After making a fire drill the child may try to make fire with it, but he should not be discouraged if he fails at first. The process is a difficult one and it requires great care. An old fire drill works best because the wood becomes charred and it is easier to keep a charred drill dry. In working any drill, care must be taken to keep up a steady and rapid motion with a downward pressure. The wood meal which is ground from the hearth by the drill must be allowed to collect in a little heap near which dry tinder is placed. It must be protected from strong drafts, but it may be fanned gently with the hand. As the spindle becomes warm from twirling, the wood meal becomes warm, then it begins to smoke, and at last it is fanned into a flame.
The illustration on [page 183] is a reproduction from a photograph taken in 1899 of two third-grade boys of the State Normal School, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, who are using a fire drill. The class succeeded in getting fire with this drill which was made by one of the boys.
References: Walter Hough, “Fire-Making Apparatus in the U. S. National Museum,” Smithsonian Report, 1888, pp. 531-587. “The Methods of Fire-Making,” Smithsonian Report, 1890, pp. 395-409. Otis Tufton Mason, Origins of Invention, pp. 84-120. Scribner.
[Lesson XXXV.] Since the invention of the printing-press and the dissemination of printed matter, there has been a tendency to overrate the importance of the printed page, and to ignore other more fundamental sources of knowledge. The purpose of this lesson is partly to call attention to other ways of learning than by means of books, and partly to tell the child frankly what the sources are which have been drawn upon for the stories that are written in this book. To be sure he will not comprehend all that is meant by it, but the difference between what he can understand and what the adult understands is not so great as is often imagined. If fossil plants and animals are available, show them to the child and tell him what you know or can find out about them. If the child leaves the book with many unsettled problems, his condition is much more hopeful than if he thinks he has mastered the entire book.
How two boys made fire with a fire drill
Industrial and Social History Series