Tools the highest Text-books. — How to Use them the Test of Scholarship. — They are the Gauge of Civilization. — Carlyle’s Apostrophe to them. — The Typical Hand-tools. — The Automata of the Machine-shop. — Through Tools Science and Art are United. — The Power of Tools. — Their Educational Value. — Without Tools Man is Nothing; with Tools he is All. — It is through the Arts alone that Education touches Human Life.[7]

CHAPTER III.
THE ENGINE ROOM.

The Corliss Engine. — A Thing of Grace and Power. — The Growth of Two Thousand Years. — From Hero to Watt. — Its Duty as a School-master. — The Interdependence of the Ages. — The School in Epitome.[14]

CHAPTER IV.
THE DRAWING-ROOM.

Twenty-four Boys bending over the Drawing-board. — Analysis and Synthesis in Drawing. — Geometric Drawing. — Pictorial Drawing. — The Principles of Design. — The Æsthetic in Art. — The Fundamentals. — Object and Constructive Drawing. — Drawing for the Exercises in the Laboratories. — The Educational Value of Drawing. — The Language of Drawing. — Every Student an expert Draughtsman at the end of the Course.[16]

CHAPTER V.
THE CARPENTER’S LABORATORY.

The Natural History of the Pine-tree. — How it is Converted into Lumber, what it is Worth, and how it is Consumed. — Where the Students get Information. — Working Drawings of the Lesson. — Asking Questions. — The Instructor Executes the Lesson. — Instruction in the Use and Care of Tools. — Twenty-four Boys Making Things. — As Busy as Bees. — The Music of the Laboratory. — The Self-reliance of the Students.[21]

CHAPTER VI.
THE WOOD-TURNING LABORATORY.

A Radical Change. — From the Square to the Circle; from Angles to Spherical, Cylindrical, and Eccentric Forms. — The Rhythm of Mechanics. — The Potter’s Wheel of the Ancients and the Turning-lathe. — The Speculation of Holtzapffels on its Origin. — The Greeks as Turners. — The Turners of the Middle Ages. — George III. at the Lathe. — Maudsley’s Slide-rest, and the Revolution it wrought. — The Natural History of Black-walnut. — The Practical Value of Imagination. — Disraeli’s Tribute to it; Sir Robert Peel’s Want of it. — The Laboratory animated by Steam. — The Boys at the Lathes. — Their Manly Bearing. — The Lesson.[30]

CHAPTER VII.
THE FOUNDING LABORATORY.