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CRAFTS are taught in schools to stimulate children's intellectual development, to give them confidence born of accomplishment, to encourage discernment and promote good taste. Through creative experience in a variety of media a child can be led to distinguish and appreciate quality in craftsmanship, and to value and enjoy beauty even in a sombre environment.

Modern education gives children opportunities to engage in pursuits closely linked with daily life, and in learning a craft they are confronted with carefully graded tasks presented by the teacher in the guise of attractive things to make. Discussing and planning, solving problems of construction, persevering in difficult operations and realising that the finished work will be judged worthy of commendation or criticism, all constitute rich character-forming experiences.

Appropriate crafts for boys are those that make demands upon their ever-increasing energy and provide disciplinary training which brings, through the mastery of reluctant material, a sense of pride in achievement. In the workshop crafts of woodwork and metalwork, many boys find an outlet for their impulses and emotions and some discover a vocational interest or an occupation for leisure.

For several decades woodwork has been the traditional craft of the school workshop, but there has been in recent years a considerable increase in the provision for metalwork. Previously, this craft was taught either in practical instruction centres in large cities or, more generally, as a second craft in the wood workshop, where instruction was given to a few boys at the end of their woodwork course. Offering comparable educational possibilities, metalwork is now established as a craft parallel with woodwork, taught by specialist teachers in separately equipped workshops.

The aim of this pamphlet is not to discuss metalwork technologically but to suggest to local education authorities, governing bodies and teachers, the contribution it can make in education, and to give help in the planning of instruction in metalwork as part of a non-vocational course of workshop craft in secondary technical, grammar and modern schools. (This is distinct from engineering courses in secondary technical schools.)

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AN active boy has an urge to create, and since first whittling a stick with his penknife he has enjoyed making the things that claim his interest - animals, ships, toys or engines. He makes them, often very crudely, with household tools from whatever materials are to hand and they occupy him until at school he realises that he can use professional equipment in a more purposeful way. He is no longer satisfied with the aircraft he made on the kitchen table at home and he would like to construct one with better streamlining and more exact wing section. His roughly made boat ceases to please him, and he hopes to make one in metal and, if he is fortunate, the motor to propel it.

He wants to make things that work, with wheels that hum and lights that flash, and he wants to control them with an imposing lever or an impressive switch. His plans have always been frustrated by the limitations of unsuitable materials, and he sees the advantages of more enduring media, but serious work with intractable metal has been far beyond his skill and resources of equipment. When he reaches the age of eleven and is able to learn metalwork in his school workshop, how should he be taught and how can his creative urge be directed to further his education?

If metalwork is well taught, most boys will like it. A roaring flame, the rhythm of a hammer and the glint of rotating wheels are irresistibly compelling. There is, too, the glamour of a man's job with hands legitimately grimed, the traditional brawn of the blacksmith and the coveted skill of the engineer, all of which attract them. These things are not in themselves absorbing, and it is not until a boy is able to fashion metal with some certainty of success that he finds satisfaction, nor can he express himself in metal until he is a metalworker.

The first aims are, therefore, to teach him how to use the hand tools with safety and to develop his initial skill without which he would remain incompetent and soon become restive. He should neither be encouraged to imagine that work in metal is easily done for him by a machine which makes his dreams an immediate reality, nor yet be discouraged by tedious skill-raising tasks in which he sees little hope of early accomplishment.

Automatic equipment and present-day methods of production have grown from implements invented and craftsmanship inherited since the first metalworkers took from a river-bed the stones they used as hammer and anvil, and modern practice, evolved from this accumulated experience, is condensed in a multitude of ever-narrowing specialisations. A mature student, in learning his craft, can assimilate

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concentrated technology and execute intensive workshop practice - but not a boy. He should not be plunged into an industrially biased course, but should begin by carefully supervised exploration in elementary general metalwork. His approach is primitive and he learns by discovery, making things in the ways from which, during the centuries, present-day techniques have been developed.

A boy may well retrace the steps of early craftsmen, the pattern of his instruction resembling the evolution of medieval clockmaking. Fourteenth-century public clocks with cumbrous wheels and heavy frames were forged in iron by blacksmiths on an anvil. As skill increased, more refined chamber clocks were made at a bench by locksmiths and later came table and lantern clocks with casework of copper gilt, ornamental brass and silver. Eventually, clocks of superb craftsmanship were produced with the help of hand-operated machines and simple lathes. A clockmaker was practised in all branches of his art and a Master was required by the Charter of his Company to teach his apprentices the full range of his craft - 'to the end they may, in time, make up their masterpiece with sufficiency of credit and truly understand both the beginning and ending of their Work, which they shall take in hand'. (1)

In the same way, a boy learns metalwork. Ideally, he begins his instruction at a forge, where he is taught easy operations which make but modest demands upon his undeveloped skill, and where he learns how iron and steel behave at red heat under the blows of a hammer. He then works at a bench, where he discovers the properties of other metals and the methods of cutting and shaping appropriate to each. Gradually advancing skill leads him to the finer constructive and decorative processes, and in time he is able to use a machine to supplement and extend the range of his hand craft. When at the end of his school course he makes his masterpiece, be it a wrought iron gate or a silver plate, he makes it creditably because of his breadth of understanding in a wide background of metalworking.

The scheme of instruction is not based on industrial training methods since these are, of necessity, reduced to technical essentials and devoid of the cultural associations valuable in developing a boy's appreciation of quality and his capacity to discriminate. Teaching is not, therefore, narrowly circumscribed, but seeks its inspiration and humanising influences in the tradition and work of fine craftsmen. Its focal centre is the boy - the part it can play in establishing for him good standards, in giving him an enduring code of values and in teaching him how to live rather than how to make a living. Workshop practice is planned on broad lines, affording opportunities for creative experience in the

(1) Extract from Bye-law 53 of the Charter of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers of the City of London, 1632.

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several crafts embraced by the term metalwork, and a course is provided which is long enough to enable advanced attainment to be secured in one of them.

THE processes of several crafts, those of the blacksmith, tinsmith, toolmaker, engineer, instrument maker and silversmith are included in a school metalwork course, and its educational possibilities are seen in the diversity of interests which can find expression in a well-balanced scheme of instruction. In the early stages, work in these varied crafts is restricted to simple operations, but when experience has been gained, craftsmanship that compares favourably with industrial standards can be found in some schools at the end of four or five years' secondary education in which metalwork instruction has occupied from five to ten per cent of available time.

It has been established that boys of eleven years can successfully begin metalwork instruction, because it is easy to plan basic workshop practice which is within their physical powers. The field of metalworking is wide, and there is much to be said for an early beginning so that boys who reveal aptitude may have the advantage of a course long enough to produce a satisfying attainment.

A course in workshop craft in secondary schools may be organised wholly in woodwork or metalwork, or it may be divided between the two. Thus, a boy may devote the whole of his course either to woodwork or metalwork, or he may have a metalwork course parallel with, following or preceding, a similar course in the wood workshop. Two years in weekly periods of at least two hours' duration is the shortest time that can be effective. Workshop sessions of less than two hours do not allow enough time for the concentration and practice with the tools that proficiency in a major craft demands.

One-year metalwork courses following a two-year course in the wood workshop are not satisfactory because there is not enough time to apply the wide range of essential operations to metalwork of a worthwhile standard.

The following are the metal crafts generally included in secondary school courses:

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(i) Forge Work
Blacksmithing. The hot shaping, cutting and jointing of iron and steel with its associated heat treatment.

(ii) Bench Work
General metalworking. The cutting, shaping, fitting and jointing of common metals, mainly by cold processes, though some of the jointing operations require heat.

(iii) Sheet Metalwork
Tinsmithing and general sheet metalwork. Surface development, shaping and jointing of tinplate and common sheet metals.

(iv) Lathe Work
Hand turning in brass, and slide-rest turning and machining operations in brass and steel to an appropriate standard of precision, leading to model engineering and instrument making.

(v) Hammered Metalwork
The processes of simple constructive silversmithing. Shaping, fitting and jointing of copper and high-grade brass and, to a less extent, britannia metal and silver.

A metal workshop is equipped for not more than twenty boys under one teacher. A vice and the common hand tools are provided for each boy at his bench, which he also regards as a base where he plans whatever work he may do at fixed equipment in other parts of the workshop.

The first course should consist of a year's preliminary practice in forge work, bench work and sheet metalwork. These crafts are fundamental, for they embody the early training in general metalwork which every boy should receive before he pursues a more specialised interest. The class, which should not exceed twenty boys, is divided and taught in groups, some at the forge, others at their benches and a few working in sheet metal, changing round as they progress from one craft to another. Since only one forge can be provided, accommodating four boys, it is obvious that the desirable and logical progression from forge work to bench work cannot be followed by every boy and that some must begin their metalwork at a bench.

It should be general practice to keep the forge in continuous use by four boys, changing the composition of the group until every boy in the class has completed his introductory forge work. Other groups will be engaged in bench work and sheet metalwork, thus giving all the boys their initial experience in the three crafts which, in this early training, are isolated because the simple jobs made give practice in only one craft at a time. The organisation of the groups should be quite flexible; an individual boy, having made his first job in each of

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the three crafts in a particular order, may continue more difficult work in the same or a differing sequence.

Formal lessons in technology should not figure prominently in first-year metalwork teaching. The names of the tools can be discovered in demonstrations and also from the labels on the racks, and other essential facts can be learned from drawings, wall charts and illustrative material displayed in the workshop. There are useful books concisely summarising much of the elementary theory, which can be consulted by the boys at odd moments. Except for the minimum of verbal instruction necessary in teaching the boys how to interpret simple working drawings, lessons in draughtsmanship should not reduce the time available for practice at the bench. The making of notes by the boys during workshop sessions is not sufficiently important to justify the sacrifice of time which could otherwise be spent in using the tools.

Demonstration of tool-operations is all-important, and it should be given to the groups in turn, with an occasional and perhaps more formal presentation to the whole class. Nothing evokes greater respect from a boy than a good demonstration, and many young teachers have overcome initial disciplinary trouble simply by ability to display a well-staged process with deftness and precision. Careful preparation of materials, tools and sundries is desirable and it is wise to take whatever precautions are necessary to make failure impossible. Clarity of action is more important than speed, though it is rare, in the normal routine of metalwork teaching, for any demonstration to occupy more than ten minutes.

A teacher's personal skill should not become submerged in the daily routine of demonstrating nothing more difficult than boys' standards of metalwork. Occasionally, he should have a job of his own under construction as a more worthy exercise of his mature craftsmanship, from which his boys may receive inspiration as it progresses.

A COURSE of introductory exercises, generally associated with woodwork teaching, is not desirable in metalwork. Wood is subject to irregular and unpredictable variation both in shape and size in differing conditions. Its fibrous nature makes its strength directional, determined longitudinally by the tenacity of its fibres and transversely by their cohesion which, in common timbers, is weak. Because of these characteristics of the material, which have dominated woodwork technique

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for many centuries, it is seldom that one piece of wood can be used alone. Woodworking involves the planning of a structure in component parts and jointing them together in such a way that instability is controlled and directional variation in strength equalised. Before a boy can make worthwhile things in wood he must therefore learn and apply with fair accuracy the basic joints taught as exercises in an introductory course.

Preliminary metalwork technique is less exacting. Metal is more stable, expanding and contracting consistently, and its molecular arrangement is usually granular and not fibrous so that, with few exceptions, its strength is non-directional. Like wood, it can be shaped by the removal of waste but, unlike wood, it may also be folded, twisted, stretched, spread and extruded. It is also readily cast and easily alloyed to give a wide range of control of its properties. Whereas in woodwork a boy can make comparatively few things without joints, in his early metalwork training the things he can make from one piece of metal are legion. This is fortunate, for it dispels the need for exercises and makes the introductory course immediately creative and therefore more interesting. Of even greater importance, it reduces the early demand for accuracy which may, in metalwork, be allowed to develop gradually as experience is gained. An introductory course should give its training through the construction of attractive things complete in themselves without the need for exercises as such. A preliminary course in plastics sometimes taught as an introduction to metalwork is not considered desirable by successful teachers because of the ease with which work in the basic material can be graded for young boys.

