Annissa Byrd

1)

Depleted from his workweek in the corporate world, the
office worker repaired to his basement workshop to putter about and tinker,
refreshing himself for the following week. As T. J. Jackson Lears writes in his
history of the Progressive era, No Place of Grace, “toward the end of the
nineteenth century, many beneficiaries of modern culture began to feel they
were its secret victims.”

2)
Noel’s bustling warehouse is full of
metal lathes, milling machines, and table saws, and it turns out that most of
it is from schools. EBay is awash in such equipment, also from schools. It
appears shop class is becoming a thing of the past, as educators prepare
students to become “knowledge workers.”

3)

George Sturt relates his experience in taking over his
family business of making wheels for carriages, in 1884, shortly before the
advent of the automobile. He had been a school teacher with literary ambitions,
but now finds himself almost overwhelmed by the cognitive demands of his new
trade.

4) Chapter Twenty-two: The Individual and the World

The reaction against authority in all spheres of life, and the intensity of the
struggle, against great odds, for freedom of action and inquiry, led to such an
emphasis upon personal observations and ideas as in effect to isolate mind, and
set it apart from the world to be known.