March 1958 — Vol. 39, No. 3 —
Something about
Craftsmanship
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THE WORD "craftsman" may be used
of a competent technician or a great artist. It does not apply
to any particular sort of occupation, but to the special sort
of way in which a man carries out his job, whatever it may
be. The good craftsman constructs his product as perfectly
as he can.
Men have done wonderful things with thought and tools, but
the inventor, the philosopher, the business executive and
the master mechanic need to be first of all and at heart craftsmen.
A man may hide himself from you, or misrepresent himself
to you, every other way, but he cannot in his work. His imagination,
his perseverence, his impatience, his clumsiness, his cleverness
( everything is there in a man's work. If stonework is well
put together, it means that a thoughtful man planned it, and
a careful man cut it, and an honest man cemented it.
Some will say that in this machine age there is less room
than formerly for the craftsman's joy in skilled work; but
is it true? There is no reason why the machine should not
make nice things if it is given half a chance. One can picture
a turner at a lathe finding delight in the design of what
he is doing as well as in the exercise of his skilled hands.
A sturdy fallacy
Craftsmen scratch their heads in wonder when they hear people
repeating the sturdy fallacy that work is punishment. Some
people who do not like to work look for the invention of tricks
and gadgets to help them toward their life goal of happiness
through do—nothingism. Dr. D. Ewen Cameron calls this
"our asinine belief that not to work is to enter into bliss."
If a man doesn't work he will not starve to death, because
the welfare agencies will provide for him, but eager young
things who caper for joy at the thought that the need for
workmanship has gone from the world are letting the enjoyment
of life pass them by. The creed of soft living is a creed
for weaklings.
If work were reserved for slaves we freemen would clamour
for a change of government because we were being deprived
of the zest of living. Work well done is our contribution
to the maintenance of civilization, as well as the means of
earning bread. It gives dignity to lire, provides satisfactions,
offers opportunity for expansion of our ego, and makes rest
and leisure meaningful.
Pride in work
The craftsman habitually does well what he has to do. He
isn't prompted by pride in being able to do something, but
satisfaction in being able to do it well.
Every job has its own dignity. A person may develop pride
in his work regardless of what it is. A man using a wooden
"pusher" to unload grain from box—cars found a better
way to get his weight behind it, turning a job of the utmost
drudgery into a satisfying adventure. A locomotive engineer
loves the feeling of responsibility that comes over him when
he gets behind the throttle. Carl Sandburg reminds us of the
fish crier in Chicago whose face "is that of a man terribly
glad to be selling fish, terribly glad that God made fish,
and customers to whom he may call his wares from a push—cart."
Dr. L. P. Jacks declared in his book My Neighbour the
Universe (Cassell & Co. Ltd., London, 1928) that all a
man's imperatives ( to mankind, to the State, to the city,
to his family, to himself ( come to a focus in his work. If
he is a cabbage—grower "he must regard himself as commissioned
by the universe to grow the best cabbages the circumstances
permit of ... he is promoting goodness, beauty and truth
in the way he is commissioned to promote them."
There is no job in the world so dull that it would not present
fascinating angles to some mind. It is true that one job is
more interesting than another, but not nearly so true as that
one mind is more interested than another.
Personal worth
Craftsmanship enhances personal worth. The work of any of
us may matter very little to the world, but it matters very
much to ourselves how we do it.
The craftsman gets a certain stir and glow out of self—fulfilment,
and his work has for him a perennial nobleness, a sense of
maturity. He seems to have in his hand some clue to all the
riddles of the universe. There is no other sensation quite
like it.
We can master fear and certain kinds of pain through constructive,
painstaking, satisfying work. It is the best sublimation for
rage and anger, and a perfect escape from self—pity.
Just working at a thing with enthusiasm and with a belief
that the job may be accomplished, gives relish to life. It
enables us to adapt more readily to a crisis, attaining a
healthy serenity. It gives our work a bias toward perfection.
Emile Zola said in one of his addresses to students: "It is
pleasant to dream of eternity. But for an honest man it is
enough to have lived his life, doing his work."
Craftsmanship is work well done, but it has room, too, for
thoughtfulness and invention and, where it is appropriate,
fancy. In the homes of the cliff—dwellers in Arizona
you may see finger—marks left by the women who plastered
the cave walls with mud a thousand years ago. Some of the
workers were not content to fill crevices, but made whorls
and scrolls, enjoying this opportunity of adding art to skill.
Work approached in that spirit, with some feeling of its
value and some thought of self—expression, becomes a
pleasure instead of drudgery.
Every job may be looked upon as responsive to our ideal,
inviting us to infuse new goodness into it. No material with
which we work, whether it be cabbages or gold, asks us to
be content with it as we find it. It asks us to take it in
hand and change it by putting value into it. As Dr. Jacks
says: in each piece of material "the universe stands represented
and speaks as a whole, saying to the worker, 'make me better'."
Using imagination
If you are a workman, and feel that you are not a craftsman,
turn your imagination loose.
Perhaps craftsmen have something of the poet in them, combining
technology and mysticism. Certainly, a workman cannot accomplish
anything great unless his imagination has furnished him with
a goal.
