The Builder, No. 2, February 18, 1843

The various speculations and expressions of opinion to which our movements have given rise would, if accurately noted, supply the most interesting exposition of what we have to contend with on the one hand, and what we have to encourage us on the other. We should gather from it the most convincing testimony of the necessity of some such effort as that which we are now making to remove the general ignorance on all points connected with Building, whether as regards the science or its professors and practitioners. Grave and experienced men are to be found who hold up their hands in astonishment at the rashness, as they consider it, of our enterprise—men who argue upon general principles against the success of our plan. They say the Builders are not a reading class, nor a class at all, either in themselves or their connection, to support a periodical like the one we propose to give. The publishers in particular, and they, in their experience on all points connected with publication, are certainly entitled to be considered oracles—the publishers generally have but a mean opinion, or say they can form no opinion at all of the probabilities of success. They confess themselves astonished at the numbers of the Building Class; but they mistrust the conclusions to which we have come upon the data which these numbers supply. So little have publishers had to do with the Building Class, and so little the Builders with the publishers, that they might have lived on the opposite sides of the same globe as regards the acquaintance each has with the other for any practical interchange of their mutual special interests; but we propose to bring them into more intimate union, and to make the publisher at least confess that he knew not one half the territory over which his appointment was designed to extend.
But there are parties connected with the arts who might have been supposed to have lived in something like a consciousness of the immense, as it is intimate, alliance that subsists between them and the Builders as members, it may be said, of one common fraternity; and these are as ignorant of the more important facts as it is possible to suppose men to be. An eminent sculptor addressed us the other day in a strain of this character: “The Builders,” said he, “are too small a body to support a class paper; look around you,” he continued, “and you find them dotted here and there only, and not like the Shoemakers, or the Publicans, or the Butchers, meeting you at every turn.” It should be stated that he had seen our Precursor Number. We asked him if he was aware of the fact the Carpenters alone outnumbered the Shoemakers, and that the whole body of Builders are as five to one of that very numerous class: that in round numbers we had 130,000 Carpenters, 60,000 Masons, 40,000 Bricklayers, 30,000 Painters, Plumbers, and Glaziers, and so on. And that these were an intelligent, a reading, a thinking, and provident class, and well to do in the world. At this he expressed his surprise, but yet in such terms as to shew us that there was a leaven of incredulity mixed with it. Again we referred to them as an advertising class, on which he seemed amazed, but more so when we pointed out to him seventy-one advertisements in the Precursor, and expressed our belief that shortly it would amount to five times that number. On this head, indeed, it would be easy for us to give convincing proof, were we so disposed, and we know not but we may, for the curiosity of the matter, some day do it; we could print the largest part of a paper in thickly-set advertisements pertaining to building, and all selected from the London and provincial papers of one week: sales and falls of timber, of brick earth, and minerals; of building land and general building materials; businesses to be disposed of, contracts to let, situations wanted, and the like; indeed, there is no such class, no class so much in need of, and so well able to support their own weekly paper. Other parties we have met with, and reports have been brought to our ears, from men moving in the very ranks of the workmen themselves, who express a most disparaging opinion, not of our objects, or our exertions, but of their fellow-workmen; they say, in as many words, that “we are throwing pearls before swine.” The plan is good, they admit; but they urge that the mass of the workmen are too fond of amusements, and so given to low and sensual indulgences, as to deny the hope that they will, to any extent of numbers, seek to benefit by it. These people, we are afraid, measure their class by themselves. Others again urge, that the reading appetite is vitiated and depraved, and that unless we pander to the passions of the multitude “by strong and exciting and vulgar matter” (we use their own words), we may look in vain for subscribers. Against all these we have to contend, and we are utterly opposed to them in opinion on all such grounds as the foregoing; but in one point we agree,—we certainly have an uphill affair. The ground we have chosen is unoccupied and untrodden. We have a great task in reversing the usage of centuries. We must, therefore, call upon the workmen themselves to aid us in fighting their own battle,—not a battle against interests or individuals, but against ignorance and exclusion. And we reiterate our call on the friends of the working classes, for whose satisfaction, and the satisfaction of all who care to know it, we now make our profession of purpose as regards the end and object of our labours.