READY FOR BUSINESS; OR, CHOOSING AN OCCUPATION. [B] A SERIES OF PRACTICAL PAPERS FOR BOYS. By George J. Manson. Boat-Building.

Boat-building is by no means one of the "lost arts," although in this age of steam and iron, the "good old days" of the ship-builders are a thing of the past. Of late years, however, there has been a marked increase in the trade, and although the work is confined principally to yachts and smaller craft, the steady growth of this branch of boat-building offers excellent inducements to any young man whose tastes lie in that direction.

I know of one boy at least, now sixteen years of age, who intends to fit himself during the next five or six years for the occupation; and his father, a prominent and highly successful naval architect, believes that there is a very promising future for American boat-building.

I take it for granted that the future boat-builder has, as a boy, been fond of boats. He has not only taken advantage of the rivers and ponds near his house, has navigated them in scow, in row-boat or in sail-boat, but I will suppose that, from the time he has been the owner of a jack-knife, he has been a constructor of toy boats. And, as he has grown older and become the possessor of a tool-chest, or, at least, of a gauge, a mallet, a saw, a plane, and a good knife, he has wrought out miniature cutters and schooners, possibly a square-rigged ship, all of which have been much admired by his young companions. If it has been his object in life to become a boat-builder, he could not have been better employed during the hours that have not been taken up with school duties.

In every business and profession there is some one object above all others sought after, upon which success may be said to depend. The orator endeavors to arouse our enthusiasm, the poet appeals to our sentiments, the lawyer to our reason, the clergyman to our conscience. The genius of the boat-builder lies in the one word "form." The one thing more than all others for which he aims to have a reputation is the ability to give a good shape to the mass of wood or iron coming from his hands, whether it be a man-of-war or a sail-boat. And so it was good for the boy that he made boats and models of boats. He was getting, as the naval architect would say, "form impressed upon his brain." It may have been, it probably was, a bad form, an incorrect form, but it was something from which to start. At all events, the boy has formed a speaking acquaintance with the occupation he is about to enter.

I shall assume that at the age of sixteen he has finished his school studies, has a good knowledge of arithmetic and algebra, and has gone through seven books in Euclid, with special reference to being proficient in the fourth and seventh books. Two years before this, we will suppose, he has expressed a desire to be a boat-builder. He has made a model of some kind of a boat, and he has, as occasions have permitted, visited such ship-ards as could be found in his vicinity, and carefully watched the men while they were at work. At last, at the age of sixteen, he enters the office of a thoroughly competent naval architect, who either is or has been a practical ship-builder. The naval architect stands in the same relation to ship-building that the architect of houses does to house-building, with this difference,—not only does he make the plan, but very often he executes it as well.

The beginner will find his quarters very pleasant. The room will be light, cheerful, and quiet. On the walls he will probably see pictures of famous yachts or other vessels; there will be a small library of technical books of reference, which he will have occasion to consult later on; there may be another student with whom he will chat now and then during the day; or his teacher, while they are at work, may give him some stirring bits of yachting reminiscence. I only mention this to show that there is none of that strict discipline to which the boy has been accustomed at school. The fact is, it is not needed, for, to use the language of a well-known ship-builder, "it is a fascinating occupation; it grows upon you; and the longer you are in it, the better you like it, that is, of course, if you like boats and everything pertaining to them."

The boy will at first be given the drawing of a midship, or central, section of a boat, and required to put a body to it, to give it a bow, a stern—in short, to give to the boat its form. After working in that way for a while, he will make more extended plans, until he is able to make the full design of a vessel. He will remain with this naval architect for the space of a year; and, by that time, he should have acquired a very good knowledge of form.

It is a fact that boys in England who choose this occupation for their life-work can more easily obtain a thorough education in it than can be had by youths in our country. In England, and in France, Denmark, and other European countries, there are schools where special technical instruction is given, and many of these are close to large ship-yards, where the practical work of ship-building can constantly be seen. The question now arises, therefore, shall the boy go to England and get the benefit of this instruction? It is by no means necessary that he should go there; but if he has begun to learn while young, he can spare the time, and his parents know whether they can spare the money which such a journey and residence would entail. If he decides to go, he will remain away for three or four years.

Suppose, however, it is decided that he can not go abroad. It has cost him for the year's instruction he has received from the naval architect, with whom he had been studying, about $1000; or, he has given his services as a draughtsman, paid $500, and during the twelve months has "picked up" such knowledge as he could without receiving any regular instruction. His case of drawing-instruments has cost him from $50 to $250, depending on the number of instruments, the manner in which they are finished and the style of the case in which they are kept. Let us assume that he has been a full-pay pupil. His time is, of course, his own. It would be a good plan, after he has acquired some theoretical knowledge of the business, to regularly visit a shipyard and there begin to do the practical work which falls to the lot of the boat-builder; studying in the office one-half the time and working in the yard the other half. Now you will see, as I observed before, that boat-building is a profession and a trade. It is possible to be simply a naval architect and only make designs for boats, but it is not advisable; it is better, by all means, to have the practical knowledge which is obtained working among the men in the shipyard.

