Handicraft for boys

Your life, if you live it like the average boy, is split up into four parts and these are (1) eating, (2) sleeping, (3) working and (4) playing.

Now I haven’t a word to say about the first three phases of your existence for you will attend pretty well to the eating and sleeping ends, and your elders will quite likely see to it that you get enough work to do in and out of school.

But when it comes to playing I want to edge in, for this is a very important and often a sadly neglected part of your daily routine. There are three kinds of playing, namely (a) where your mind only is engaged as for instance at dominoes, checkers or chess, (b) where your body is chiefly in action as in gymnastics and outdoor games, and (c) where your mind and body are doing something more or less constructive.

This book which I have written for you deals with playing of the latter kind and while I don’t want you to get so interested in any of the various arts and crafts described to the extent of using all your spare hours doing it, still it is a great mistake not to have a hobby such as jig-sawing, printing, die-sinking or the like. There is something tremendously fascinating about visualizing things in your brain and then fashioning them with your hands and you ought to do it.

Different from other kinds of playing the by-products of these arts and crafts last a long time after your efforts have been spent upon them and it is a source of great pleasure to look at them once in a while and know that you made them with your own hands.

Not only is there the fun of planning and doing the things I have described, but you will at the same time pick up a lot of information and, what is of far more value, your brain and eyes and hands will learn to work together like a dynamo direct connected to an engine, and then you can depend on them to serve you well whenever the occasion may arise.

A. FREDERICK COLLINS.

“The Antlers,” Congers, N. Y.