So great is the range of useful objects a boy can make in metal that it is easy to devise a beginners' course with a choice of bias and still to include the important tool-operations in a progressive order of difficulty. A first course in metalwork may include very simple scientific things; it may also be based on the making of metalworking tools or garden tools and appliances; or it may be devised to produce domestic articles, with an occasional toy. This flexibility is helpful in grading a beginners' course to suit the calibre of the various forms, from the alert and intelligent to the educationally retarded. The teacher, in making his scheme of instruction, decides the bias appropriate to his forms and selects a range of small jobs in forge work, bench work and sheet metalwork which embody the important processes in good progression. No machine-tool operations are included, except repetition drilling on a motorised drill and then only when thorough proficiency in the use of a hand drill has been ensured.

As an example typical of the range and standard of difficulty in the work of an introductory course without a particular bias, a boy may

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well begin by making at the forge a U-shaped bend in a short piece of thin iron rod, on the ends of which he will later wind some insulated wire to make himself an experimental electro-magnet. In a vice at his bench he may file to an easy given size a small rectangle of thin brass plate on which he can stamp his name with letter-punches to make a label for his work or a name-plate for his tool box, and although a machine drill is available, he drills the screw holes by hand because he learns the hand method first. A neat little tool with which to mark out woodwork dovetails may introduce him to his first piece of sheet metal which he cuts to size with hand-shears, and folds to a right angle; he thus finds that metal can be shaped cold as well as hot. Then, on one end of a length of thick iron wire, he bends at red heat a ring handle and on the other end he forges a spear-point to make a spatula which he will use when he makes his first brazed joint.

His first 'engineering' job may possibly be a small straightedge in mild steel, the making of which teaches him how to mark out his work accurately, how to round off a corner and file a bevel, how to make an edge as true as it is reasonable to expect of so young a craftsman, and, finally, how to finish the surfaces just like those of the tools he sees in his favourite shop window. He may now be ready for his first work in tool steel, and on the end of a length of thin octagonal rod he forges a round point to make himself a centre punch. He marvels at the miracle which made the point so hard and brittle when he quenched it, red hot, in water and at the magic of the moving band of colours which appeared to reduce its hardness when it was tempered.

He may make a pastry-cutter as his first work in tinplate and he learns how to fold an edge to make it rigid and safe to handle. This job involves his first attempt at soldering and he is surprised to find how easy, under expert tuition, is the operation which defeated his father when the kettle was leaking. The making of a window-stay gives him a thrill of excitement when he drills a row of holes with a machine, perhaps slowly and nervously or maybe with a cocksure abandon soon to be sobered by the minor tragedy of a broken drill. At a long bench at the side of the workshop, he uses fresh tools to make a small feeding-trough for his rabbit. Here he learns an early lesson in design when he realises that the base of the trough is rounded to fit the rabbit's muzzle, and that the edges he found so troublesome to form are essential to the comfort of his pet.

What should a boy derive from an introductory course of this kind, and what may be expected of him after his first year of metalwork instruction? He should be able to use the common hand tools with safety and be familiar with the elementary operations of forge work, bench work and sheet metalwork, though his skill may not be very well developed in any particular process. He should have acquired something

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of the feel of metal and know its resistance to the various tools. The course should have given him a knowledge of fitness in the things he has seen and made in the workshop, and he should now be more curious and critical.

It has been a year of adventure and discovery, with a varied succession of new experiences and interesting tasks, some of them arduous enough to convince him that metalwork really is work, though he accepts an occasional blister or an aching muscle in fair exchange for the power he has acquired over such difficult material. The importance of the introductory course needs no emphasis, for its well-planned scheme of instruction and the professional skill with which it is directed is the sure foundation upon which education through metalwork is built.

THE total length of the metalwork course will influence, to a limited extent, the organisation of the next stage. If the course in workshop craft is divided between woodwork and metalwork, the latter may be of two years' duration. The year remaining (following the introductory course) will then be spent in applying to more advanced constructions the processes of general metalwork already taught - forge work, bench work and sheet metalwork - and in teaching the elements of lathe work to as many boys as can be accommodated at available machines.

If, however, this further instruction forms part of a longer metalwork course, perhaps four years or more, there will be less need to emphasise the teaching of lathe operations at this stage. Much will be gained by consolidating the work of the introductory course by continued practice in general metalwork. Since opportunities for specialised work will follow later, the teacher can afford still to concentrate on fundamentals in order to lay a better foundation for his boys' competence when their mature aptitudes have become apparent.

When the elements of the three basic crafts were taught in the introductory course, the things made were so simple that each job gave experience in the one craft without overlap into the others, but as the range and difficulty of the work is increased, considerable integration of the crafts becomes necessary. When a boy makes a pair of calipers, for example, he is taught that it is better to forge his blades to their curved shape from tapered strip than to drill and chop out the curves from a rectangle of steel plate. He realises that in a job which is mainly bench work he uses an operation in forge work to produce his initial

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shape. This simple experience is important, for it shows him the interrelation of the processes in the various crafts of metalwork, and he sees more clearly the possibilities of his material and its reaction to differing treatments.

A school workshop is an intimate place, and the teacher has opportunities to study and know his boys. As each differs from another in ability and rate of progress, so should the course be planned to permit individual instruction. Apart from occasionally discussing an important topic or demonstrating a difficult process to small groups, the teacher is occupied with individual boys in considering methods, giving advice and correcting faulty tool-manipulation. It is important that proficiency in tool-operations should be developed by the most direct method appropriate to the particular boy, and that nothing but the highest standard of work, having regard to his calibre, should be accepted.

The range of this further instruction is very wide and whatever metalwork is within the boys' compass and capable of traditionally sound construction is encouraged by a keen teacher. As the course continues, a boy with scientific aims hopes for all opportunity to make something that 'works'. He may find it, perhaps, in a small electric motor to propel the boat he has made in zinc or tinplate, in a water-turbine which he constructs as a source of power to use at the kitchen tap, or in a telegraph key and buzzer with which, in his imagination, he can span vast distances.

Mechanical or electrical constructions of this kind are not intended to form part of, or to be concurrent with, a science course which needs working models quickly made to illustrate principles. They take advantage of a scientifically minded boy's love of apparatus and instruments, and give him the satisfaction of making them in a fully equipped workshop in a better quality of workmanship than would be possible in the laboratory. Their inclusion in the course is justified only if they give progressive training by a good sequence of processes and by their demand for an appropriately exacting standard of accuracy and finish.

For boys who have no definite preferences, or for those who enjoy metalwork for its own sake, tool-making is a good incentive to advancing skill. It can embrace all the important processes and is easily graded for varying ability. A boy is attracted to small tools, particularly if he can make his own and see his progress in metalworking from a simple punch, through a range of setting-out and testing tools, to a piece of equipment, perhaps a scribing-block, which he has made to an encouraging standard of precision. The construction of garden tools, demanding, as it does, a lower standard of accuracy, gives interesting and useful training to the less able boy. Making tools not only develops skill in using them, it brings respect for them, pride in their ownership and care in their maintenance.

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Instruction in the use of a lathe is desirable for boys whose work gives promise of accuracy. Introductory practice should be progressively graded - parallel turning, recess and taper turning with some simple profiling and knurling - possibly in the making of a small handle for a tool. The aim should be to keep the lathes in continuous use, so that as many boys as possible can be given an opportunity to develop skill in metal-turning.

A boy with aptitude will often wish to attempt metalwork far beyond his ability, particularly in scientific things. If this is to be permitted, either the teacher must do the difficult work for him or there will be an intolerably low standard of craftsmanship. Both situations are educationally unsound, for in one the boy tends to rely upon the skill of the teacher and does not develop confidence in himself; in the other, he will be discouraged because the apparatus fails to function properly.

Conversely, there is sometimes the temptation to circumvent a difficult tool-operation and in so doing unconsciously to deprive the boy of essential instruction. It would be easy for a teacher to make an appliance with which his boys could produce the sunk centre of a brass or copper ash tray of conventional design, merely by screwing down a nut with a spanner, striking with a sledge-hammer or squeezing in a vice, depending upon the construction of the apparatus. With this aid, the sinking is automatically made of even depth and perfect circularity, but the boy, in avoiding an exacting job, would have been denied instruction in a basic process of hand craft which the orthodox method of making the sinking should have provided.

Industrial techniques are generally undesirable in secondary school metalwork instruction in which the aim is, obviously, not to make perfect ash trays, but to educate a boy by his persevering trials, an occasional failure, and finally by success in surmounting an obstacle.

It should not be inferred from the foregoing example either that metalwork is to be made intentionally arduous in order to provide disciplinary training, or that there is no educational value in logical adaptation and improvisation. In the early stages of a boy's workshop craft, his course is carefully graded in accordance with his ability, but a challenging tool-operation should be accepted and mastered - as it can be - by teaching the traditional methods.

When he becomes more experienced, having learned the basic processes with standard equipment, experiments to discover devices to save time and effort, and expedients to improve his accuracy, are then legitimate and educative. They can do much to develop a boy's powers of achievement, but improvisation should follow the orthodox and not precede it.

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What yard-stick may a teacher use in measuring the success of this further instruction? His boys should now be confident in the common methods of working metals, and many of them should have acquired reasonable skill in an associated group of operations. When given a simple everyday object to make, they should have a knowledge of suitable materials and be aware of the primary processes and joints involved in its construction.

In discussing a small fireside shovel, for example, they should know that its pan would probably be made of steel by simple operations of sheet metalworking for which a templet would be required and that it could be riveted to a shaft also of steel, the filed decoration of which should be worked in a vice. The handle, if made of brass, might be turned in a lathe and screwed on the shaft, or if of steel, could be shaped on an anvil and brazed to the shaft, or handle and shaft could be forged in one piece. These and similar operations, executed to a reasonable standard of craftsmanship, should be within the capabilities of an average boy after two years of metalwork instruction. In addition, he should have outlived the novelty of a machine, regard power-driven equipment as a valuable extension of his hand processes, and have the ability to use it with safety and some familiarity.

A few boys may have ideas to which they want to give practical form. Under the teacher's guidance they should be able to construct in a workmanlike way, but to differing standards, the simple things they wish to make, with responsibility for selecting suitable materials and using the right tools in the proper way. Most boys should have enjoyed their course, either because they like working in metal or because of their growing power to make attractive things in durable material and they should have acquired some resourcefulness in solving their problems. A few may have taken a keener delight in making their job than in possessing it when completed - a good sign of the potential craftsman.

IN the introductory course, there is likely to be a promise of outstanding performance by some boys. If it were confirmed in the further course, it would be good policy to give those with evident aptitude an opportunity to reach a really advanced attainment. So far as the claims of other subjects will allow, they should have unbroken workshop experience in normal weekly sessions, extending throughout their school life, so that they can acquire an adequate background of general metalworking and then concentrate upon some aspect of advanced craft of

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their own choice, or one in which they are specially competent. An expensively equipped workshop should not be used merely to provide a year's further instruction for boys who have completed their introductory course. A two-year scheme, however successful, cannot give the best pupils enough experience to enable them either to reach the high level of attainment of which they are capable or to learn the potential use of comprehensive equipment.

During a metalwork course of three, or preferably four years, when advanced standards are expected, a teacher should have freedom to specialise in the latter part of it and to encourage the craft in which he excels personally, so that he may infect his boys with his own enthusiasm. There is among teachers of metalwork a diversity of craft interest as wide as their own varied background. Those whose experience has been gained in engineering are generally attracted either to the precision operations of model engineering or to the heavier side of metalworking in steel. Others with a scientific inclination prefer instrument and apparatus making, while some who have had an art training like the teaching of silversmithing and the lighter and more decorative processes. It is significant that in ability as well as in interest there are comparatively few metalwork teachers who can claim an even balance in all spheres. In the teaching of basic metalwork they have common aims, but at the beginning of the advanced course their interests diverge.

The boys also have their particular aptitudes and their preferences can be quite definite. In a class of twenty boys it may be found that, after two years' instruction, three or four have shown themselves to be alert and precise, able to work to reasonably fine limits, having a sensitive touch and a leaning towards accuracy. One of them already needs a micrometer caliper when he uses a lathe. Three or four others, while not being quite so meticulous, are attracted to form and shape. They can appreciate the vigour of a good curve, they enjoy experimenting with pattern and decorative treatments and prefer hand operations to machine processes. Seven or eight may have neither well defined aptitude nor marked ability in any direction but may be moderately skilful in whatever metalwork is provided for them and enjoy the busy atmosphere of the workshop. Two of them are often found at the forge, where they can always be relied upon to keep a clean fire, to work well together and to be equally happy either as smith or striker. Of the remaining boys, three may not be very fond of metalwork of any kind but be quite content if they can be allowed to make something that appeals to them. There may also be one or two boys to whom nothing seems to be attractive and in whom can be discovered, so far, no spark of creative vitality.

