An American Potter 
About this time, by a 
strange coincidence, 
Professor Laeuger of 
Carlsruhe, Germany, 
impressed with the 
work of the old pot¬ 
ters of the Black For¬ 
est, themselves the 
forerunners and col¬ 
leagues of the Penn¬ 
sylvania German clay 
workers, had obtained 
some of their secrets 
and had founded a 
school at the village 
of Kaudern, near his 
city, where boys were 
taught the slip proc¬ 
esses applied to vases. 
But the craft of man¬ 
ipulating materials in 
the free development 
of sgraffiato was still 
withheld from the 
laborers at Indian 
H ouse. Some Ger¬ 
man neighbors had 
given its proprietor 
the names of potters 
still living in the 
Upper Rhine Valley, 
and Mr. Mercer had 
nearlybought his tick¬ 
et oversea to take em¬ 
ployment there,when 
suddenly the search in 
which he had been half 
blindly groping yield¬ 
ed its mystery. The 
old processwasregain- 
ed, and by an equip¬ 
ment smallandsimple. 
18 
