Enlarge Your Field as a Builder
You will thus greatly enlarge your field of action, increase your profits, and gain a much higher standing in the community as an all-around builder. If you hesitate about taking up building in brick, it is doubtless because you share the common erroneous belief that it costs your client too much, or because you think it outside of your building practice, presenting difficulties you do not care to face. But we are very sure that a careful reading of this Manual will convince you of the pre-eminent value of the face brick house for your client, and of your complete competence to build it for him.
What You Owe to the Community
Then we want you to read this Manual because, as a citizen, you owe something to the community in which you live. And as a builder you can discharge that obligation in no better way than in building more enduring and more beautiful houses, as you can by building in brick. By doing so, your dividends will be not only in material rewards but in a higher standing among your fellow citizens. You owe it to yourself to make the most of your noble craft and thus take the place in the community to which it entitles you.
[PRE-EMINENT MERITS OF FACE BRICK]
The material you put into the walls of a house should, as Vitruvius said, always have structural and artistic merit. Face brick have both in a striking measure, and in consequence can show the strongest economic and personal reasons why they should be used.
Structural Merits of Face Brick
Structurally, bricks are a material easy to handle and when laid in the wall endure the heaviest pressures and strains. Hardened and matured in fire, they resist the ravages of flame. Examine the scene of any conflagration for evidence. Nor will they corrode or decay with the passing of time, as remains of ancient brickwork abundantly prove.