As the teacher should have liberty to pursue his personal trend, so the talented boys should have freedom to follow the lines of their

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more mature aptitudes which are rapidly emerging. The problem is, therefore, to formulate an advanced metalwork course in which the more specialised gifts of the teacher and the diverse aptitudes of the boys can find the fullest expression. Its solution is assured if the teacher can lead the majority of the boys, in his advanced instruction, to a good attainment in the metalwork of their choice and, in addition, can carry with him a stage further a few having his own preferences, to share his enthusiasm and aspire to his success. An advanced course should therefore provide a good level of tuition in the several metal crafts, with some specialisation in one of them.

To reiterate a previous suggestion - a boy is naturally attracted to small engines and apparatus having moving parts. If he has the ability to execute under instruction the fine machining operations involved, this interest cannot be better directed than to model engineering or instrument making, with the incentive for work in science and mathematics which they give. These crafts offer generous scope for boys who have already shown promise of working to precise limits, and both demand a reasonable degree of craft ability even in the early stages. If thoughtful planning and some improvisation are in evidence, there are scarcely any bounds to the standard which may be reached, for metalwork of this kind fully extends the capabilities and resourcefulness of gifted boys.

For those no less able, whose aptitude lies in the hand rather than in the machine processes, hammered metalwork in copper and brass is an attractive craft leading to silversmithing. It requires skill in the use of the mallet and hammer, and to be successful should not be introduced until a two-year course in general metalworking has been completed.

Boys who have ability without bias can find in general metalwork, as distinct from these more specific crafts, incentives for all the work desirable to make their advanced course educational in the widest sense. Working individually, in pairs or in small groups, competent boys can be given in blacksmithing, bench work, tinplate and sheet metalwork, hand turning in brass and relatively simple lathe work, an enormous choice of jobs to absorb them fully and perhaps to arouse a vocational interest.

The making of simple forms necessary in the construction of kitchen utensils by the attractive process of metal spinning might be considered for boys who are proficient in lathe work.

(a) Model Engineering

The aim of a teacher experienced in model engineering can be ambitious. A horizontal or vertical steam engine might be a beginning, for the potentialities of older boys with a good experience of general

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metalwork should not be underestimated. Some may be able to provide themselves with a set of bought castings, while others may choose a job which can be constructed wholly in the workshop. The lathe is used for the wide range of machining operations for which an engineer would normally require a milling machine and a shaper.

The disadvantage of individual work in model engineering is that a job which may be within the capability of an accomplished pupil towards the end of his advanced course, a 2½-inch gauge locomotive for example, would take much more time than would be available to him in the remainder of his course. There are, however, possibilities for group work by a team of eager boys which might lead to the formation of a model engineering club in the locality, and many schools have progressed by a gradual expansion of equipment from a very modest beginning under the stimulus of an enthusiastic teacher.

(b) Instrument Making

Instrument making is exacting in its demands for accuracy in the handling of small parts, and for this reason it may have a less general appeal, but to the boy who combines an interest in science with ability in fine metalwork, the craft is an excellent link with the laboratory. Its main requirement is that its products, whether electrical, optical or mechanical, should reach the standard of precision essential to their proper functioning as instruments and should not merely be working models of the real thing.

Impulse clocks, simple galvanometers and other moderately sensitive electrical measuring gear, projectors and optical apparatus, meteorological and surveying instruments provide an advanced range of work that has the merit of being constructed reasonably quickly. Group work should be encouraged, and in this instance it is often possible to arrange that a team of boys can produce an associated set of instruments, each boy being responsible for one job.

The making of castings is possible on a small scale. Bases, pillars and other structural parts may be cast in the aluminium alloys in the workshop if the teacher is expert and takes satisfactory precautions. Very light castings in brass can also be made if sufficient heat can be raised. Opportunities for interesting experimental schemes of metalwork are thus presented, and the craft is not so dependent upon bought castings if the co-operation of the wood workshop can be arranged in pattern-making.

(c) Hammered Metalwork

This craft should be constructive rather than ornamental, and if good progress is to be secured the introduction of its processes in a logical

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progression is necessary. A beginning should be made with flat work and low hollowed forms, after which pieces built up from several parts should be included in the course to give practice in the more difficult hard soldering operations. Cylindrical and conical forms are at first made by bending and jointing flat sheet, but this method later gives place to the raising of the form from the flat disc of metal without a joint, generally with a wedge mallet and also with a raising hammer by the boys who become more expert. Mouldings which are designed for a particular job can be made, if not on a draw-bench, by the hand turning of a circle of metal tape on the periphery of a wood disc. Very small decorative features in the solid can be cast in cuttlefish moulds. Because of its comparative softness following the high temperature process of hard soldering, copper is less satisfactory than gilding-metal or brass, though both the latter are more difficult to work.

Examples of this craft include domestic ware - bowls, vases, plates, trays, tea and coffee sets - all of which may reach a good constructive standard at the end of a four-year course. In favourable circumstances, under a teacher with silversmithing experience, ecclesiastical work introducing chasing and enamelling is attractive advanced work for fourth-year boys. Success depends upon inspired design by the teacher, without which the results are dull and disappointing.

A greater demand is made upon the boys' skill than that required by the mere shaping of sheet metal, and other operations - the fitting and hard soldering together of parts including the application of wires and mouldings to give rigidity and good finish - are necessary. In an attempt to make it easier for the less able and those who have had insufficient training in general metalwork, the craft is sometimes unwarrantably debased by screwing or riveting together component parts and by leaving thin edges unsupported. It is also marred by making appendages - handles, knobs and other fIttings - in crudely coloured plastic materials that detract from the dignity of hand-finished metal. Unless hammered metalwork follows good silversmithing practice it fails to justify its inclusion in an advanced course.

THE range and flexibility of metalwork make it an easy subject to organise on progressive lines, and many opportunities for experiment will be apparent. In schools having only one workshop, woodwork or

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THE scheme of instruction is very important. In planning the content and bias of his course, and in the general organisation of the subject in his workshop, the metalwork teacher has considerable freedom. He is the designer, draughtsman and operative of a blueprint for the education of his boys through metalwork, and because it is a blueprint for work with human material, the gauges and tolerances it specifies must be in sympathy with human capabilities and limitations.

It is desirable that the metalwork forecast by the scheme of instruction should be suited to the curriculum of the particular type of school, that it should be graded for the mental calibre of the various forms using the workshop, and that it should be flexibly planned to anticipate the rapid progress of talented boys while stimulating and encouraging others by work which secures and maintains their interest.

In devising the introductory scheme it is generally possible to plan the jobs which will include training in the required processes in such a way that workshop time may be saved by the preparation of process sheets and by the cutting of material roughly to size in advance. The teacher's documentary scheme for the introductory course should contain, in addition to a brief statement of aim, simple scaled or dimensioned drawings of the metalwork objects included in the course. Many teachers change this more rigid part of the course year by year to prevent monotony, and time spent in making these simple jobs themselves as patterns to set a good standard is well repaid. Schemes of instruction for the remaining part of the metalwork course cannot be rigid because they forecast a wide variety of individual work. They should, however, continue to define clearly the aims of the teaching and to indicate the general content of the work in each form.

A continual check on the results of a scheme of instruction is essential and a teacher should have a ready means of knowing at any time the point reached in the course by every boy. He should also be able to give a summary of each boy's aptitude and ability in metalwork. In the teaching of nine or ten different classes each week, memory is not sufficiently reliable. Extremes in ability make a vivid impression but it is notorious that a memorised estimate of the average boy can be deceptive. Records based on an assessment of completed work and other pertinent data are, therefore, necessary, and many variants of such records which avoid clerical work during workshop sessions are in successful use in school workshops. Periodic examinations set in basic metalwork are stimulating to the boys, often revealing to the teacher, and useful in providing a more formal assessment for official records.

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(a) The Secondary Technical School

The scheme of instruction in a secondary technical school should be well balanced and there may be a good deal of metalwork which has for its aim the boys' cultural development and their aesthetic appreciation, as distinct from the more vocational interests of engineering. Such metalwork comprises hand craftsmanship of a wider range than is found in a scheme of engineering fitting practice, and in the early years of the course it should provide a broad basis of training in the general hand processes, using both ferrous and non-ferrous metals. Some decorative ironwork or the beginnings of simple silversmithing in copper and the brass alloys, or other informal metalwork which can give adequate freedom in the consideration of attractive and maybe original design, should be included.

Conditions are generally favourable for high attainment. The pupils are selected, able readily to accustom themselves to the purposeful atmosphere of a secondary technical school, and workshop classes are small enough to permit individual instruction. Some of the boys may have had as much as two years of metalwork instruction in secondary modern schools. Their initial ability - easily discoverable by an appropriate test in general processes - should be accepted upon entry as a foundation for immediate progress from a point in the course commensurate with their previous experience.

Secondary technical schools sometimes share the workshops of a technical college and use equipment which may not include sufficient facilities for teaching hand processes, particularly those of forge work and sheet metalwork, but it should be possible to accommodate the small smith's hearth and to provide the additional hand tools necessary for the secondary course. Continuity of instruction is lost if several members of the collage staff are also responsible for the boys' course, and occasionally there is lack of stability in a joint time-table which results in the divided allegiance of the teachers. It is important that these difficulties should not be allowed to affect adversely the progress of the secondary technical classes, particularly those for the younger boys, who still need the cohesive influence of their own metalwork teacher.

(b) The Secondary Grammar School

Metalwork has been taught under very difficult conditions in secondary grammar schools. The demands of an academic curriculum have, quite reasonably, restricted available time. The number of pupils under one teacher, often many more than twenty, has, less reasonably, made small workshops very congested and individual teaching impossible. Limitations imposed by subsidiary metalwork equipment used in wood workshops have prevented the making of a broad scheme of instruction, and

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the course has, all too often, been influenced by the dictates of an external examination. Given practicable conditions - a properly equipped workshop, teaching responsibility for not more than twenty pupils and freedom to plan a comprehensive, untrammelled course - metalwork has much to offer in the balanced education of boys who have intellectual ability and who may be expected to excel practically no less than academically.

The work of the introductory course should be direct and thorough, for the teachers' concern is not to arouse enthusiasm but often to restrain it until the correct use of tools and equipment has been mastered. Creditable standards soon become apparent in the further course, and if time is available for an advanced course, mechanical and electrical constructions are generally attractive. The teacher's aims and expectations can scarcely be too high if the scheme of instruction is such that the widely varied and already well defined interests of intellectually able boys can be sustained.

In the upper forms, the problem of finding sufficient time for workshop practice can sometimes be solved by forming a metalwork society meeting out of school hours and the teacher's time-table might be adjusted to make his services available. The society would be formed on a voluntary basis and it should attract smaller numbers of boys, exclusively those with keen interest, thus making possible individual tuition.

(c) The Secondary Modern School

Important considerations in the making of a scheme of instruction for a secondary modern school should be the wide range of interests that must be expected and, of even greater importance, the careful grading necessary to satisfy the needs of boys so diverse in aptitude and ability. Many are intelligent, eager and alert, and will set a fast pace in the workshop. If wisely directed, the influence of a few such boys of high calibre in a form can be salutary in creating standards.

Others, less spectacular, move with perseverance more slowly to a satisfying attainment if a varied and well-planned course is provided. These average boys, many of whom will eventually become the nation's craftsmen and technicians, are malleable in the hands of a versatile teacher who recognises the privilege and accepts the responsibility of shaping their early and formative training.

There are also educationally retarded pupils ready to be reclaimed by sympathetic teaching in a workshop where self-assurance emerges from even trivial accomplishment. The metalwork course should, therefore, be wide in objective, so that it may develop the good craftsmanship of able boys while, for others, it should arouse interests in which metalwork may be the means rather than the end.

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In the larger secondary modern schools where classification is well defined in A, B, C and D forms, it would be desirable to make separate schemes in the introductory course for the first three categories of pupils. The processes included are likely to be similar, since the basic tool-operations are common to each. Grading is secured by variations in the difficulty of tool-manipulation, the complexity of measurements used and the rate of progress to be expected. Grading in the less rigidly defined further course follows similar lines, and the lower the category, the greater will be the demands made upon the teacher in fostering interest. If the D forms are to be introduced to metalwork successfully, as they can be, a different approach, discussed in a later paragraph, is desirable.

