“That is what you are here for,” replied the instructor. “But you will not begin with the
lathe and the plane; and there is a great deal of hard work to be done at this trade.”
“What is the first thing we are to learn?” inquired Bob Swanton.
“Filing.”
“Filing! We can do that now!” exclaimed Lew Shoreham.
“Not one of you can do it properly. Any one thinks he can do it, but a nice piece of filing is one of the most artistic things in the trade. It cultivates the eye and the hands, and you could spend months at it without exhausting the subject. But I dare say we are not to go into the extreme niceties of the art. I can tell you this, my lads: if you should work at the trade of a machinist for fifty years, there would still be something to be learned, and greater skill to be obtained.”
“Then, we are not likely to become full-fledged machinists in six months,” added Pemberton Millweed.
“Certainly not, but you can learn a great deal in that time; and, if you follow the trade for a living, you will have to keep learning all the time you work at it. In America, apprentices, if there
are any now, only work six months or a year, and really learn the trade, if they learn it at all, after they go to work as journeymen. Labor is too valuable in this country for a man to spend seven years in learning a trade: besides, one who has worked six months at a trade becomes valuable to his employer.”
“But we are to learn a lot of trades in six months or a year,” suggested Harry Franklin.