Workshop

“ But those heroes of the workshop had none of the opportunities afforded by the manual training school of the present age. They toiled many hours each day for a shilling or two, and lived in stuffy hovels, and puzzled over the a b c of mechanics by the light of a tallow-candle. Some of them gained fortunes, while others were robbed of the fruits of genius, and slept in unknown graves; but all their names are treasured and honored now. The world moves, and in this age it moves always toward a higher appreciation of the value of the useful arts. ”

“ The workshop is the only real school for a handicraft. The education which precedes that of the workshop should be entirely devoted to the strengthening of the body, the elevation of the moral faculties, and the cultivation of the intelligence ”

“ SHALL we have a school in the workshop, or a workshop in the school? Or what other combination can we devise that will permit mental and scientific training to proceed after the age has been attained at which serious manual labor must begin? Hitherto we have been contented at most to organize night schools, evening classes, and so-called Mechanics' Institutes for our apprentices, leaving it to their own caprice whether they chose to employ their leisure hours in self-improvement or squander them in self-indulgence. ”

“ The workshop was usually a portion of the dwelling, where the master worked with his apprentices, teaching them the whole art and mystery of his craft, and giving them knowledge of a complete trade, not of a minor portion of one as in our day. ”

“ Short as is the distance between workshop and home, it provides a world of beauty and incident; suggesting to his inventive mind the subjects suitable for his work. Birds, beasts, and flowers are as familiar to him as the tools with which he works, or the scent and touch of the solid oak he handles daily. ”

“ In the first place, we wish to provide trustworthy text-books of workshop practice, from the points of view of experts who have critically examined the methods current in the shops, and putting aside vain survivals, are prepared to say what is good workmanship, and to set up a standard of quality in the crafts which are more especially associated with design. ”

“ The workshop library, generally speaking, consists of various price-lists and manufacturers' catalogues, with, perhaps, a ready-reckoner and a few tables of rules and formulæ. Many workshops do not even possess the price-lists, and all kinds of processes are accomplished by rule-of-thumb, in the good old way sanctioned by the traditions of a long series of venerated great-great-grandfathers. ”

“ These are the tools for general work and which no shop could be without; but what makes our modern workshop so different in character from what it was in former times are the many mechanical contrivances without the aid of which practical and profitable work is now inconceivable. ”

“ It is only when the workshop has grown to the enormous size familiar in modern industrial plants that this relation of employer and employee has to be supplemented through the mediating offices of the home visitor. ”

“ They are occupied in these workshops eight and a half hours a day. They have a class two hours every day, except their friends desire them to pass this time in the workshop, to perfect themselves in their employment. ”

“ The workshop, I believe, is a valuable training to enable the eye and hand to work in harmony. It is intended to make the school-drawing, especially the scale-drawing and geometry, apply as much as possible to the work done in the workshop. It is certainly a pleasant relief to ordinary school-work. Should a boy not follow a trade when he leaves school, he will at least be able to make his home-work comfortable by using the skill and facility which he has acquired in this workshop. ”

“ I certainly think that this workshop for upper standard boys will help to dissipate this idea, as it will show boys that, after we have given them the best education which the school offers, we then lead them into the workshop, and so practically show them that the end and aim of our training is to enable them to learn some useful trade, and so become good workmen. ”

“ There is, moreover, a workshop for snow-shoe fastenings, and a tinsmith’s shop, busied for the moment with repairs to the lamps. Our doctor, too, for lack of patients, has set up a bookbinding establishment which is greatly patronized by the Fram’s library, whereof several [428] books that are in constant circulation, such as Gjest Baardsens Liv og Levnet, etc., are in a very bad state. We have also a saddlers’ and sail-makers’ workshop, a photographic studio, etc. The manufacture of diaries, however, is the most extensive—every man on board works at that. ”

“ Let us now take a glance at the workshop, where the boys are using plane and chisel, pointing and dovetailing pieces of wood which not only answer ends in themselves, but the treatment of which serves to make the blind useful with their hands. ”

“ Yet, as the workshop has its own education for men, and gives us the order known as the "intelligent workman," so it gives us also the no less intelligent workwoman, possessing not only the natural womanly gift of many resources, but the added power of just so much technical training as she may have received in her apprenticeship to her trade. ”

“ Here one realizes one advantage possessed by this municipal school over those in which the atelier is simply the workshop of a great business. In the early stages, when workmanship is very imperfect, it is not always well to strive to produce a salable article. Better waste wood, says the superintendent of the shops, than spoil the making of a good apprentice. Better to let the young workman see something of all the different corners of his trade, than by too fine a division of labor to keep him all his years learning only to shape chair-legs. ”

“ For this purpose a workshop means a place where mechanical power is not used, and a factory a place where such power is used. The distinction also roughly corresponds to the difference between ordered or bespoke and ready-made garments, ordered garments being made principally in workshops, and ready-made garments principally though not so exclusively in factories. ”

“ To such youths it is unnecessary to enumerate the advantages of a workshop; neither is it essential to point out to them the fact that they may commence their collection of tools with a serviceable pocket-knife. ”