At some convenient point in the further or advanced courses, group work may be usefully arranged to accustom the boy to serve his school as a member of a small workshop team engaged in making apparatus or equipment. If it is realistically planned with a boy acting as charge-hand, it will, in addition, give early experience in leadership to selected pupils. In science and mathematics particularly, and perhaps to a less extent in other subjects, there are obvious links with metalwork. The most beneficial group work is that which encourages investigation and discovery. Having presented an attractive task within the capabilities of the group, the teacher suggests sources of information, discusses and plans its conception and finally directs its execution to a good level of craftsmanship. Many boys, however, are individualists and group work should not monopolise too much of the course, for it is by personal achievement that self-reliance is developed, and it is the approbation of a masterpiece that stimulates effort.

The metalwork course should reflect some aspect of local industry wherever practicable, not because pre-vocational training is intended, but in order to stimulate a bond of fellowship with fathers and elder brothers through work in a common sphere, and to forge another link between the school and its environment.

A secondary modern school workshop presents a wide field for research. The teacher has freedom to build an educational structure on a solid foundation of basic metalwork well taught, and there are inviting opportunities for experiment. If he works in isolation, merely as an instructor of technical processes, his influence is limited, and it is only when he teaches in close collaboration with his colleagues that he is fully effective as an educator. He then becomes a partner in a professional community in his school, exchanging ideas and sharing resources in the common aim. In teaching his craft, he rarely expects to make all his boys good metalworkers; though in many with practical ability he often produces surprising attainment. To others, from whom he must expect lower standards, he discloses new horizons, and in

[page 23]

associating their course with a broad curriculum, uses the craft ability they have to kindle what may be far-reaching and enduring incentives in other spheres.

(d) Metalwork in the Practical Instruction Centre

Metalwork in schools was first taught in practical instruction centres and some of these detached workshops are still in use. There are many disadvantages in an organisation in which boys from the smaller schools of a locality are taught in a centralised workshop, the most apparent of which is an unavoidable isolation, and the consequent difficulty of linking the metalwork course with the curricula of the contributory schools.

Teaching conditions are often discouraging, because the classes are frequently composed of boys at all stages of their course, since small groups of first-year pupils begin their instruction each term. In some instances, groups attend the centre for irregular periods, with breaks in their course which may vary from one term to two years. In these circumstances, disappointing results are inevitable, but despite these serious handicaps many teachers are giving consistently good metalwork instruction in detached centres.

The aims of the practical instruction centre are identical with those of the secondary modern school having self-contained equipment. In teaching method and in workshop organisation many of these aims can be realised, but in the implementing of schemes of instruction some loss in the mutual benefits which accrue from an integral course must be accepted. Progress towards a closer relationship has been made in some areas by the appointment of the centre teacher to the staff of one of his contributing schools, but more can still be done to reduce the ill effects of geographical separation.

It should be possible for the metalwork teacher to visit each school that sends boys to his centre, once every term during a teaching session. Head teachers should try no less frequently to see their own boys under instruction in the centre. The planning of continuous courses is also very important. It is obvious that a different scheme of instruction for each contributing school is neither necessary nor desirable, but a regular interchange of visits should favourably influence the content of the older boys' course in particular instances, so that the metalwork teaching may supplement the several curricula more realistically.

(e) Metalwork in Country Schools

In large country schools that make normal provision for the teaching of workshop craft, metalwork should be as successful as it is in urban areas and what has been suggested previously is applicable. Many of the smaller country schools have a wood workshop only, possibly with

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subsidiary metalwork equipment, and in others, the boys may attend a distant practical instruction centre. If the course features, as it should, the things attractive to a countryman, there will be an emphasis on forge work by the older boys, with the teaching of some of the more advanced operations of blacksmithing, including the fire-welding of small-section stock. For heavier jointing, oxy-acetylene welding would be more suitable and an inexpensive equipment could extend the possibilities of any course which might include heavy repairs.

The mechanising of agriculture has deprived the smith of much of his traditional craft. Hand-wrought ironwork has been displaced by the need for maintenance-engineering and the smithy has become an all-embracing workshop with motorised tools and portable jointing equipment. Despite this change, the atmosphere of a modern smithy remains generally appropriate to a country school workshop, but the creative craft now denied the smith is a better basis for the metalwork course. The hand working of iron and steel, plastic at red heat, gives unlimited scope for the development of skill and taste; it also offers a wide range of useful things to make, from a staple or a ring-bolt to a pair of ornamental entrance gates. Thus the schools can keep alive the smith's tradition and in so doing, educate country boys through a country craft.

A small workshop, additional to the existing provision, may be useful in any country school and an excellent opportunity for a valuable group effort is offered when it can be improvised by the boys from local resources. While conforming to no rigid plan, it resembles the repair shop of a well-equipped farm and its conception reflects the ingenuity of an enthusiastic teacher. The character of the course would be one in which woodwork and metalwork are combined in simple rural craft involving new constructions and repairs of a workmanlike quality, but differing in objective from that of the more formal workshops.

The first stage is the erection or conversion of a shed or hut on the school site or near it, perhaps a small outhouse belonging to a friendly farmer. A wall-bench with its tool-racks, made from the waste of the local saw-yard, accommodates the woodworkers at one end. In a remote corner stand a water-butt and a school-made forge - a firebrick hearth with hood and bellows. Adjacent, with shelves or cupboards underneath, is another bench with leg-vices for the metalworkers. A hand-drilling machine and a hand-lever shearing machine may occupy the ends of this bench.

One side of the room is fitted with racks for timber and metal, and shelves on which stand neatly labelled bottles of oil and varnish, side by side with cans of paint and creosote. Nests of small drawers contain nails, screws and rivets, and there are larger drawers in which patterns

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and drawings are kept. Near the forge stands the anvil, and the space in the centre of the room is reserved for setting-out and assembly.

On the walls may hang diagrams illustrating features of farm implements and the operation-cycle of engines, and there may be some drawings of useful carpentry or wheelwrighting. In front of the workshop is a concrete flat for overhaul and repair work and from an extension of the ridge is suspended a block and tackle for lifting. There is, too, an atmosphere of youthful industry and keen interest in the associations of a busy countryside.

The use of an improvised workshop is most successful when rural science, gardening and animal husbandry are combined in a scheme of instruction which regards the school as an estate. Fencing, brickwork, cement work, garden equipment, livestock houses and appliances, a weathervane and sundial, wrought iron gates and ornamental ironwork, a weather station, a potting-shed or small greenhouse and a sports pavilion are examples of useful construction in which a wide variety of craftsmanship is informally linked with the rural curriculum. Repairs and maintenance are an important part of the scheme both on the school estate and beyond it, so that contacts are made which bring the life and work of the locality into close relationship with the school.

(f) Subsidiary Metalwork in Wood Workshops

Metalwork equipment for six bench places is still provided in some of the older wood workshops, the additional craft not increasing the number of pupils under one teacher beyond twenty. In these circumstances metalwork is subsidiary, but it can provide a very useful course in an alternative medium for small groups of boys. Forge work is limited to the capacity of a combination gas forge and brazing-hearth, and the scheme of instruction concentrates principally upon bench work and sheet metalwork.

A continuous two-year course should be planned for boys who show aptitude in metalwork, because even in a subsidiary organisation one-year courses do little more than reveal the need for another year's practice if the craft is to have a cultural aim as distinct from a mere utilitarian value in teaching the correct handling of the common tools. (Appendix 2 suggests a list of equipment and hand-tools.)

(g) Metalwork in Combined Workshops

A scheme of instruction in a workshop in which woodwork and metalwork have equal emphasis will not be successful if any advanced work is contemplated in either course. Experience has shown that the teaching of good quality woodwork, a clean craft demanding a careful surface finish, and metalwork with its free use of oil and acid, often in a fume-laden atmosphere, are invariably in conflict. French polishing

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and forge processes are incompatible in the same workshop, but interesting opportunities for work in both crafts, referred to in a recent paragraph, are offered in an informal workshop where fine finish would be superfluous.

(h) Metalwork for Educationally Retarded Pupils

Sufficient has been said about schemes of instruction to suggest an experimental basis for the work of able and average pupils in various educational environments. The problem is set in the workshop, as elsewhere in the school, by the retarded boy, whose lost interests are more easily recovered by experience of practical things than by study. Rarely does he get a sum right. He is not attracted to literature appropriate to his age, and he finds no joy in learning from books. How can metalwork help him take to his place in the modern world?

He needs kindly, patient encouragement in the workshop without being segregated or labelled as retarded. His approach to metalwork must, above all else, be made interesting and the early part of his course

[text continues on page 27 after the photographs]

COVER. A range of garden tools involving elementary and more advanced general metalwork from a secondary modern school. Much of this work is within the capabilities of less able boys because of the easy measurements used and the moderate standard of accuracy demanded. If they are finished in an attractive, workmanlike way, the making of such tools can bring a stimulating sense of achievement.

(1) Model engineering following a varied course of general metalwork in a secondary technical school. A small vertical steam engine is being tested for correct valve setting by means of an air-compressor prior to a steam test.

(2) One of a number of 5.8 c.c.. diesel engines made by the boys in a secondary grammar school who had had a year's advanced metalwork instruction following a two-year introductory and further course in hand and machine processes.

(3) Hammered metalwork based on hand silversmithing processes from a secondary modern school where the range of metalwork was unusually wide and attainment equally good in forge work and machine-tool operations.

(4) Domestic metalwork from a secondary modern school including tinsmithing, forge work, piercing, hand turning and hammered metalwork. For success in this type of work, very careful attention should be given to its design.

(5) Toolmaking in a suburban secondary modern school by second- and third-year boys in a new workshop, whose rapid progress was the result of good organisation of the metalwork course and the solid foundation laid by introductory teaching.

(6) Hammered metalwork from a secondary modern school workshop and a detached practical instruction centre. The shaping processes involved were hollowing, sinking, seaming and the raising of a flat disc of metal to a tall form without a seam.

[these notes continue on page 27 after the photographs]

1

2

So far as metalwork is concerned, a boy's needs in draughtsmanship are met if he can read simple working drawings in the early part of the metalwork course and make his own in the later stages, but the workshop with its inconvenient bench-tops, often saturated with oil, does not lead to successful results. In many schools, technical drawing is taught as a form subject, either by the workshop teacher or other member of the staff. In these circumstances, the first part of the drawing course is likely to be associated with mathematics and to consist of mensuration and essential geometrical constructions. Orthographic projection is introduced, perhaps in the second year of the course, and advanced drawing in the remaining years may be linked with woodwork and building construction and with metalwork and engineering. Some schools are fortunate in having a large well-lighted room that can be given a 'drawing-office' atmosphere and used exclusively for technical drawing, equipped with openly spaced desks, well made apparatus and some good quality drawing instruments for work in ink. Under these conditions, commendable standards in photo-process reproduction are often reached.

It is very important that the scheme of instruction should be made in close collaboration with the metalwork teacher, for the technical drawing taught in a form-room should include all that is necessary to satisfy the requirements of the metalwork course so that no draughtsmanship need be practised in the workshop. Considerable help can be given in providing sectioned machine parts and examples of the work of the metalwork course to give reality and interest to the teaching of drawing. The part of the technical drawing scheme associated with metalwork should conform throughout to the recommendations made in the British Standards Institution Specification No. 308 (1943).

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If a form-room organisation of the subject is not possible, the boys' draughtsmanship should be restricted to the minimum, spaced over the entire course and not concentrated in the early part. The metalwork teacher should ensure that his boys are able to read a working drawing as soon as possible, for no real progress will be made until the graphic language of the workshop can be interpreted. During the introductory course is the time for this instruction, which is given by discussion and study of blackboard drawings, displayed diagrams and process sheets associated with the practical work.

Later, a boy may be taught to make necessary representations of his work in First Angle Projection, and in the remaining years of his course his draughtsmanship should progress with the needs of his practical work. He should be able to make his patterns for sheet metalwork and, if he is interested in the silversmithing processes in his advanced course, some familiarity with the half-sectional elevation is desirable.

