Workbook

“ It is intended to supplement and not to supplant workshop training for bookbinders. No one can become a skilled workman by reading text-books, but to a man who has acquired skill and practical experience, a text-book, giving perhaps different methods from those to which he has been accustomed, may be helpful.
My thanks are due to many friends, including the workmen in my workshop, for useful suggestions and other help, and to the Society of Arts for permission to quote from the report of their Special Committee on leather for bookbinding. ”

“ Newsboard, vellum, and paper for memorandum pad, or calendar,
or pad to be mounted.
We shall now begin to deal with materials that are more exclusively employed in bookbinding work. The simple articles considered at first are not books; but because the processes involved and the materials used will be used later in the more difficult work of binding a real book, they are made a part of this course.
The wise teacher will become somewhat familiar with handling the required materials before attempting to give instruction. ”

“ The general account in the text will be supplemented by the reading of source and parallel material, concerning which very definite directions will have to be given by the teacher. Each student will keep a notebook as one of the requirements of the course, which is examined by the instructor at the end. A profitable way to make a notebook is for each student to select a different modern problem and trace its origin and growth as he goes through the general history of education and its source material. In this way each student becomes a crude historian of a problem. ”

“ The home reading box will prove a success in any plant, no matter how simple the installation and running plan are, but it can only retain its best results when a careful consideration is given to the conditions that affect the particular problem. The important feature is, of course, the type of worker who is to receive the literature. Where the group of workers consists of foreigners, many of whom read no English, and speak it little, the picture magazines are the most sought. Where you have a group of highly skilled mechanics, technical magazines and trade catalogs are highly appreciated. ”

“ Those for the ninth grade pupils ordinarily include instruction in the use of dictionaries, encyclopædias and atlases, and the use of the table of contents and indexes in reference books. The instruction for the tenth grade takes up the use of the card catalogue, magazine indexes, year-books, and special indexes. The upper classes may be given practice work in comparing the value of different reference books, in learning to get references from various sources not on the reference shelves, and in the use of some of the government publications. ”

“ Individual notebooks (containing topical outlines or summaries based upon the text or upon collateral reading) ; papers or reports to be read in the class; illustrations (pictures and maps) ; map work of students (single maps traced or based on outline maps, or atlases or wall outline maps filled in) .
“No prescribed notebook or map work is suggested. It is desired that the teacher use his or her own judgment as to the kind of work suited to the class.
“The contest is limited to the tenth grade in each high school. The work of the entire class is to be exhibited. ”

“ During the third year the manual work, exclusive of the science laboratories and the drawing rooms, is usually confined to machine-tool practice, and here the time is divided between abstract exercises and finished projects. ”

“ These Handybooks have been written to supply information for Workmen, Students, and Amateurs in the several Handicrafts, on the actual Practice of the Workshop, and are intended to convey in plain language Technical Knowledge of the several Crafts. In describing the processes employed, and the manipulation of material, workshop terms are used; workshop practice is fully explained; and the text is freely illustrated with drawings of modern tools, appliances, and processes.
THE METAL TURNER'S HANDYBOOK. A Practical Manual for Workers at the Foot-Lathe. ”

“ A preliminary lesson may consist of a simple demonstration of the purpose and means of access to the library—its divisions, cataloguing and classification, and an exercise in finding books; and this may be followed by other lessons on the making, use and care of books; and other lessons may follow on reference work, subject-hunting, the use of periodical indexes, bibliographical aids, dictionaries, maps, etc. They must be purely objective to succeed, and everything described should be placed before the children. ”

“ We want learners and teachers to be in school, in class, on time, learning and teaching for seven hours a day.
We will assist teachers by providing detailed daily lesson plans. To students, we will provide easy-to-use workbooks in all 11 languages. From this year onwards, all grade 3, 6 and 9 students will write literacy and numeracy tests that are independently moderated. We aim to increase the pass rate for these tests from the current average of between 35 and 40% to at least 60% by 2014. Results will be sent to parents to track progress. ”

“ With parents (who constitute the public so far as schools are concerned) beautifully written Copy books and carefully written Home Exercises are not only evidence of satisfactory progress but they are regarded as an index to the discipline of the school, the thoroughness of the teaching, the neatness and precision of the general work and to the Education imparted. Very few teachers appear to apprehend or rightly value both the extern and intern influence which writing exerts on a School. ”

“ Applying the test that the equipment of a department should be determined by the nature of the material with which the department deals, it is obvious that we have here a subject in which printed matter of a variety of forms, manuscripts, maps and charts, pictures and casts, and actual historical objects or reproductions, form the material basis for the student’s work. Where the chemist uses books and apparatus, the historical student uses books and other material as apparatus. ”

“ And, in the shop where metals are wrought cold (which, for want of a better name, we call our machine-shop) , every new exercise is like a delightful trip into a new field of thought and investigation. Every exercise, if properly conducted, is both mental and manual. Every tool used and every process followed has its history, its genesis, and its evolution. ”

“ It is hardly to be expected that any one set of models or of exercises, tho they may be of very great value, will fill the needs of varying local school conditions. The production of a text-book which shall deal with tool processes in a general way without reference to any particular set of models or exercises is the author’s aim. It is believed that such a text will prove suitable wherever the essentials of woodworking shall be taught, whether in grammar, high school or college, and whatever the system of instruction. ”