What we imagine may be out of reach at the moment, but may
be drawn within range, captured and fixed. Michael Angelo
said that he already saw in the unhewn block a statue which
to duller eyes remained invisible until his chisel had removed
the flakes of marble which concealed it.
It was imagination that enabled man to extend his thumb
by inventing the vise, to strengthen his fist and lengthen
his arm by inventing the hammer. A new word "imagineering"
describes the process: you let your imagination soar and then
engineer it down to earth.
All of us are much more creative than we suspect. If you
find yourself getting irritable in your groove, here is the
way out. Get going on something that you recognize as being
creative, even if it is just a little thing.
The housewife who decorates her windows with taste, or paints
landscapes or still life to brighten her walls, or sets her
table in a variety of imaginative ways, is expressing herself
creatively. A man with the highest honours earned in the world's
greatest universities may be serene in a small corner, teaching
mathematics in a high school, solving economic problems in
a business, or breeding plants purposefully in a hot—house.
Why is he satisfied? Because what he is doing gives him a
sense of creative craftsmanship.
Expert in the job
It must be repeated that first of all the craftsman is expert
in his job. He does not fumble. He may or may not have scored
100 per cent of marks in a written examination, but he does
apply his knowledge in a practical way. He puts the stamp
of his spirit upon his work so that it becomes uniquely his.
When a business man grasps a problem with the rapidity of
intuition and solves it, he is a craftsman. To the writing
craftsman, words of a strange rightness come easily; to the
craftsman in metal, the exactly correct twist of the wrist;
to the craftsman in painting, a beautiful and permanent shape
is given his fine inspiration.
There is a craftsmanlike quality to even the simplest action,
such as driving a nail into a board. There is a best way of
doing that, and the man who has done it that way may rest
confident that he has been guided by the sure total of all
knowledge; that the best workmanship in the universe bas asserted
itself in that act.
But the craftsman is not easily satisfied with his work.
He asks: what can I do to better it or to extend it? His vision
is on the horizon rather than at his feet, though he knows
that just as a journey of a thousand miles must start with
a single step, so perfection in his art starts with very small
advances. He tries every day to know more than he did yesterday.
It is essential to our nature as human beings that there
should be no "end." The craftsman is not averse to invention.
By combining curiosity with experience and knowledge with
experiment he attains the only solid satisfaction given to
human beings—the happiness of endless attaining.
But he must realize that to reach this stage he needs to
know deeply. If he works in wood he does not know merely the
surface of his plank but the heart of the tree. If he is an
artist in colour he knows what goes into the making of every
shade, the pigment and the dryer and the poppy oil as well
as the way it shows on his canvas. If he is a business man
he knows what causes the surges and depressions on the chart
of his profit cycle. The value of intimacy with one's material
is greater than can be set down in black and white.
Using one's head
The craftsman must not be thought of as one who works with
his hands merely. Let us consider one who does work with his
hands, and we find that his craftsmanship comes from his head.
He uses induction, which is the ability to discover rules,
to reason out what makes things happen. He visualizes, seeing
how a piece of material would look when moved to another place
or if something were done to it. He has a memory for details,
noting imperfections as well as perfections. He has muscular
imagery, the ability to picture to himself the appearance
of his hands as they manipulate material and tools. He has
perceptual speed and flexibility, detecting quickly what is
necessary and attending to it without being distracted by
other things. All of these, the operative factors that direct
his manual skill, are products of his brain.
Craftsmanship is sincere. The craftsman believes in doing
with all his might what his hand finds to do. His prayer might
be like that of the scientist in Sinclair Lewis' Arrowsmith:
"Give me a quiet and relentless anger against all pretense
and all pretentious work and all work left slack and unfinished."
Judgment, therefore, becomes a part of craftsmanship. A
man must know what he is trying to do and the best way to
accomplish it. He must have the courage to judge for himself
between two ways of doing a job: which is the better? He will
not make a fuss about the lesser technicalities nor the mannerisms
affected by others, but look toward the desired end.
Choosing a craft
So that they may choose wisely, young people should learn
earnestly about the work that is done by people in their community.
If they become interested in learning about a wide variety
of jobs they will be better able to choose the one that will
give them greatest satisfaction.
This is one of the benefits of such a plan as the Boy Scout
proficiency badge programme. In studying for badges attesting
that he has knowledge of what is done by the airman, blacksmith,
carpenter, electrician, auto mechanic, farmer, mason, metal
worker, printer, and a dozen others, the lad gets a taste
of many sorts of work.
The Guidance Centre, Ontario College of Education, University
of Toronto, publishes monographs on many occupations, telling
in concise detail about the qualifications and skills needed,
the nature of the work, opportunities for advancement, wages,
working conditions, and how to get started. Similar outlines,
prepared by the Department of Labour, are available from The
Queen's Printer, Ottawa.
Being in the right job is a valuable help toward satisfying
one's ambition to amount to something. A person who finds
his place, and applies himself to seek excellence in it, becomes
a craftsman. Of that, no one can rob him. His aspirations
may outrun his immediate powers, and he may surfer occasional
spasms of frustration, but his sense of craftsmanship gives
his life meaning.
