He next undertakes to make a large wooden pattern of a watch frame, perhaps a foot in diameter, and, after learning how this frame is to be shaped, he is given a ready-cut one of brass, of the ordinary size, in which he is taught to drill holes for the wheels and screws. Throughout this instruction the master stands over the pupil, directing him with the greatest care.
The pupil is next taught to finish the frame so that it will be ready to receive the wheels. He is then instructed to make fine tools and to become expert in handling them.
This completes the instruction in the first room, and the young watchmaker next passes to the department where he is taught to fit the stem-winding parts, and to do fine cutting and filing by hand.
Later on he learns to make the more complex watches, which will strike the hour, minute, et cetera, and the other delicate mechanisms for which the Swiss are famous.[{54}]
THE NEWS OF ALL NATIONS.
Tobacco Going Out of Style.
Discussing smoking among students in a chapel address, President Main, of Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa, declared that he expected the day to come when the use of the weed would be as obsolete as snuff taking now is.
“Time was,” said the president, “when everybody, from prince to pauper, prided himself on his ability to dip snuff, but now the only place you can find snuff boxes is in a museum of antiquities, and some day our descendants may have to go to these same museums to find our pipes and other smokers’ utensils.”
There is no definite faculty ordinance at Grinnell against smoking, but for years one of the unwritten laws of the students has been that there shall be no use of tobacco in public.