sio The Ottawa Naturalist. [January 



The workman is bettered by the effort his ultimate product may 

 be a masterpiece. 



This is the true inwardness of the Constructive Hobby. 



Carpentry is one of the primitive arts and although the 

 earliest implements that have come down to us are of stone and 

 bronze, I believe that their survival is due to the permanent nature 

 of their material and that wooden implements were made in times 

 long preceding those of stone and bronze. 



The first primeval savage who made anything, probably 

 fashioned a war-club. 



He looked at the product with pride, repeated that formula still 

 so dear to the amateur " I made that myself", and immediately 

 the real ascent of man began. 



The next time that savage looked about him, things took on a 

 new aspect and the design argument was born. 



Of course the reasoning of this primeval man was founded 

 upon a fallacy he had created nothing, simply changed the form 

 and the making of the club was as natural a part of the evolution 

 of man as the putting forth of a bud is of the growth of a tree but 

 he was some thousands of years in finding that out. What we 

 are thankful for is that he did something and endeavored to find a 

 reason and was no longer a beast on all-fours. 



Carlyle defines man as the "tool-using animal." The great 

 phrase maker discovered a greater truth. 



The history of the use of tools is the history of the material 

 progress of the race, and only under conditions of satisfactory 

 material progress can the intellectual and ethical developments 

 reach their highest attainments. 



Carpentry is an art which has reached a most useful and 

 beautiful development. 



The tools required are comparatively few and inexpensive, 

 and as a Hobby it well repays its votaries. 



Dependent upon the skill and taste of the craftsman it can 

 show a great variety of useful and ornamental products ranging 

 from a pine wood box to a mahogany piano case. 