IF the things made in a school workshop are not well designed, many of the aims of the teaching remain unrealised and education through metalwork is less effective. A boy's job cannot be well planned simply by a brief discussion of a quickly made sketch which he uses as a working drawing, nor will his sense of fitness automatically emerge in a workshop without the careful preparation of a conducive atmosphere. A considered approach is needed, based upon the calibre and ability of the boy.

(a) The Teacher as a Designer

Teachers of metalwork whose college training may have included some study of design should be able to give it appropriate emphasis in the work of their boys. Others bring to their profession a much-valued background of industrial experience which they have gained in working from blueprints and specifications without having opportunities to develop their talents as designers. It is not surprising therefore that many teachers may find themselves on insecure ground when faced with the problem of providing a wide range of workshop craft with responsibility for its design. Those who have difficulty in this fundamental part of their task should recognise that they are on the threshold of interesting research, and in considering the problem in its relation to the needs of the school workshop, it is helpful for a teacher to plan his work in design in stages, so that experience gained in one stage can equip him for the next.

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The first step is analytical and selective only, for at this stage no craftwork need be designed by the teacher. In choosing work to form his scheme of instruction, his responsibility is to ensure that nothing but metalwork of good design is included, and by examining, comparing, criticising and discussing, he rejects whatever does not reach his accepted standard. In this way his aims become clarified so that he is unlikely long to remain satisfied with his original criteria.

The next stage should be experimental. The teacher now becomes a designer but he confines his first attempts to metalwork that is predominantly functional in design. As a craftsman he understands and values tools and their severely utilitarian design is a logical starting-point. He may be influenced by a study of older tools, a medieval locksmith's vice-pin for example, with its delicacy of form and unobtrusive hint of decoration. Simple household equipment and fittings, culinary articles in tinplate and accessories for hobbies, all give valuable opportunity for experimental design. Some of the more advanced metal crafts also have a strong element of functional design; model engineering is stabilised in this way and so to a less extent is instrument and apparatus making. Metalwork of this kind gives a teacher encouraging scope for the exercise of his skill as a designer and affords him some latitude within the limits determined by its function.

So far as the range of metalwork instruction is concerned, it would be satisfactory to devise a course, introductory, further and advanced, in which design is entirely functional. For the boy, however, such a materialistic course would not do enough to form his taste, and the need to include in the scheme of instruction craftsmanship which fosters the growth of his discernment and appreciation will be recognised. The teacher thus approaches another stage in which he designs metalwork which is beautiful as well as functional. In studying and selecting the content of his course and in his day-to-day experiment and discussion in the workshop, he should have become familiar with many of the more important factors which influence the planning of good metalwork - the choice of congruous materials, well proportioned and finely balanced form, appropriate construction, restraint in supporting decoration and pleasing fInish - all of which he now applies in his first ventures in design. This is the most interesting stage but it is also the most exacting, for it demands constant research in the material at the bench. Help can be obtained from books, from the criticism of modern and period craftsmanship, by association with craftsmen and designers and by discussion with colleagues. Design is personal and the acquisition of taste must be the result of personal effort.

(b) Design and the Boy

The calibre of the boy must also influence the teacher's approach to the design of the work in the course. In secondary technical and grammar

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schools many pupils are able to make their own contribution, for they are observant, resourceful, having well established interests and ability to discover and plan, often supported by a home where good taste predominates. A wise teacher will therefore do his utmost to develop his boys' confidence in designing by presenting much of their work as simple, easily understood problems. Discussion may probably modify their solutions to produce acceptable design.

The secondary modern school workshop begins its course without the leaven of the ablest boys and may later lose promising pupils by transfer to secondary technical courses. The remainder are usually classified in streams, and it follows that a boy in the lower categories, though not necessarily educationally retarded, can make little or no contribution to the planning of his work. He is unaware of the importance of design; he has no standards and he probably accepts his job, well designed or ill, with the same confidence that he accepts the tuition which enables him to make it.

The teacher has pressing obligations and his task, briefly summarised, is to ensure good design, both in the boy's surroundings and in the metalwork he produces, to create an awareness of design, to show him what is good and explain its merits, and at the end of the course to stimulate his latent ability as a designer.

Environment is a potent, if unconscious influence - the things the boy sees around him and the formative atmosphere of good taste in which he lives while at school. In the workshop he should be able to recognise fitness in its orderly arrangement, in the convenient location of the equipment and in the well-organised storeroom. Good design should surround him, in the jobs he makes, in the photographs of fine craftsmanship on the walls, in the well-proportioned lettering on the notice-board and in the specially selected examples of metalwork arranged in the display cabinet.

During the first part of the practical course, the boy understands something of the functional design of tools as he handles them. He can learn why the shank of a centre-punch is octagonal and not circular or knurled and not smooth, why a cold chisel is not sharp like a wood chisel and why relatively hard metal is often shaped with a soft mallet. He instinctively avoids the thin pair of pliers with the uncomfortably narrow grips; and he has found, possibly at the expense of a small blister, why the best shears have open-ended handles.

An examination of a well-designed everyday metal product is sometimes useful, with the object of discovering why it does its job so well, why its material is so suitable and why it is so pleasant to look at and use. Brief discussion of such points helps to give the boys familiarity with design, later to show itself in their own metalwork. A scrapbook

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for recording interesting features of well-designed metalwork is quickly made by clamping sheets of brown paper between two battens. Contributions brought by the boys from catalogues and other sources are carefully selected for inclusion and can usefully be made the subjects of short talks.

Much can be done to create an older boy's awareness of design by informally discussing his metalwork as it proceeds. He may be shown the proportions of a pleasing rectangle when he makes a sandwich-tin or a cigarette-box. He can be led to visualise strength or weakness in the curve of a handle or in the profile of a jug, and he may be given ideas of proportion and balance in the design of his lamp-stand. He is introduced to symmetry in the making of scrolls for a wrought iron gate and to the meaning of dominance and subordination in the varying widths of moulding he applies to the rim and base of a tankard. He sees the danger of competing features of interest in his desire to cover a plate with decoration. He discovers the dulness of monotony in equally spaced divisions on the stem of his turned candlestick and the virility of rhythm in the pierced border of a tea-tray.

Every job a boy makes can, and should, be used to awaken his consciousness of design in well-planned things. It may be useful occasionally to give the class an informal talk, illustrated by work under construction, as a short break in a workshop session. If the points to be emphasised are presented briefly, many boys will show keen interest. They can learn the integral character of decoration and be given some understanding of the restrained use of ornament, becoming, in time, critically receptive to impressions which should influence their taste. Boys are not usually able to benefit from formally prepared lessons on design, but they are individually responsive when they realise that they are sharing in the design of their work with the teacher.

Opportunities should be taken to bring the boys into contact with good metalwork, modern as well as period. Industry can be helpful and the curator of the local museum may be willing to allow metal exhibits to be seen privately, and even handled by the boys, in response to an appeal from the school. The art course should be a continual source of inspiration and a metalwork teacher can profit by active co-operation with his art colleague.

In the advanced part of the metalwork course, the more gifted boys should be encouraged to plan a piece of work on paper and then to carry it through to its conclusion in metal. If consistent attention has been given to design throughout the course, most of them should have a clear idea of the function of their job, a knowledge of the right material to use, and ability to make suggestions for its construction, which should be within the limits of their skill. The boys will still rely

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on the advice of the teacher and he may need to encourage their inventiveness in overcoming incidental difficulties.

When given an alternative method of construction or a choice of decorative treatment, their perception should be sufficiently developed to give them a well-defined preference and they should be able to design by selection. A few exceptional boys, perhaps not more than two or three each year, may possess, in addition, creative imagination. They are attracted to simplicity and to the charm of a well-finished metal surface, and they have a feeling for delicacy and refinement. From these few boys may be expected some success in design at the end of a four-year course.

THE value of a scheme of metalwork instruction in secondary schools does not depend upon having elaborate machine tools, because an excellent course which fully realises its cultural aims by hand craftsmanship can be devised without their aid. As the medieval clockmakers developed their simple machines to cut more accurately the pinions they crudely made at the forge, so today a boy uses a lathe to extend the range of his metalwork beyond the limits of manual precision - to supplement his hand craft, not to supplant it. In this way, while the emphasis of the course remains on hand craft, it becomes possible for him to make the things which move and have their being in the world of his boyish interests.

Lathes for this purpose should be simple and sturdy rather than costly and complicated. They should have rigid frames and generous bearing surfaces to withstand a boy's early unskilled usage, and they should be suitable, by reason of their open construction and accessibility in setting-up, for teaching the elementary principles of metal-turning. Machines designed for industrial production, having multi-speed gearboxes and automatic feeds, are unwarrantable as standard equipment. They would be useful in supplementing hand craft in an exceptional secondary school workshop where there was clear specialisation in metalwork of an engineering character. In the hands of a teacher who could organise a progressive course in metal-turning concurrently with his teaching of the other metal crafts, these expensive machines would be in continual and more justifiable use.

In general circumstances, individual boys will be taught the basic processes of metal-turning, including screwcutting and, of equal importance, how to set up a lathe for the wide variety of jobs for which there

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is a demand in a broadly based metalwork course. A boy should be trained not merely to pull levers as an operative, but to understand the versatility of his lathe and the function and use of its attachments, to adapt and devise as the need arises, using an unadorned tool for his machining operations.

Appendix 1 suggests initial machine and hand equipment for a metal workshop for twenty boys. It is sufficient for a basic course in the various crafts of metalwork, but for advanced work or where specialisation is developed, additions will be necessary. In large schools where the number of pupils in attendance demands two metal workshops, each accommodating twenty boys, the full range of machine and hand tools will be necessary in each workshop if every boy is to make normal progress.

Power-driven equipment should be independently motorised and some flexibility is desirable in allocating machine tools to secondary school workshops. Two 3½-inch lathes should be regarded as the standard provision, but in particular instances they might well be 4½-inch, or the standard equipment could be supplemented by a 4½- or 5-inch lathe. A machine tool can be moved with comparatively little expense. While it is obvious that the equipment of a workshop cannot always be determined by the experience and interest of its teacher, it follows that costly machines should not be allowed to remain indefinitely in a school where they are not fully used. Conversely, a teacher who has proved himself capable of developing his boys' enthusiasm and skill in metal-turning should not be restricted by inadequate equipment.

When lathes are supplied, a power hacksaw of 3-inch capacity is essential, so that neither the teacher's time nor that of his boys is wasted in hand cutting large-section bar metal. A motorised drill of ½-inch capacity with variable speeds, either pillar or bench type, is necessary. The double-ended grinder should have 8-inch wheels, medium and fine grits; and the requirements for polishing are generally met by extension spindles to this machine. The graduated stages in hand finishing form an important part of a metalwork course, but when a separate polishing-head is provided, there is the temptation to evade the intermediate operations needed to produce a good metal surface. Moreover, the indiscriminate use of a polishing-mop rounds off edges which should be precise and destroys the texture of hammered work.

Hand operated machines necessary comprise a two-speed bench drill of ½-inch capacity and a hand-lever shearing machine having not less than 5-inch blades. It is generally preferable to requisition a list of individual taps and dies (with a reserve of spares in the sizes in frequent demand) than to order completely graduated sets which, for the sake of continuity, invariably contain sizes not required. Good quality in

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machine tools and hand equipment is of much greater importance than elaboration, which is often needlessly expensive and generally undesirable.

There is no place more suited to the making of tools than a metal workshop. An initial equipment may be expanded by the boys as part of their normal instruction, and even in the early stages of the course they can readily add to many of the simpler tools, punches, scribers, cold chisels and other tools, the making of which involves one principal operation. The older boys in their more advanced forge work can give the workshop a good range of hammers, while others can make setting-out tools demanding some precision in bench work and lathe processes, or produce small stake heads by a combination of forge work and turning.

Much of the attraction of workshop craft to a boy is in the joy of possessing his job and he should be encouraged to make and use his own tools in his metalwork course. It is also good for him to realise that he does not claim his work by virtue of his right so to do, and he should be trained willingly to make an occasional tool or specialised piece of equipment for the workshop, particularly when, as so often happens, it can more exactly serve its purpose than the conventional product. It is not suggested that a teacher, given a nucleus of tools, should be expected to produce, with the help of the boys, his additional needs, though there are many occasions when he will prefer a school-made effort. He may specialise in work for which equipment cannot be made by the boys and to this end, more machine and hand tools will be necessary.

