Bookbinding for Beginners

This little book is intended to bridge the gap between the paper-cutting and simple modelling of the lower classes of the Junior School and the more definite craft work of the Senior School. It does not profess to teach a craft. No book can do that fully. Some preliminary exercises, however, involving sound constructional methods and introducing the common materials used in the work, are a necessary preparation for any craft. The Exercises in this book will be found to involve most of the simpler processes required in the work of binding books. The latter will be dealt with in another book of the series—‘‘ Advanced Bookbinding’’—which deals with the sewing, forwarding, covering and finishing of books.

It is not expected that a pupil will work through every exercise. A start can be made at any point suitable to the pupil’s development. The teacher should decide which exercises may be omitted by each pupil.

Practice at working from written rather than from verbal instructions is, in itself, very valuable. The pupils should have their own books and work quite independently of each other. Nothing cultivates resource and initiative, self-reliance and the will to persevere, so much as individual work.

Few crafts offer greater opportunity for cultivating the esthetic sense than Bookbinding. Taste is developed in the choosing of suitable covering papers and in the harmonious selection of colour schemes for bindings and end-papers. The decoration of the finished work could be carried out in the Art lesson.

The equipment necessary for the course is small. Children will bring from home cardboard boxes, brown paper for covering and old newspapers to protect the tables or desks. Sample books of wallpapers may often be obtained for the asking. One of the great virtues of Bookbinding as a handicraft subject is that it is, in the very best sense, economical.