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TIhE CRAFTSMAN IDEA

the great disintegrating force in our modern way of living lies in the system by which everything is done by rote,—and largely by machinery,—and where labor of all kinds is so specially divided that a man, whether he be workman or director, has very little chance to cope with problems outside of his own particular line of work. The great purpose in life and work is the development of character and it naturally follows that true development can come only by the training and use of all the faculties in coping with all the problems that may come up in the ordinary course of life.
In addition to the instruction given at " Craftsman Farms," the conditions of life there will be such as to carry out the same idea. The students, whether young or old, will be housed in small hamlets scattered about the neighborhood in places chosen on account of their fitness for the several things to be done. Each group of cottages will be under the care of a house mother and an instructor and the student will go from hamlet to hamlet until, at the end of the course, he is not only master of the trade he has chosen to learn but also has a general knowledge of related trades and of farming. For example, most of the cottages in which the students live will be designed and built with their active assistance, as the students will be invited to use their own brains and creative ability in designing houses and cottages that they would like to live in or that seem suited to the place. In doing this, of course, they will work directly with the corps of architects that has in charge the designing of the cottages, and in the actual building the students will be allowed to work side by side with experienced carpenters, stone masons, wood finishers, cabinetmakers, blacksmiths and coppersmiths, so that every lesson will be the doing of actual work in the way it is done by cornpetent workmen.
Aside from the educational feature of this enterprise, one of the main objects in carrying it out along the lines indicated is to put to a practical test our favorite theory of a farming community grouped around a central settlement where all social interchange and recreation are as full and convenient as they would be in the city and where every house is within easy reach of the farm lands that belong to it.
If the experiment should prove a success, we confidently look to see it put into practice by many other people; and if it should not, at least we shall have discovered its weak points and have learned something by experience. In any case, the school is meant to complete the work begun by the magazine and to give to the world the result of all the experience we have gained since the first inception of the Craftsman idea ten years ago. If it should have ever so little influence in bringing about the development of our national life along the lines laid down by the men who founded the Republic, it will have fulfilled its mission, because a truth which one man finds courage to utter today is echoed and applied by thousands tomorrow.
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