If model engineering is confined to one or two exceptional boys, the standard equipment of the workshop is generally sufficient since it can be used to produce essential accessories. In schools where this craft is taught on a larger scale, more equipment is desirable to provide additional machining facilities, but the demands are not excessive. An additional small centre lathe with three and four-jaw chucks, face and angle plates, a tailstock drilling plate and tailstock chuck would be useful. Where interest is well developed and the craft approaches a specialised level in favourable conditions, a very small screwcutting lathe, a light drilling machine, a bench milling machine and a hand shaper would give wide opportunities.

The additional equipment desirable for model engineering is also appropriate to instrument making, but where the aim is an advanced standard of work in the latter, one of the larger types of watchmaker's or instrument lathe is useful. It should be provided with a slide-rest and a tip-over tee-rest and its headstock will have a draw-in centre for a range of split collets and step-chucks. This lathe should be driven by a fractional horse-power motor through a safety-pulley.

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The casting of small parts for apparatus and instruments in aluminium on the limited scale possible requires little additional formal equipment other than crucibles. In an average secondary school workshop there is insufficient space to organise a progressive course in this craft without the curtailment of other more essential processes. It should therefore be regarded as an interesting and useful method of providing component parts which cannot easily be made in other ways, but no castings should be produced unless the boys are able to machine and use them in work actually in progress. When space permits, a corner of the workshop might be partitioned off as a small moulding shop, but, in any event, it is essential that these grimy operations should be confined.

Provided that two blowpipes and good facilities for hard soldering are installed, there is little need for many additional tools for hammered metalwork and the silversmithing processes. There should be some duplication of heavy stakes, and drawplates - round, square, semi-circular and rectangular - will be useful. Small stake heads can be made as needed and hammers may be ground or forged to particular requirements from 'Warrington' pattern heads or produced by direct forging as previously suggested. Hardwood hollowing blocks in sycamore and the frame of a drawbench may be made with the co-operation of the wood workshop.

In country schools where there is an interest in wrought ironwork, some additions to the forge equipment will be necessary and in areas without gas supply a large brazing-lamp is desirable. For metal spinning a plain lathe having good bearing surfaces is the main requirement. A revolving tailstock centre, tee-rest and spinning tools can be made with the general equipment. Spinning chucks and followers are produced as required by the hand-turning of hardwood.

THE smith's forge, with power blast and 3-foot hearth, needs an adequate hood and a 9-inch smoke-pipe leading to an effective exit. A leg-vice must be securely fixed both to a bench and to the floor as near the forge as possible. If no wall-bench is convenient, a small one should be provided for this purpose for it is important that red-hot metal should not be carried across the workshop by the boys. For the same reason the water-trough should be fixed adjacent to the forge. A small fuel-bin is necessary.

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A circular or rectangular brazing-hearth may be used, but a much better provision for brazing and hard soldering in a school workshop consists of a concrete slab, supported on 4½-inch walls or heavy iron brackets at a height of 2-feet 9-inches. The slab should be about 4-feet 6-inches long, 1-foot 6-inches wide and a fireproof wall-facing, sheet iron or asbestos, is desirable above it. Hearths to suit the wide range of brazing and hard soldering normally in progress can be quickly arranged on the slab with loose firebricks and a turntable may be used when required. For simple jobs, two boys can work side by side each using double-acting foot-bellows, both of which are secured to the floor under the slab. Two ½-inch gas blowpipes are required, fed from a ¾-inch service pipe. Independent control of gas and air to the blowpipes is preferable to the automatic mixer, and connecting tubing should be light and very flexible. If the scheme includes heavy brazed work, power blast for the blowpipes may be obtained from the forge or from a small compressor, driven by a one-sixth H.P. motor, but the provision of this accessory should not displace the foot-bellows.

The soft-soldering bench, covered with sheet mild steel, should accommodate two gas-heated soldering stoves, and be long enough for four boys to use the stoves at the same time. Twenty vice bench places are necessary and the teacher requires a demonstration bench. The benches should be flat and rigid with 2-inch hardwood tops, substantial frames and cupboards underneath. Heights between 2 feet 7 inches and 3 feet are desirable. The size and disposition of the benches will vary in differing conditions, but in a workshop 24 feet or more in width, an effective arrangement is one in which three benches 12 feet by 3 feet, each providing places for eight boys, are used. The side of the bench nearest the forge and brazing hearth is thus free for demonstration.

The 4-inch vices, rigidly bolted to the bench-tops 3 feet apart, should be of cast iron with hardened steel jaws. Aluminium alloy vices are not satisfactory. The demonstration bench should have a 5-inch vice, and it may conveniently accommodate the hand-lever shearing machine, a flatting block and a large block used for rough cutting. Both blocks should be of cast iron, 12 inches by 12 inches by 2 inches, located on the bench in low wooden frames, the flatting block finely machined and provided with a cover padlocked to the bench when the workshop is not in use. Rigid wall-benches, 1-foot 6-inches to 2 feet in width, with cupboards underneath, are necessary for the power grinder, hand drilling machine, the power drill (if of the bench pattern) and also the most important of the heavy stakes mounted in square holes in metal plates screwed to the bench-tops at 3-foot intervals.

A large deep sink should be supplied with hot and cold water and fitted with a wooden draining-board. In the absence of a hot water

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service a geyser should be installed. Underneath the sink and drainer a cupboard should be provided for the storing of acid pickle baths. Its base should be fitted with a lead-lined tray and its doors should prevent the escape of acid fumes.

Tiers of shelves are necessary in the storeroom in addition to metal racks and a cupboard for the safe custody of chemicals is desirable. A large tool-cupboard, a display cabinet, a small bookcase, a wall blackboard, and a notice-board are essential in the workshop and the teacher requires a desk or table with room to store his records.

The minimum area normally recommended for a secondary school metal workshop is about 850 square feet, though this figure is often considerably exceeded. It is impossible to make detailed suggestions for layout since much depends upon the position of doors and windows. In planning a new workshop there are, however, guiding principles which, if considered before the position of electric power and light, gas and water supply points are finally settled, will give the best layout in existing conditions.

Appendix 3 illustrates a workshop of 850 square feet, favourably sited at the end of a workshop block. It will be obvious that care is necessary to ensure a good arrangement of benches and fixed equipment consistent with the greatest possible width of passageway.

(i) Precision equipment should have the best natural lighting available. Lathes and drills should be installed in front of north-facing windows.

(ii) The forge, brazing-hearth and associated equipment should occupy the darkest part of the workshop. An area of non-combustible floor is required on which should be situated the forge, brazing-hearth, two anvils, leg-vice, water-trough and fuel-bin. Nearby windows in direct sunlight should be fitted with roller blinds.

(iii) The power grinder should be installed as far from other machines as possible so that carborundum dust cannot damage bearings and other moving parts.

(iv) The power hacksaw should be located so that long bars of metal may be cut without obstructing passageways.

(v) The position of the sink is important. It should be at the end of the workshop, remote from the lathes and accessible to the soldering-bench and brazing-hearth, so that work requiring to be washed or scoured is not carried between the boys' benches. The soldering bench and brazing-hearth should be well separated.

(vi) Minimum safe width of passageways should be: 4-feet between bench sides and bench ends, 4 -feet 6-inches between bench ends and fixed equipment, 4-feet 6-inches between adjacent bench sides

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when the boys work back to back, and 6-feet between bench sides and fixed equipment. An unrestricted area of 60 square feet is necessary in front of the forge to accommodate two anvils in safety.

(vii) Natural side lighting is better than front and rear for the boys' benches. Good shadowless artificial lighting is necessary. Additional adjustable lights should be provided over lathes, drills, grinder and soldering-bench. The wall blackboard and noticeboard should be fixed in positions of good natural lighting, the former being well illuminated artificially. The lighting should conform to specifications given in the Illuminating Engineering Society's Code (1945). To aid natural and artificial lighting, the walls should be finished in a light colour above the dado.

(viii) Heating should at all times be sufficient to prevent condensation and during workshop sessions it should allow the boys to work without coats.

(ix) Adequate cross-ventilation is important. A continual movement of air through the workshop and ready exits for the fumes from the forge, brazing-hearth, soldering-stoves and pickle-baths should be ensured. An extractor for forge fumes is frequently necessary.

(x) Installation and layout of equipment and the provision of electric power and gas should conform to the recommendations made in the Ministry of Education Pamphlet No. 13, Safety Precautions in Schools. (1)

A METAL craftsman seldom has an opportunity to design and install a fully equipped workshop for his own use. His tools are generally acquired gradually and his workshop expands from small beginnings. Its layout has probably been influenced by the best position for the fixed equipment he uses and whatever organisation there is has developed with the introduction of new tools and materials. He knows that ½-inch steel rod is kept in the small rack and zinc-chloride on the top shelf and that he is likely to find an O.B.A. brass screw in the third drawer, but apart from this kind of personal arrangement he sees little need for detailed planning, His tools accumulate conveniently round his work where they can remain until its completion, when he tidies up the workshop in readiness for the next job.

(1) H.M.S.O, 1948, 9d.

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A school workshop cannot be conducted in this way, for two hundred boys may use it each week in ten sessions; at the end of each, every tool must be accounted for and a varied assortment of work stored until the following week. An untidy workshop discourages good standards. Careful organisation is therefore necessary, though a needlessly rigid system can be very restrictive, and workshop arrangements sufficiently elastic to permit the handling of jobs outside the normal routine are desirable. The safe custody of equipment must be provided for as well as mere storage, and a method which makes this kind of supervision as automatic as possible should be devised.

Tool drawers in the boys' benches are generally unsatisfactory because their contents cannot easily be seen for checking, and loose files damage both themselves and other tools. It is more convenient to keep bench tools - small files, hammer, chisels and marking-out equipment - in wooden or metal racks on or near the benches. If used on the benches, the racks should not be fixtures but may be located by corner dowels or pins fitting into holes in small metal plates sunk flush with the bench-tops. The arrangement of tools should be similar in each rack and each tool should be visible so that the rack can be checked by observing vacant slots. The racks can easily be removed from the benches when large work is in progress, and also locked in the storeroom during the vacations.

Another effective method of accommodating small bench tools is to have four low cupboards fitted with tool-racks and secured to the walls near the ends of the benches. The cupboards and the handles of all tools contained in them are marked in the colours of four teams into which each class is divided. The leaders are made responsible for the safe custody and checking of the tools of their team.

Larger equipment is grouped in the workshop according to function, lathe accessories in racks near the machines, forge tools in racks beside the hearth and sheet metal tools in racks over the stake-bench. Each rack should contain slots, clips or holes for its fixed complement of tools only, so that vacancies can be seen at a glance. The tools should be clearly named on the racks by painted lettering or varnished labels as a means of silent instruction.

Many of the smaller tools not in the bench-racks are conveniently kept on board racks secured to the walls by slotted mirror-plates so that the rack may be removed for safe custody when required. The 'shadow' of each tool should be painted on the board in a bright colour as an indication of its proper place and also as a vivid reminder of its absence. A large tool-cupboard is required for the more expensive or easily damaged equipment and for other tools not in general use. Neatly labelled racks within the cupboard are easily made. The surface-plate should be provided with a wooden cover, the inside of

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which is lined with felt, liberally oiled. Good quality locks for tool-cupboards are necessary.

Maintenance of metalwork equipment is less exacting than that of woodwork, but it is equally important that machine and hand tools should always be in first-class condition. Lathes require periodic overhaul with checking for truth and adjustment of bearings, and commutators of electric motors need occasional cleaning with very fine glasspaper. Hand-shears are unsatisfactory and difficult tools to use unless they receive constant attention; their cutting edges should be finished with a slip-stone. Points of scribers, centre-punches, spring-dividers and odd-leg calipers should always be sharp enough to 'bite' when tested on the thumb-nail. Twist-drills, chisels and setts should be ground when necessary, soldering-bits need re-shaping and re-tinning, and mallet, hammer and stake faces require frequent inspection. The importance of preventing rust should be obvious.

The effective storage of boys' work in progress can be a problem unless satisfactory arrangements are made. In the early part of the course the pieces are likely to be small, and very similar in appearance. Individual tin boxes are a solution if generous cupboard space is provided, or the work of a whole form can be identified by tie-on labels and stored in a larger box or a canvas bag. Metal name-tags can be tied to larger work.

