PREFACE
In presenting this book to the teachers of woodworking as a companion volume to A Guide to the Study of Woodworking, it seems fitting to consider, in the outset, an explanation of the apparent differences in policy regarding the references in these two books.
In A Guide to the Study of Woodworking, it was the author's aim to make reference only to a few of the best books dealing with tools, processes, and materials. In the present work it seems best to list
practically every American publication now in print which deals wholly or in
part with wood-working projects. After making an extended study of the
woodworking books of this country it appears to the writer that considerations
of tools, processes, and materials are rather standard throughout these
publications. On the other hand, while there is some similarity in projects
found in the various books, a large variety of distinctly original designs may
be noted, even in books that might generally be considered entirely out of
date. Too, there are many projects from Acrobats to Zither that are described in
only one book, most of which have considerable merit as projects for school
use.
In A Guide to the Study of Woodworking many
references were starred when considered to be especially valuable. This practice
has seemed impractical in the present volume because of the large number of
projects and because the educational value of many projects is dependent upon
local conditions, student individuality, and other such factors, whereas the
value of treatises of tool processes, tools, and materials is affected very
little by such things as the geographical location of the reader.
In considering the teacher's problems of
instruction, we should note that modern education does not demand so much that
we become mere store-houses of information, as it does that we learn how to
locate information when wanted for a given situation. The author's purpose in
this series of guides is to offer a systematic means of organizing information
so that it can be found :quickly when wanted, and that pupils may be taught to
search for knowledge in a systematic manner. The appreciation and judgment are
also aided in having at one's finger tips the creations of those who are older
in training and experience—the books of the past centuries. The Guide is a new,
but tested device which has as one of its purposes this feature of directing
teachers and pupils to the accumulated knowledge and ideas of the past. It lists
the woodworking projects found in the form of drawings and descriptive material
in 20,000 pages of 118 books.
This method of indexing the bulk of the
world's knowledge on a given subject is an outgrowth of an attempt to reduce
routine duties in the schoolroom so that more time might be left for actual
instruction. The production of these guides is based on an experience of ten
years of teaching shop and academic subjects, preceded by a number of years at
the bench, a four-year college course in science, and a special course in
engineering, as well as subsequent study in a state university, a state normal,
and one university abroad.
A few suggestions as to the use which can be
made of this guide may be appropriate. For executives whose duty it is to work
out courses of study and to prescribe certain limits as to the kind of projects,
the breadth of contact found in the use of this guide will be a welcome
time-saver. For those few teachers who are still required to follow prescribed
formal courses, but who are allowed to introduce optional models, and for others
who are free to make changes as they see fit, regard-less of the grades taught,
this guide will be found convenient in suggesting models. The Guide helps to
provide interesting supplementary problems for the fast worker who finishes his
project before the rest have gotten well started. It also helps provide for the
"repeater" who often has to repeat a grade, not because of poor shop work, but
of poor academic work, by giving him a choice of a large list of projects. In
other words, it makes easier the consideration of individual differences. The
busy teacher with from fifty to a hundred and fifty pupils demanding attention
each day, finds it hard to treat the boy as an individual. The nearest approach
to this individual instruction and guidance is to be attained when the teacher
has every possible device which furthers quick disposition of all questions and
routine work of the shop satisfactorily. Charles G. Wheeler, in his book,
Woodworking' says : "The more he (the teacher) can be freed from routine duties
the less likely he will be to go stale or become narrow; and the breadth and
enthusiasm of the teacher react powerfully upon the pupils. . . ." For the
student himself who thinks he has made about everything that he wants to make,
this will suggest about 1400 other interesting projects. It will help the
student in designing. As there are several good books treating the processes of
this art, and as this is a guide to projects already designed, the author will
not attempt here a treatise on designing, except to suggest the place of this
guide as an aid in the process. It seems reasonable that to design something new
in any field of human endeavor, it is best to thoroughly investigate the fund of
related knowledge already available. By gathering all the designs possible with
the aid of this guide, analyzing and comparing them, selecting a good feature
here, avoiding a poor one there, the student begins to learn to descriminate, to
evaluate, and to create his own designs. Teachers will think of other uses of
the Guide as they turn its pages.
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