“ Every writer who is on the lookout for subjects and sources of material should keep a notebook constantly at hand. Subjects suggested by everyday experiences, by newspaper and magazine reading, and by a careful study of special articles in all kinds of publications, are likely to be forgotten unless they are recorded at once. A small notebook that can be carried in the pocket or in a woman's hand-bag is most convenient. ”

“ The design of the Publishers of the Polytechnic Library is to produce a Series of highly-instructive Works, which the Public may be tempted to buy, because they will be cheap,—be induced to read, because they will be brief,—be competent to understand, because they will be clearly written,—and be able to profit by, because they will be WORKS OF PRACTICAL UTILITY. Every volume, therefore, will contain a complete Treatise relating to one of the useful arts or sciences, or the chemical or mechanical trades. ”

“ First technical training along the lines of adult library work, such as ordering, accessioning, classifying, shelf-listing, cataloging, the study of library organization, history of libraries, history of printing and bookbinding, business methods, such as making out of reports, statistics, blanks, and schedules. ”

“ There is no text-book that can teach all, or anywhere near all there is upon the subject it professes to cover. So the library, which has many books upon that subject, comes in to supply its deficiencies. And the librarian is useful to the professors and students just in proportion as he knows, not the contents, but the range of books upon each subject sought to be investigated. Here is where the subject catalogue, or the dictionary catalogue, combining the subjects and the authors under a single alphabet, comes into play. ”

“ These are divided into two shifts of thirty each, and they alternately receive a day’s schooling and do a day’s practical work at their separate trades as carpenters, fitters, or riveters. In school their time is divided between reading, writing, and arithmetic, and also drawing. ”

“ Even those who would unhesitatingly seek a book for data in history, art, or mathematics would not think of going to books for facts on plumbing, weaving, or shoe-making, for methods of shop-window decoration or of display-advertising, for special forms of bookkeeping suitable for factories or for stock-farms—for a host of facts relating to trades, occupations, and business in general. ”

“ The method above described is called "cutting in boards," and is superior to any other.
[pg 73]
It is of the utmost importance to the young workman that he should pursue and acquire a methodical system in all his operations. Select the best method, as a matter of course, and then adhere to it. Do not, every time you perform one particular process, do it in a different manner. For instance: in backing or in turning up your books, it is better to always have the head towards you; in cutting head and tail, to have the back nearest you. In laying your work down, always do it in one way. ”

“ In familiarizing themselves with the case, the pupils may well begin the use of the job stick and the practice of properly holding it, by the use of large type, in setting up their names and such simple matter as they care to attempt, putting the type back again into the proper boxes. When simple composition is begun, it is thought best that each piece of work should run through the typical processes, setting up the type, emptying the stick, proofing, correcting, tying up, removing to the stone, locking up, and printing. ”

“ The first use of these books will be as texts to educate workers; the intermediate use of the books will be as the nucleus of workingmen’s libraries, collective and personal, and the last use of the Workers’ Bookshelf will be to instruct and delight all readers of serious books everywhere.
In our modern industrial society, knowledge—things to know—increases much more rapidly than 299 our understanding. The worker finds it increasingly difficult to comprehend the world he has done most to create. ”

“ As each workman came into the works in the morning, he took out of his own special pigeonhole, with his number on the outside, two pieces of paper, one of which stated just what implements he was to get from the tool room and where he was to start to work, and the second of which gave the history of his previous day's work ”

“ The field of business is so wide and embraces so many subjects that the methods of teaching giving the best results will be varied and used in different combinations with different subjects. Those subjects which are practical and largely habit forming, such as stenography, typewriting, bookkeeping, and the manipulation of mechanical and labor-saving office devices, are of course taught by some method of training which will insure quick reaction. ”

“ Where on the shelves of the library is a certain book to be found, if it is not in use by a reader?
To answer these questions certain “entries”, or records, are made in the catalog, called the author, title, subject and series entries. Question 6, which is asked in connection with all the other questions, is answered by the call number, which appears on every entry.
The most general book of reference is the dictionary. Every one is more or less familiar with its arrangement. ”

“ I know hundreds of men who read one at one sitting, 165but I defy any man to write one in less than one hundred hours of solid work. When I tackle a job of this sort, my study looks like an architect’s work room, charts everywhere, on the wall and tables and even on the floor. I make a chart for each character, showing exactly where he is, what he says and what he is thinking of each moment of the play. ”

“ PAPER
“A workman is known by his tools.” It is as essential that good material be supplied for the penmanship as that any other department be well supplied as regards quality and quantity. Not only should good paper, pencils, pens and ink be used during the formal lessons each day, but in every lesson wherein writing is used to carry on the other work. Permit no scribbling, utilize every line, keep paper in neat folders; thus economize in the right manner, and not by the purchase of poor equipment, which is an irritation to teacher and pupil alike. ”

“ Every library should have one, though it is only a home-made affair, manufactured on a typewriter or a hectograph. Every book should be briefly described, so that the scholars may know, for instance, the scene and purpose of each story, the kind of man described in each biography, and whether it is a book for old, young, or primary scholars. Some librarians mark one catalogue for each class, indicating the books especially pleasing to scholars of the average age of the class, so that the teacher may guide their selection. ”