They do not now apprentice boys as they did some fifty years ago. I have before me an indenture paper of a ship-builder (now alive) dated in the year 1825. In it he promises "not to waste his master's goods; not to contract matrimony within the said term; not to play at cards, dice, or any unlawful game, nor frequent ale-houses, dance-houses, or play-houses, but in all things behave himself as a faithful apprentice ought to do during the said term." There are no such rules laid down nowadays. Perhaps all the boys are so good that none are needed. All that needs to be done now is for the boy to make his verbal agreement with the owner of the shipyard, and go to work.

And now a word or two as to this practical work which will cover the second method of learning boat-building as mentioned at the beginning of my paper. The boy who has not had the benefit of any previous training with an instructor may have to commence with turning the grindstone. The tools used in boat-building are in such constant use that they grow dull very soon, and the grindstone is kept going almost the whole of the day. Besides, the work being very heavy, the men generally work in couples, so that the learner when he is not turning the grindstone is assisting in lifting the heavy timbers that have to be used. The first tool he is generally permitted to use is the saw; then he begins to use the adze; then he is trusted with the ax, and helps get out the planking and timber for the frame of the ship.

Then comes the difficult part of construction. The apprentice must have learned all this work with the tools (of which I am only able to make a passing mention), before he comes to the constructive part; that is, the part that our pupil has been studying with the naval architect.

Before the building of the ship is commenced, a small wooden model is made, to give the owner and the builder an idea of what she is going to look like.

Doubtless, you have seen such models. They are built sometimes on a scale of a quarter of an inch to a foot; they are made of pieces of cedar and pine wood, placed alternately, and show the shape and whole arrangement of one side of the vessel. This model is glued, on its flat side, to a piece of board, for greater convenience in examination.

From this model, "life-size" plans of the ship are made with chalk on the floor of a long, wide room, like a big garret, which is used especially for this purpose. It will not be necessary to enter into a technical description of these plans. There are three of them,—the sheer plan, the half-breadth plan, and the body plan. They show the position of the different planks to be used in the construction of the ship. To gain a rough idea of these plans, take a cucumber, decide which you will call the bottom and which the top, and cut it in the middle, lengthwise, from end to end. Look into its interior and fancy that it is covered with lines, both horizontal and vertical—and that will give you a very rough idea of the sheer plan. By laying the cucumber on its side and cutting it lengthwise, you will have a notion of the half-breadth plan. A division in the middle (cutting it in two parts, so that you can see the whole circumference) may suggest to you the body plan. This can not be made very clear, not even with drawings, because it is the most technical part of the work; but its object is apparent. From these three plans, taken from different points of view, the boat-builder can locate the position of every piece of plank in his vessel. So true is this that I understand it is possible to number the planks of a ship, and send them off to some distant country, where a ship-builder can construct the vessel without ever having seen the design.

A great deal of calculation and figuring enters into this part of the work, but much of it has been made easy by the aid of a man (now dead, I believe) named Simpson, the author of what are called "Simpson's Rules." These rules are incorporated in small pocket handbooks which contain, in addition, a large number of tables, rules, and formulas pertaining to naval architecture. The most popular handbook of this character in England is said to be "Mackrow's Naval Architect and Ship-builders' Assistant," and in our country, "Haswell's Engineers' Pocket-book of Tables." These, however, are only aids in making calculations, and are very much like the interest tables you have probably seen, which save the trouble of going through the figuring in detail. There are a great many books which will be interesting and valuable to the young ship-builder. To give you some idea of their character, I copy the following from the table of contents of a recent standard work: "The displacement and buoyancy of ships;" "The oscillations of ships in still water;" "The oscillation of ships among waves;" "Methods of observing the rolling and pitching motions of ships;" "The structural strength of ships," etc.

These titles may not at present indicate a very promising literary feast, but when the young boat-builder has mastered the rudiments of the technical part of the profession, he will read and reread such productions with as much pleasure as he now peruses the stories in St. Nicholas.

I have not entered into the details of iron ship-building, the practical part of which the boy will learn in the same yard in which he learns to work in wood; for it is presumed that he is going to some large yard to obtain his instruction. Indeed, in this occupation it is the practical part that is the easiest and the most interesting to young learners. They are apt to slight the theoretical knowledge required and to long to spend their time in the shipyard with real tools, doing real work, for a real ship. With the boy who, through force of circumstances, has to enter on the life of a journeyman and earn wages, there is more excuse for hastening to that branch of the work than for the lad who is better situated in life. The journeyman will learn construction last and from his master. Under the plan I have suggested, the other lad will learn the general principles of construction before he goes to the shipyard; at least he will not have to commence with turning the grindstone. His first few visits will be confined to watching the men at their work; then he will gradually make himself familiar with the use of the different tools.

The journeyman will receive at first $1 a day; during the second year, $1.50 a day, and be gradually advanced until he receives the regular wages, at the present time from $3 to $3.25 a day. It would not be advisable to make any estimate of the profits of boat-building as a business, for, no matter what they are now, by the time my young reader has started a shipyard, they may be entirely different, owing to the increase or decrease in the cost of material and labor.