In these days many a man has to draw his own chart for learning.
Young people are being diverted from training, apprenticeship,
and higher technological studies by inflated wages attracting
them into blind—alley occupations.
As a consequence they become unhappy, after a few years,
when they find themselves with no adequate employment for
their best talents. Fortunately for them, universities and
schools and the adult education associations have stepped
in with opportunities for study toward repairing the damage
done by premature school—leaving. There are evening or
correspondence courses available in every subject imaginable.
Apprenticeship
This situation is not new. The different systems of apprenticeship
proposed by eighteenth—century industrialists show how
difficult it was to cope with the demands for a new type of
workman created by the new machines of their time, and we
today have not yet round our balance in the midst of a new
technical revolution.
"Apprenticeship" is generally accepted as meaning a period
of training, involving shop and related subject instruction.
It is suggested by Professor Glen U. Cleeton, of Carnegie
Institute of Technology, that we might with advantage move
toward an internship programme of education in substitution
for what now passes as apprenticeship. The trade learner would
be instructed initially to the point where he was partly skilled.
He would then be given a chance to use this skill in work
assignments, returning to the training centre at frequent
periods for direct training on other units of his trade. He
would thus increase proficiency through alternate periods
of education and work. As his final pre—journeyman assignment,
for a period of a year or more, he would be required to apply
complete trade skills under the supervision of a master craftsman.
Professor Cleeton points out (Making Work Human,
Antioch Press, 1949) that "the plan has a dangerous aspect
for some of the craft unions in that it would probably produce
craftsmen superior in competence to more than half of the
persons now working as members of the craft."
In a radio address last year, G. C. Bernard, Manager of
the Ontario Division of the Canadian Manufacturers Association,
praised the institutional type of training now taking hold
with such remarkable effect in the industrialized countries
of Europe.
Mr. Bernard pictured an apprentice acquiring, within perhaps
two years, the skill and knowledge required to fit him to
take his place beside his fellow craftsmen.
Broad education
Beyond technical training there needs to be given our young
people a broad general education. As Urthred says in H. G.
Wells' science—fiction story Men Like Gods: "There
is no way but knowledge out of the cages of life."
The man who is well and broadly informed is always ahead
of the man who is just doing a job, and he is less at the
mercy of rate.
The importance of this broad knowledge is too often lost
sight of in the pace at which a man pursues his job. Important
off—the—job interests are pushed aside with the
old excuse "lack of time." Yet when we study the success stories
of craftsmen we find that, somehow, they found the time to
enrich their minds and their lives.
To pursue education on a broad front and beyond the necessities
of a job can well make the difference between being a worker
and a craftsman, between mediocrity and genius.
Society, no matter how hard it tries, cannot raise ignoramuses
or lazy people to the attainment level of craftsmen. The craftsman
has a self—attesting note of authority, a standing that
should be looked for and recognized by employers. It is part
of the employer's responsibility and part of the supervisor's
job to stimulate every worker to make the best use of his
abilities and to provide recognition of the worker's attainments.
Keep trying
Even when our attempts to reach a high peak of craftsmanship
seem to fail, we should not despair, but look inside ourselves
to seek what further faculty we have for development. Darwin
held the opinion as the result of a lifetime of critical observation
that men differ less in capacity than in zeal and determination
to utilize the powers they have.
The craftsman's mature judgment is founded upon the total
of his disappointments and burned fingers and fears as well
as his successes.
Craftsmanship requires genuine ability. Don't think that
by murmuring some spell over a couple of white mice they will
become prancing white horses. You have to work at your craft
to make your dreams come true.
Though he may dream, the craftsman is not a dreamer merely.
We recall the advice given a brilliant but erratic man: get
your knees under a desk where you can do a good job; or put
on overalls and work at a bench; and then go home and work
out your inventions and ideas in the evenings and over weekends.
A man who is at heart a writer or artist or inventor need
not wait for freedom from the necessity to work. Counting
eight hours a working day he spends only 2,000 hours of the
year's 8,760 hours earning his living. If the urge to be a
craftsman in science, writing, mechanics, architecture, or
anything else is strong enough he will find a way to make
rime for study, practice and achievement.
Should every man be entitled to a certain amount of joy
in the work he is doing? This is not an honest question, because
there are two conditions wrapped up in it. A man should be
able to count on happiness in his job if it is one he has
chosen and to which he is giving his best in intellect and
dexterity.
C. E. Montague puts it this way: when we are doing our work
well "the whole adventure of mankind upon the earth gains
in out sight a new momentousness and beauty. Living becomes
a grander affair than we had ever thought."
The craftsman achieves that happy state by putting something
of himself into whatever he is doing, great or humble. His
skill and ideals affect not only the material thing he works
with but those who put the finished product to use. His work
is a significant part of what Bertrand Russell calls "the
stream of life flowing on from the first germ to the remote
unknown future."
Published by RBC Financial Group. All editions from the RBC
Letter collection are available on our web site at www.rbc.com/responsibility/letter.
Our e-mail address is: rbcletter@rbc.com.
Publié aussi en francais.
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