The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1903-12-24
REPUBLIC SPECIAL

Boston. Dec. 23.-If Louis WI who had
| a private forge of his own before the
| French Revolution carried him to the
| guillotine, could visit Boston at the be-
| ginning of the present century. there are
| perhaps few places that would more
| greatly interest him than that part of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology IN
which hundreds of young Americans have
| learned the art and craft of blacksmith
| ing.
| Blacksmithins is not a subject that one
| ordinarily thinks of as being taught in
| schools or colleges of the so-called higher
| education, nor would one at first glance
| imagine the institute forging laboratory,
with its clang of cold hammers on hot
iron. its red forges and its population of
work-stained leathern aprons, to be
school rather than workshop
closer inspection shows the difference,
for the young IT en- in the leathern aprons
are Immediately recognizable as students
and each is obviously working on the
same problem in iron, whether it be to
transform bar OF metal into perfectly
Joined ring. or to weld and hammer two
bars together until they unite to form
some more complicated piece of iron work.
In the blacksmith shop the students work
IN groups, together with an instructor and
several trained mechanics, and the pur-
pose of each group is to construct some
given piece of work as whole: in the
forging laboratory, on the other hand,
each student blacksmith has his own
forge, anvil. tongs and hammers, and each
works at series of fundamental prob
lens. learning to handle his iron by graded
exercises that begin with comparatively
simple task in iron working and advance
steadliy-much as one goes in mathematics
from simple arithmetic to higher algebra
toward the solution of more and more
complicated ones.
FIND TIME FOR PROBLEMS.
Each student in other words, does every
part Of every typical piece of work per-
formed in the laboratory, the expert iron
worker naturally finding time for adtii-
tional problems of his own choosing; but
while some men naturally turn out more
finished work than others even the least
finished has to conform to a certain stand
ard of excellence.
One of the simplest and neatest of these
problems Is the making of an ordinary
unveiled iron ring. an article with which
most OF US are SO familiar that 1t rarely
occurs to one to note the perfect circle
made by the neat iron circumference and
wonder how so hard a metal has been
brought into SO even and regular a curve
The secret of that perfect circle lies ia
the even temperature to which the iron
is heated and the careful judgment used
in forming it.
The first thing. therefore, that the stu
dent blacksmith must learn Is the man
agement of his fire and the training of
his eve to judge temperatures and know
just when it has impaired the proper de-
gree Of heat to the straight bar of iron
which he thrusts into it. firmly gripped |
in a pair of tongs that are themselves |
the work of some more advanced student |
of blacksrnithing. |
When the heat is properly distributed |
% no eRd soft Of ne onr 81 Iron the end
over the horn Of the anvil until the circle |
is half completed, then the bar must be /
dropped; picked up deity by the bent
end and again thrust into the fire until |
the other end can be bent around to COM
plete the circle.
WHEN RING is COMPLETED.
When the two ends meet. square and /
true as they must be hammered to do, the
ring is complete; but before this is ac-
complished there must be much delicate
play of the hammer on the cooling steel
suade the ends to come together. and too
light to leave any hammer marks on the
finished ring of iron.
For the art OF the blacksmith lies even
more in the delicacy with which he taps
his material than in the strength with
which he also often belahors it.
The work of forging laboratory, in
other words. differs from that of a regu-
lar forge shop-although the general effect
OF the two Is almost identicaEas any |
differs from any shop; the lab
oratory is primarily for the instruction of
students. the shop for making a CONNER
cial product.
PRACTICAL METHODS.
Such laboratory is. first of all, an IL
lustration Of the practical methods of
modern technical training
The young men who thus learn to be
blacksmiths are not studying with the
view of setting up FORCES of their own in
country neighborhoods. even to delight the
children coming home from school," as
described by the poet. But the profess
which may be any one of the several in
GUIDED under the general title of mechan-.l
cal engineering, leads direct toward some
% EnaWIedes pf n
Will be of great practical value
Whether the mechanical engineer finds
himself eventually connected with the ac-
ual manufacture of machinery or with
he. machinery department of a railroad
iystem, great cotton mill or almost any
,ther important Industrial plant, he must |
invariably have dealings with the men
Who stand at the anyils and turn out the
,arioris shapes and sizes of steel and iron
hat play SO important part in all mod
I'm machinery.
To all intents and purposes the mechan-
cal engineer Is often the man behind the
nan behind the anvil. and It is Therefore
nrst essential Of his calling that he
mould know for himself exactly what a |
, + ga. blacksmith ought to be able to do
'astly and economically, how long IL
,ught to take him, and how finished
mould be the result t
TEACHES MENTAL EXACTNESS.
IN this actual training of young men
o understand the handlfny NJ ioors