“If a young fellow asks me for a job, I 
look him over first of all, and if I like his 
looks, I mark two or three boards, give 
him a saw, and tell him to saw them off, 
If he saws them straight I begin to think 
there’s something in him, and so I do even 
if I only see that he tries hard to saw 
straight, though he may not hit it. Every¬ 
thing in our trade is done by trying. When 
I see a boy that can try, I feel like giving 
him a chance.” 
If a young man proves capable of doing 
the easy work of a carpenter, such as nail¬ 
ing the rough boards on the side of a house, 
he can earn at once one dollar, and twenty- 
five cents a day, which he can increase to 
one dollar and fifty cents by the time he 
has been at work six months. I am speak¬ 
ing now of average country places, not of 
large cities like New York and Boston. 
In the course of two or three years, a 
wide-awake young man, handy with tools, 
and always trying his best, can earn the 
highest wages ordinarily paid to a journey¬ 
man carpenter, two dollars and fifty cents 
a day. When he is competent to be a fore¬ 
man, and take entire charge of an impor¬ 
tant piece of work requiring several hands, 
he may receive from three to four dollars 
a day, though the latter rate is not com¬ 
mon except in cities. 
You will often hear carpenters say that 
the old system of apprenticeships produced 
better workmen than the one which I have 
just briefly described. Facts do not bear 
out their assertion. The carpenters sent 
over by the British Government to exam¬ 
ine and describe the carpentry exhibited 
at the Paris Exposition of 1867, reported 
that the French carpenters, who serve long 
apprenticeships, are among the worst in 
Europe, and the American carpentry ranks 
with the very best in the world. They 
mentioned with particular praise the con¬ 
struction of a model cottage sent over 
from America, and the wooden work on 
the locomotive engines exhibited by Amer¬ 
icans. 
I have often myself on a long journey in¬ 
spected with lively admiration the beauti¬ 
ful work of a sleeping-car, and the wise 
construction of the light wooden bridges. 
We may be very sure that the men who 
plan such work spent their precious fif¬ 
teenth and sixteenth years at school, not in 
a shop, bullied by their elders and wasting 
their time in servile employments. 
What does carpentry lead to? This is a 
very interesting question to ambitious 
youth, who naturally and properly look 
forward to a fair advancement in life, and 
wish to spend the evening of their days in 
peace and dignity. In country towns the 
most natural issue of carpentry is building 
and architecture. I knew myself a boy 
who was deliberately placed in a carpen¬ 
ter’s shop by his parents as a step towards 
the profession of architecture, and after 
working three or four years at plain car¬ 
pentry (with lessons in drawing) he estab¬ 
lished himself as an architect in a south¬ 
western city. He there formed a partner¬ 
ship with a builder, and they soon had 
their hands full of business. 
Many carpenters have invented new tools, 
new methods, new devices, and thus made 
their way to a large business. Others in¬ 
vest their savings (eking them out with 
some credit) i» a set of machinery for mak¬ 
ing blinds, sash, doors, sleds, stair-rails, or 
mouldings, and send the product of the 
same all over the country. 
In New York, Boston aud Philadelphia, 
there are men w T ho began life at the work¬ 
man’s bench, and now have shops in which 
all such articles are manufactured on the 
greatest scale and with wonderful economy 
both of material and power. There is such 
a shop in Boston, in which one hundred 
mew, aided by a steam-engine of sixty- 
horse power, manufacture as much car* 
penter-work as five thousand men could 
accomplish by the labor of their hands 
alone. It is a museum of Avonders. On 
walking over it I w^as reminded of a re¬ 
mark made by John Quincy Adams upon 
returning from a manufactory in Russia. 
“I ought,” said he, “to visit a manufac¬ 
tory once a week in order to learn my own 
ignorance.” 
It really takes your breath away to see 
the rapidity and certainty with which such 
operations as sawing, mortising, dove-tail¬ 
ing, grooving and polishing are done by 
the machines in this establishment, which 
I suppose Carlyle would call an explosion 
of all the carpentries. 
