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Various

"Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885"

From simple tools, turn to
complex; to the printing press, the sewing machine, the locomotive,
the telegraph, the ocean steamer; all are full of ideas. All are the
offspring of hand-craft and rede craft, of skill and thought, of
practice put on record, of science and art.
Now, the welfare of each one of us, the welfare of our land, the welfare
of our race, rests on this union. You may almost take the measure of a
man's brain, if you can find out what he sees with his eyes and what he
does with hands; you may judge of a country, or of a city, if you know
what it makes.
I do not know that we need ask which is best, hand-craft or rede-craft.
Certainly "the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee." At
times, hand-craft becomes rede-craft, for when the eye is blind the hand
takes its place, and the finger learns to read, running over the printed
page to find out what is written, as quickly as the eye.
In these days, there are too many who look down on hand-craft. They
think only of the tasks of a drudge or a char-boy. They do not know the
pleasure there is in working, and especially in making. They have never
learned to guide the fingers by the brain.


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