Much depends on the methodical use of the storeroom. Its main function is, of course, the storage of material and most of the space will be occupied by metal racks. Rod and bar may be stored either in vertical or in horizontal racks, and separately labelled compartments are an advantage. Bright mild steel and silver steel should be greased before storage. Sheet metals should be placed vertically against a wall so that they can be selected easily, and a guard-board fixed on the floor in front of sheet metal will prevent damage by boots.

It is seldom that space can be spared for the storage of the various sheet metals separately, and when new stock is received, the name of the metal and its gauge number should be clearly indicated, either by labels or by roughly painted lettering at the top of the sheet. This is particularly desirable for brass, copper, bronze and gilding-metal, whose colours may be deceptive in artificial light. Careful supervision of the cutting of sheet metal stock is always necessary, for inexplicably the centre portion of a sheet is attractive to a boy although the end is so much more accessible. It is an advantage to keep a supply of material in the storeroom cut to size for work in introductory courses.

Wires and thin mouldings are conveniently hung on the walls in coils. Screws, nuts, washers and rivets should be stored in labelled glass jars or tins which separate each size. Where storeroom space is restricted, the screw-tops of jars may be fixed to the under side of shelving,

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suspending the jars in space which otherwise might not be used. One or two drops of oil will creep through the contents of a jar of steel screws to prevent rust. If a locked cupboard cannot be provided for chemicals, they should be kept on an upper shelf out of easy reach. Winchesters of concentrated acids should be stored with special care. Tidiness in the storeroom is extremely important. Scrap metal and useful oddments are classified and kept in boxes, and the annual stocktaking is the occasion for a ruthless discarding of unwanted litter both in workshop and storeroom.

A well-ordered routine should command the respect of all who use the workshop. Keen interest and busy fingers produce easy relations between teacher and boys, who accept whatever rules are necessary for their safety and the care of equipment. Duties and responsibilities are allocated in each form-distributing work, issuing sundries and, at the close of the session, storing the work, checking and cleaning the equipment, washing the sink and sweeping the forge-surround. A good example set by the teacher will secure a workmanlike appearance in the boys. Coats should be hung on a rack numbered to correspond with the benches, and sleeves should be rolled. For the protection of clothing from oil and acid an apron is necessary and in favourable circumstances each boy has his own. A good set of aprons, kept on the coat rack, may be made from hessian and wide tape.

TRIVIAL things in the daily round of a metal workshop create an atmosphere attractive to a craftsman - the gleam of a joint molten in a flame, the adhesion of flat surfaces trued with a scraper, the smell of hot steel as it curls from a lathe-tool or the spit from a weld when the critical blow is struck. The atmosphere of a school workshop has an additional quality peculiar to itself, which can best be described as a reflection of the teacher's personality. It is apparent in the attractive illustrations he displays in the workshop, in his informal and stimulating advice, in the varied store of practical knowledge from which he can draw in discussion and the response he creates in his boys - their eagerness and obvious enjoyment.

This atmosphere is not dependent upon genius in the teacher and therefore attainable only by the few. It is the result of high professional standards and follows in the wake of carefully prepared schemes of instruction, enlightened teaching method and good organisation. It is an atmosphere in which there should be little need to arouse interest

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and where the aim is rather to direct the boys' enthusiasm in a metalwork course appropriate to their ability.

Illustrative material frequently changed can eloquently provide much incidental instruction and the value of consistently good blackboard work should not be overlooked. Photographs of well-designed metalwork, a large coloured poster or two, perhaps depicting a blast furnace or a locomotive in striking perspective, some smaller diagrams showing the construction of tools and machines, wall-charts explaining tool-operations, sketches suggesting decorative treatments and a temperature colour chart hanging near the water trough, are a few examples of useful display.

Process-sheets are valuable aids; they should be foolscap size or larger, mounted on cardboard and varnished, having a dimensioned line-drawing or blueprint of a job, followed by brief notes on procedure in its correct sequence. Attractive, too, is the process-board showing stages in the making of a job, secured to the board in the order of its construction.

Three-dimensional display, where space allows, can be instructive and well worth the time spent in its preparation. An old motor-cycle engine or gearbox is easily cut away or sectioned to expose the details of its parts. It should be mounted on a board fixed to a wall and provided with a handle for easy operation. Simple working models in plywood, coloured and varnished, can be made to illustrate mechanical principles, to demonstrate at leisure a rapidly changing cycle of operations or to teach the valve-gear action of a locomotive or the timing of a petrol engine.

The metalwork library may be conveniently housed in two sections. Books of general metalworking interest should have their place in the school library, while reference books and text-books should be kept in the workshop bookcase. The display cabinet should contain the best examples of the boys' metalwork, changed every term. A large drawer or other clean receptacle can be reserved for periodicals, craft magazines, trade catalogues of machines, metalworking and garden tools, domestic ware, electrical and scientific apparatus and other literature giving interesting information or providing suggestions for well-designed things to make.

Carefully organised visits to engineering shops, foundries and factories are very occasionally useful, but workshop time should not be sacrificed for a programme of such visits. Every district has its own features of incidental metalwork interest - the museum, a smithy, good tool shops, a local exhibition of model engineering, the window at which the watchmaker sits, the church with its belfry and old clock, the garage workshop, a scrap-metal merchant's yard, the railway bridge overlooking the locomotive sheds, the antique shop and its old

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brass, the farm with its tractors and mechanised equipment, some period wrought ironwork outside an old house or the open door through which can be seen the reservoir pumping-plant. A list of local contacts of this kind hung in the workshop, with brief directions for finding them (and some cautions about conduct when they are visited), will encourage alert and responsible boys to investigate them.

A metal workshop in a school is something more than a place where experience in a craft is gained, for it is as much a part of the school as the library or laboratory. The teacher, in addition to his many responsibilities, both technical and professional, shares with all his colleagues the guardianship of English throughout the school, and by his own example and vigilance he fosters the habit of good speech in the workshop. Because of the background of noise against which so much informal discussion must take place, he emphasises the need for clear enunciation and for concise and accurate statement. By a friendly reminder or even by a glance he can reject slovenly diction or challenge the careless observation, and in so doing he acquires a reputation for demanding the best in English as he does in metalwork. The workshop can also help in the teaching of English in the form-room. Since metalwork processes are precise and a sequence of tool-operations becomes quite familiar to the boys, they may form the subject of descriptive composition or be used to provide interesting practice in clarity of written expression.

EXPERIENCED teachers of workshop crafts have a good record in preventing accidents. They are able readily to anticipate a dangerous situation, alert to act before it develops and by their competence in handling tools and equipment, skilful to create confidence in those of their boys who might otherwise be prone to accident. Because of the expansion in the provision for metalwork which has given many younger teachers responsibility for new workshops, some mention is made of the more important precautions to ensure that the existing good record may be maintained.

(a) The Workshop

It is desirable that safety measures should not appear to be too limiting, and it is fortunate that the pupils can be quite unconscious of many of the safeguards which exist for their well-being. There can be little doubt that a spacious, well laid out workshop in which free movement is possible and where the teacher's instructions are instantly obeyed is

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likely to enjoy considerable immunity from serious accident. Reference has been made in the suggestions for workshop layout to the minimum safe width of passageways between benches and equipment.

The floor should not be treated with any preparation which can make its surface slippery, and oil accidentally spilled should immediately be removed. In workshops having no separate storeroom, materials should not be placed in passageways or underneath benches where projecting ends can impede movement. Good lighting is a pre-requisite for safety, and when fluorescent strip artificial lighting is installed, elimination of the low-periodicity ripple which sometimes produces the illusion that a rapidly rotating lathe-chuck is moving slowly or even stationary should be ensured.

(b) Power-driven Equipment

In the newer school workshops risk of injury in the use (and also misuse) of power-driven equipment has been materially reduced by independent motorisation, and modern design of machine-tools has made a welcome contribution to safety by the enclosure of gears, change-wheels and vee-belt drives, and in the provision of integral systems of guards which give increased protection.

Of the safety precautions familiar to the pupils, by far the most important are the rules the teacher makes governing the use of power-driven machines. It is essential that only one boy shall operate or be near a machine at a given time, and to isolate machine-tools the most effective device is a guard-rail behind which is an area rigorously out of bounds to any but individuals using the machines. Two or three switches which break the workshop power-circuit should be placed at accessible points for use by the teacher and the boys in an emergency.

The adequate guarding of moving machine parts is vitally important and safety devices fitted to machines by the teacher to eliminate a risk common to boys, as distinct from adults, are valuable. A boy with long, uncontrolled hair should not be allowed to operate a machine, and an unpinned neck-tie is a potential danger. A cylindrical guard, made of transparent plastic material, for a drilling machine spindle is a wise addition. The making of brass sleeves with closed rounded ends to slide over the extension spindles for polishing-mops on power-grinders is another example. (They give protection from the rapidly rotating conically screwed ends which are dangerous when the mops are not in use.) A transparent screen should be used by the boys in all grinding operations, a precaution preferable to the wearing of goggles, which can spread eye infection.

In many of the older workshops, machines are driven through line shafting and the risk of accidents is somewhat higher. The power-unit should be enclosed by a guard, as should all belting up to the 8-foot

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level. Striking-gear should be positive in its action, operating without backlash, and it should be impossible for a belt gradually to creep over from a loose to a fast pulley. Machines should invariably be stopped before a belt on cone pulleys is changed, and the boys should never see this operation carried out on a running machine. Many teachers sacrifice a little efficiency in transmission in order to gain what might be the decisive margin of safety which a moderately slack belt gives in an emergency, and this practice has much to commend it. When a workshop containing power-driven equipment is not directly under the supervision of the teacher, it is a wise precaution for him to remove the fuses from the main box, which should be padlocked.

(c) Portable Electrical Equipment

Additional equipment - electric soldering-bits, small portable electric hand-drills and the like - is sometimes used to supplement the original installation. If supplied by requisition from the local education authority, the apparatus will be fitted under professional supervision to comply with the wiring regulations of the Institution of Electrical Engineers. This relatively cheap equipment is occasionally provided directly from school funds or in other ways and, in consequence, may not be installed by experts. The I.E.E. Wiring Rules (1) should always be observed, for they are designed to ensure freedom from risk of fire and shock in the installation to which they relate. It is emphasised that the use of twin flexible cords is highly dangerous in a metal workshop and their use should never be tolerated, even temporarily. A red pilot-lamp, or a neon lamp, should be wired in parallel with the power supply to an electric soldering-bit and installed over the soldering bench.

An electric drill can be lethal if, in the event of its internal insulation becoming defective, its metal frame is not properly earthed. In a workshop where a variety of drilling equipment is normally provided, the only value of this tool is in its portability, and it will be used near radiators, water pipes, gas pipes, earth-connected machines and on concrete floors. These are all points at which a dangerous current, released by a possible breakdown of insulation in the drill, can readily escape to earth through the body of the operator who may be in contact with them while he holds the tool by its metal handle.

In order adequately to protect users of portable electrical equipment, it should be connected to the supply mains by means of a three-core flexible cord and a two-pole and earthing-pin plug and socket-outlet. The flexible cord should be tough-rubber sheathed and the conductors should be of ample cross-sectional area. The earth-continuity

(1) Regulations for the Electrical Equipment of Buildings, 12th Edition, price 5/- post free, from The Secretary, The Institution of Electrical Engineers, Savoy Place, London, W.C.2.

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conductor in the flexible cord should be connected at one end very securely to the metal frame of the tool and at the other, to the earthing-pin of the plug. The earth electrode to which the earth contact-tube of the socket-outlet is connected - a main water pipe, a buried metal rod or plate, or other approved electrode - should be as good, electrically, as it can be made. The resistance of the complete earth continuity conductor should not exceed 1 ohm.

(d) General Equipment

Careful early training which develops good tool-manipulation is the best insurance against mishaps, Rarely do the tools of metalwork have sharp edges but, even so, frequent inspection of equipment is necessary. Loose hammer heads, file blades insecure in their handles and the use of a file without its handle are examples of the need for constant vigilance. Hand-shears may be dangerous to a beginner if the handles close at the ends. The hand-lever shearing machine should be made safe when not in use by locking the handle to the bench, or by a pin which secures the blades. Boys working at the forge should always wear thick aprons which protect bare knees from hot scale and also from the accidental mishandling of hot metal by other boys. A bunsen flame, occasionally used in soft-soldering, may be almost invisible if used in a strong light.