“ Those of them--the many--who toiled in workshops other than their homes, saw with the rising and the setting of every sun a few narrow streets within the circumference of a mile, mayhap. Moving always in the same groove, trudging to their workshops every morning, trudging home every night--it was the same thing for them day after day. ”

“ While receiving substantial scientific education, the pupils are also trained in the workshops-but not for one special trade, as it unhappily too of ten is the case. They pass through the carpenter's workshop, the casting in metals, and the engineering workshop ”

“ I would have a workshop attached to every school, and one hour a day given up to the teaching of simple decorative arts. It would be a golden hour to the children. ”

“ We had plenty to do. My workshop was fully equipped. My hobbies were there, and I could work them to my heart's content. The walls of our various rooms were soon hung with pictures and other works of art, suggestive of many pleasant associations of former days. Our library bookcase was crowded with old friends in the shape of books that had been read and re-read many times, until they had almost become part of ourselves. Old Lancashire friends made their way to us when "up in town," and expressed themselves delighted with our pleasant house and its beautiful surroundings. ”

“ The subjects chosen provide ample scope for the exercise of ingenuity and patience; but in making my selection I have kept before me the fact that a well-equipped workshop falls to the lot of but a few of the boys who are anxious to develop into amateur craftsmen. ”

“ It is not indispensable, however, that the workmen should be gathered into one place: the existence of the workshop does not depend essentially upon such contact. It results from the relation and proportion of the different tasks and from the common thought directing them. In a word, concentration at one point may offer its advantages, which are not to be neglected; but that is not what constitutes the workshop. ”

“ Every tool had a purpose. It had been invented for some special reason. Sometimes it struck the keynote, as it were, to many of the important contrivances which enable man to obtain a complete mastery over materials.
There were also hung upon the walls, or placed upon shelves, many treasured relics of the first embodiments of his constructive genius. There were many models explaining, step by step, the gradual progress of his teeming inventions and contrivances. The workshop was thus quite a historical museum of mechanism. It exhibited his characteristic qualities in construction. ”

“ It may also be mentioned here that in most technical schools the work is executed with the very best and most suitable tools and, furthermore, the whole interior arrangement of the workshop is as favourable to the work as can be conceived, and thus all conditions for good work prevail. ”

“ The master of each separate atelier provides the materials, devises the work of the apprentices, superintends its execution either personally or by an authorized contre-maître, and to him belong the products of the workshop. ”

“ The first of these is a workshop training, which, though impossible some years ago, is now no longer so within certain limits; that is to say, there are one or two binders with small workshops who undertake to give women systematic teaching for a limited time. In a workshop they will see a variety of work that they will miss if taught privately, and they will learn the habit of rapid and dexterous manipulation of tools and materials without which it is impossible to work quickly enough for a profitable return upon the outlay. ”

“ All the apprentices learn also to sketch bits of machinery or even entire machines, figure the sketch from actual measurement, and then with rule and compass draw them carefully to scale. There are two principal workshops, one devoted to the workers in iron, the other to workers in wood. The trades actually taught are forging, metal-turning, fitting, carpentry, wood-turning, and pattern-making. A small workshop for teaching the manufacture of philosophical instruments has also just been organized. ”

“ Economic Advantages of "Small Workshops."--The question we have to answer is this--Why has the small workshop survived and grown up in London and other large cities, in direct antagonism to the prevalent industrial movement of the age? It is evident that the small workshop system must possess some industrial advantages which enable it to hold its own. ”

“ If we confine our attention to some particular lot of raw materials, of rags, for instance, in paper manufacture, or of wire in needle manufacture, we perceive that it passes in succession through a series of stages in the hands of the various detail workmen until completion. On the other hand, if we look at the workshop as a whole, we see the raw material in all the stages of its production at the same time. ”

“ The workshop has been transplanted from the home to the factory; both men and women leave their homes for ten, eleven, or even twelve hours a day to carry on their industrial activities; great centers of population collect about the centers of industry; the farm, the flock of geese, the garden, the forest, and the blacksmith shop disappear; food, clothing, and other necessaries of life—formerly the product of home industry—are produced in great factories ”

“ The man of good character in a workshop will give the tone to his fellows, and elevate their entire aspirations. Thus Franklin, while a workman in London, is said to have reformed the manners of an entire workshop. ”

“ All you need to do is to get some out of the way room where there is plenty of light for a workshop and buy a few good tools to work with and you’ll take as keen a pleasure in making useful things with your own hands as Robinson Crusoe did. ”

“ The basal fact in that room is that it is a workshop, doing actual things in sewing, spinning, and weaving. The children come into immediate connection with the materials, with various fabrics of silk, cotton, linen, and wool. Information at once appears in connection with these materials; their origin, history, their adaptation to particular uses, and the machines of various kinds by which the raw materials are utilized. Discipline arises in dealing with the problems involved, both theoretical and practical. Whence does the culture arise? ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is by a minute division of their details; by convenient and labor-saving machinery; by healthy, even elegant workshops, where a certain refinement could be introduced, and scientific thought combined with the pursuit of industry; by short sessions of labor, and the prosecutions of all of its branches by groups of persons united in taste and in sympathy of character, thus bringing the play of the sentiments into industry, and identifying the social and productive life of man ”