Good evening and welcome to boring books for bedtime. I hope tonight's installment provides all the boredom your busy brain needs to quiet down and let you get some sleep for once. So lie back,

adjust your volume. Take a nice deep breath and off we go. Tonight I think we'll take a break from some of our headier

readings with something a little more simple woodworking for beginners a a manual for amateurs by Charles G Wheeler BS with over 700

with over 700 illustrations, copyright 1899, the Knickerbocker Press, New York.

Let's begin.

To the youthful founders of Totlet Town, without whose inspiration this book would not have been undertaken.

Preface, the aim of this book is to suggest to amateurs of all ages

many things which they can profitably make of wood and to start them in the way of work successfully. It is hoped that in the case

of boys it may show them pleasant and useful ways to work off some of their surplus energy and at the same time contribute toward their

harmonious all-around development. It is not an attempt to teach the arts of architecture,

carpentry, cabinet- making, or boat building, although not

intended primarily to impart skill in the use of tools, something which can only be acquired

from experience and observation and cannot be taught by any book.

Many books which give directions for mechanical work have several serious faults and can be grouped in three classes.

Some seem to be written by practical workmen, who, however well fitted to do the work themselves, lack the pedagogical training or

the psychological insight necessary to lay out such work with due regard to the mental and physical capacity, experience, and development of youth,

or to the amateur's lack of experience in the rudiments of the subject. Others are written by teachers or amateurs who lack

the trained mechanics practical and varied knowledge and experience in serious work. Others, and this last class is perhaps the worst of the three, seem to be

made by compilers who have apparently been satisfied to sweep together without requisite knowledge or sufficient moral purpose.

Whatever they may have found that would be interesting or attractive without due regard to its real value.

All these writers are constantly falling into errors and making a mission's harmful alike to the moral and the manual progress of the readers.

Effort has been made in the preparation of this book to avoid these evils,

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