A locked cupboard should be provided for storing all chemicals and particular care is needed in preparing and using concentrated acids. Troughs of bright dip, strong pickle for cleaning and weak pickle for removing oxide should be personally made up by the teacher. They should be used at floor-level, preferably in a special lead-lined cupboard under or near the sink, so that work removed from the pickle can be quickly and safely rinsed. Troughs of pickle should never be carried about the workshop, and if used at bench level there is greater risk of injury to eyes from accidental splashing of acid. Disposal of inactive pickle should be accompanied by generous flushing if the workshop sink is used for this purpose.

A well-stocked first-aid cabinet should be kept in the workshop. The boys should know which member of the staff is responsible for first-aid treatment, be thoroughly familiar with the fire-drill approved for the workshop and understand how to use the fire-extinguishers and sand-pails, which are kept in accessible places.

(e) The Teacher's Responsibility

The metalwork teacher accepts his share of the school's responsibility for the safety of the pupils while they are on its premises. In the safe planning of the workshop and careful control of equipment, by good

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discipline and vigilance in the supervision of his boys, he takes precautions in a well established routine.

In the event of mishap, the teacher's own knowledge that his methods are effective is not sufficient and he should be able to provide demonstrable proof that his boys are given adequate safety instructions. For machine tools, such instructions should be given to a class as a whole rather than to groups or individuals. It is not sufficient to include important safety instructions for a machine in written or typed notes on its operation; they should be concise, plainly worded and displayed in clear lettering as a permanent fixture on or near each machine.

By allowing a boy to repair a part of his bicycle or a household appliance, the teacher may be held responsible for its safety when it leaves the workshop. Should any repair involving subsequent risk to the user be undertaken, it would be prudent as well as useful to give the class a short description of the completed work, testing it very thoroughly in the presence of the boys, with a further test by a colleague as an additional precaution.

Reference has been made to the production of small castings in aluminium alloys and very small castings in brass, and also to metal spinning and oxy-acetylene welding. These processes, while they enormously extend the range of more specialised metalwork, have an element of danger previously regarded as being too high for their inclusion in secondary school courses. Fourth-year boys can, in conditions of safety, take advantage of the opportunities presented, but responsibility for the decision to accept them must rest with the teacher.

If he is expert, no unreasonable risks are taken, for he knows that he must supervise very carefully the making and drying of the moulds and the fusing of the metal, and that his own hand must pour every crucible. He must inspect the setting-up of a boy's spinning and begin the job by locking the disc over the forming-chuck to make it safe. He will supervise carefully a gas-welding operation, protect the eyes of his pupils from the glare of the torch and be responsible for the storage of gas cylinders in an even temperature away from oils and grease.

If the teacher is not, by virtue of long experience, expert in these processes, he should not include them in his scheme of instruction and it cannot be too strongly emphasised that nothing in the nature of an experiment should be made in the presence of the boys.

(f) The Safety Authority

If the adequacy of guards or the general safety of power-units, machines and equipment, mechanical or electrical, is in doubt, the advice of H.M. Inspector of Factories should be sought.

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THE guidance offered in this pamphlet reflects the methods and experience of successful teachers. Varied aspects of metalwork have been embraced and many of the suggestions made can be applied in any school where the craft is taught. It is not imagined, however, that a teacher can embody all the recommendations in his scheme, or include in his workshop all the devices with which many of his colleagues, in differing ways, secure a good attainment by their boys. Rather is it the hope that in presenting the diverse opportunities afforded by a wide range of metalwork, a teacher will be encouraged so to choose and plan his course that his boys may follow the path to achievement best suited to their aptitude, ability and environment.

Successful metalwork teaching is an exacting and arduous vocation - exacting because it demands a combination of professional ability with skill in the several metal crafts, and arduous because well-taught boys whose enthusiasm has been fired are unrelenting taskmasters. The teacher inherits a worthy tradition of craftsmanship which he hands on to his boys year by year, and in giving them the high standards and good taste engendered by accomplishment in fine metalworking he can find enduring satisfaction.

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1. Power-driven equipment

2, motorised lathes, 3½-inch, back-geared, screwcutting, if possible with boring table as standard fitting.
2, 3-inch self-centring chucks.
1, 4-inch 4-jaw independent chuck.
1, drill chuck on morse taper, ½-inch capacity.
1, faceplate.
1, angle-plate, 3½-inch by 2½-inch by 2½-inch.
1, steady.
6, lathe carriers, to teacher's specification.
Lathe tool-holders and tools to teacher's specification.
1, motorised drilling machine and chuck, ½-inch capacity, with drill vice.
1, motorised double-ended grinder, 8-inch wheels, with extension spindles for polishing-mops.
1, power hacksaw, 3-inch capacity.
1, small power-blast forge, 3-foot hearth, with hood, water-cooled tue-iron.

2. Hand machines

1, hand drilling machine and chuck, 2-speed, ½-inch capacity, with drill vice.
1, hand-lever shearing machine, 5-inch blades.

3. Fixed equipment

1, brazing-hearth.
2, gas blowpipes, ½-inch, with light rubber tubing.
2, double-acting foot-bellows.
2, tinman's gas soldering-stoves, with flexible metallic tubing.
21, parallel bench vices, cast-iron with hardened steel jaws, 20, 4-inch, 1, 5-inch.
1, smith's leg-vice, 4-inch.
1, bench flatting-block, 12-inch by 12-inch by 2-inch, cast-iron, one face finely machined.
1, bench cutting-block, 12-inch by 12-inch by 2-inch, cast-iron, one face roughly machined.

4. Forge equipment

2, anvils, 1-cwt., with cast-iron stands.
12, tongs, to teacher's specification.
2, hot setts, cold setts, flatters, hardies.
2, top and bottom fullers, 1, ¼-inch, 1, ½-inch.

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1, top and bottom swage, ½-inch.
2, sledge hammers, 1, 4-lb., 1, 5-lb.
2, hand hammers, 2-lb.
1, water trough.
1, small fuel bin.
1, shovel, poker, rake.
1, gas poker.

5. Measuring and setting-out tools

20, stainless steel rules, 12-inch, graduated one edge in eighths, the other in sixteenths and thirty-seconds.
1, smith's brass rule, 2-foot, 2-fold,
22, engineer's squares, 20, 4-inch, 2, 6-inch.
1, tinman's square, 24-inch by 12-inch.
10, centre punches.
10, scribers.
5, spring dividers, 6-inch.
10, calipers, 6 outside, 2 inside, 2 jenny.
1, centre gauge.
1, adjustable bevel.
1, surface-plate, 12-inch by 1o-inch.
1, scribing block.
1, vee-block and clamp.
1, micrometer caliper, 0 to 1-inch.
1, wire gauge, S.W.G.

6. Bench tools and general equipment

22, engineer's ball-pane hammers, 20, 12-oz., 2, 1½ lb.
6, double-ended planishing hammers, 4-oz., flat and convex faces.
12, shaping hammers, to teacher's specification.
2, hand-vices, 2-inch jaws.
1, pin-vice.
8, pliers, 4 flat-nosed, 2 round-nosed, 2 sidecutting.
12 dozen, handled files, to teacher's specification.
10, hacksaws, 8-inch soft-backed blades, 24 and 32 teeth per inch.
4, junior hacksaws.
2, piercing saws.
2, coping saws.
2, brass back-saws.
10, cold chisels, to teacher's specification.
4, hand drills, ¼-inch capacity.
Twist drills, H.S.S., 1/16-inch to ½-inch by sixty-fourths.
Twist drills, H.S.S., jobber's 0 to 40.
Twist drills, C.S., 6 each, 1/16-inch to ¼-inch, by thirty-seconds.
4, Slocomb drills.
2, countersink drills, 1, 3/16-inch shank, 1, 3/8-inch shank.
Whitworth taps, 5/16, 3/8, ½-inch, taper and plug in each size.
Whitworth dies, as taps.

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B.S.F. taps, ¼, 5/16, 3/8, ½-inch, taper and plug in each size.
B.S.F. dies, as taps.
B.A. taps, 0, 2, 4, 5, 6, taper and plug in each size.
B.A. dies, as taps.
Tap wrenches and die stocks suitable.
Spanners, ¼-inch to 1-inch by sixteenths.
1, adjustable spanner, 10-inch.
6, screwdrivers, 3, 4-inch, 3, 6-inch.
5, small chipping-blocks.
Letter and number punches for steel, 3/16-inch.
4, oilcans.
4, file brushes.
4, bench brushes.
First-aid kit.

7. Sheet metal equipment

6, soldering-bits, 8-oz., 3 straight, 3 hatchet.
6, tinman's snips, 8-inch, straight, open-ended handles.
2, tinman's snips, 8-inch, curved, open-ended handles.
2, tinman's snips, 10-inch, straight, open-ended handles.
1, universal shear, 10-inch,
2, folding-bars, 10-inch.
2, rivet setts, 1, 1/8-inch, 1, 3/16-inch.
6, mallets, rawhide.
4, mallets, boxwood doming.
2, leather sandpads, 10-inch.
2, funnel stakes.
2, bick irons.
2, extinguisher stakes.
1, canister stake.
1, tinman's horse with 6 heads to teacher's specification.
2, hatchet stakes.
1, half-moon stake.
1, creasing iron.
1, tinman's anvil.
2, earthenware pickle troughs.
2, brass pickle tongs.
2, calico mops, 9-inch.

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1. Hand machines

1, hand drilling machine and chuck, 2-speed, ½-inch capacity, with drill vice
1, hand-lever shearing machine, 5-inch blades.

2. Fixed equipment

1, circular combination forge and brazing-hearth, 20-inch pan.
1, gas blowpipe, ½-inch, with light rubber tubing.
1, tinman's gas soldering-stove, with flexible metallic tubing.
6, parallel bench vices, cast-iron with hardened steel jaws, 4-inch.
1, bench flatting-block, 9-inch by 9-inch by 1½-inch, cast-iron, one face finely machined.

3. Forge equipment

1, anvil, ½-cwt.
4, tongs, to teacher's specification.
1, hot sett, cold sett, flatter, hardie.
1, sledge hammer, 4-lb.
1, water trough.
1, small fuel bin.

4. Measuring and setting-out tools

6, stainless steel rules, 12-inch, graduated one edge in eighths, the other in sixteenths and thirty-seconds.
6, engineer's squares, 4-inch.
1, tinman's square, 24-inch by 12-inch.
3, centre punches.
3, scribers.
2, spring dividers, 6-inch.
3, calipers, 1 outside, 1 inside, 1 jenny.
1, surface plate, 9-inch by 6-inch.
1, scribing-block.
1, wire gauge, S.W.G.

5. Bench tools and general equipment

6, engineer's ball-pane, hammers, 12-oz.
2, double-ended planishing hammers, 4-oz., flat and convex faces.
4, shaping hammers, to teacher's specification.
1, hand-vice, 2-inch jaws.
3, pliers, 1 flat-nosed, 1 round-nosed, 1 sidecutting.
3 dozen, handled files, to teacher's specification.

[page 54]

2, hacksaws, 8-inch soft-backed blades, 24 teeth per inch.
1, junior hacksaw.
1, piercing saw.
1, brass-back saw.
2, hand drills, ¼-inch capacity.
Twist drills, H.S.S., 1/16-inch to ½-inch by thirty-seconds.
Twist drills, C.S., 3 each, 1/16-inch to ¼-inch by sixteenths.
1, countersink drill, 3/16-inch shank.
Whitworth taps, 5/16, 3/3, ½-inch, taper and plug in each size.
Whitworth dies, as taps.
B.A. taps, 0, 2, 4, 5, 6, taper and plug in each size.
B.A. dies, as taps.
Tap wrenches and die stocks suitable.
1, adjustable spanner, 10-inch.
2, screwdrivers, 1, 4-inch, 1, 6-inch.
2, small chipping-blocks.
Letter and number punches for steel, 3/16-inch.
1, oilcan.
2, file brushes.
6. sheet metal equipment
2, soldering-bits, 8-oz., 1 straight, 1 hatchet.
3, tinman's snips, 8-inch, straight, open-ended handles.
1, tinman's snips, 8-inch, curved, open-ended handles.
1, folding-bar, 10-inch.
2, rivet setts, 1, 1/8-inch, 1, 3/16-inch.
2, mallets, rawhide.
2, mallets, boxwood doming.
1, leather sandpad, 10-inch.
1, funnel stake.
1, bick iron.
1, extinguisher stake.
1, hatchet stake.
1, creasing-iron.
1, earthenware pickle trough.
1, brass pickle tongs.

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