions on which to base practical remedial measures, would be to get a number of operatives and artisans to make a clean breast of it—to enlighten the world honestly as to their social economy, their ways and means, sayings and doings.
As soon as I could hold a hammer, the workshop was my chief place of resort after school hours and on half holidays. I had a mechanical turn, and was fond of handling tools, and was brought up to consider myself as destined to become a cabinetmaker, and to plod through life at the side of the bench. For more than twenty years I pursued this calling, never dreaming that any other sphere of existence would open before me. I have consequently mingled much with workingmen, and had abundant opportunities of becoming acquainted with their prevalent habits and modes of thinking.
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