The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-11-08
TOWN OF ROYCROFTERS
 MECCA OF BOOK LOVERS

1 in wood. iron and pottery The idea is to give congenial employment to every
 one in the village who wants work. Good
 wages are paid, and besides, the profits
 are divided at the end of the year.
 Ebert Hubbard is the inspiration and
 controlling spirit of his people. He directs
 their work and works t.ith them. He
 plans their amusements and lays with
 them. One with them is everything, he Is to sleepy little East Aurora what Tol- stol is to Russian peasantry. At the Royeroft shop MT. Hubbard and
 his followers are reaching out for an all-
 around development through right living
 and they have found it wise expedient.
 wise business policy. Sweat shop
 methods can never succeed in producing beautiful things, they say Art is the expression of mans joy in his work, and
 all the joy and love that you weave into
 fabric comes out again and belongs to
 the individual who has soul to appre- ciate.
 You cannot get joy from feeding things
 all day into a machine. You must let the
 man work with hand and brain, and then
 out of the joy of this marriage of hand and brain, beauty will be born, is their
 theory.
 And so the management of the Roycroft shop surrounds the workers with beauty, allows many liberties. encourages cheer fulness and tries to promote kind thoughts, simply because it has been found that these things are all trans
 mitted into good and come out again at the finger tips of the workers in beau- tiful results. These are pictures, stat
 uary flowers, ferns, palms and a plant in every room.
 The best sanitary appliances that money can buy are in the shops, and 41..- R11 brary, rest roo S and dining hall where lunch is, served at noon. Every week has its concerts, dances and lectures. Besides being a workshop, the Roycroft Is a school dozen distinct lines of study are followed, and every worker in the place is enrolled as a member of one or more classes. There are no fees to pupils, but each pupil purchases his own books, the care of his books and belong ings being considered a part of ones education. All the teachers are workers in the shop, and are volunteers. teach- ing without pay, beyond what each re- ceives for his regular labor
 But of MT. Hubbard himself. Born some forty-ave years ago in a smell Illinois town, the son of a country doc tor, he has led knockabout jack of-all- trades life, having hand in nearly every kind of work, dabbling, but earnestly, until he found his place. It is said that he rah away from home at the age of IA for the sole purpose of lassoing wild horses and killing Indians. His dreams of cowboy happiness were soon changed to memories, for he did not like the life, and, working his way to Chicago, apprenticed himself to printer.
 His next shift in the battle was to be- come reporter on one of the Chicago dailies. Manufacturing soap in Buffalo, l,. Y. next occupied him. But this did not suit, for he moved again, this time to East Aurora, where, at the age of 30, he started horse farm Since then he has taken course at Harvard to scrape off the corners of his sef-planned edu- cation has completed course at Belle vue Medical college in New York city and has travelled extensively abroad.
 It was while in England that he be- came deeply interested in the work of William Morris, the great socialist and founder of the Kelmscott Press. Will liam Morris was spark. His teachT fngs extended farther than he dreamed of, and through Hubbard, have helped to break ground in America for book making as an art.