vely, this
class was small in number. Most of the others simply followed that
undefined desire to get away out of the dull, monotonous, gossiping
village; and so, craving excitement, they went away to the cities, and
the cities swallowed them. A wise man has said that God made the country,
man the city, and the devil the small towns.

The country supplies the city its best and its worst. We hear of the few
who succeed, but of the many who are lost in the maelstrom we know
nothing. Sometimes in country homes it is even forbidden to mention
certain names. "She went to the city," you are told--and there the
history abruptly stops.

And so, to swing back to the place of beginning, I think the chief reason
many good folks are interested in the Roycroft Shop is because here
country boys and girls are given work at which they not only earn their
living, but can get an education while doing it. Next to this is the
natural curiosity to know how a large and successful business can be
built up in a plain, humdrum village by simply using the talent and
materials that are at hand, and so I am going to tell now how the
Roycroft Shop came to start; a little about what it has done; what it is
trying to do; and what it hopes to become. And since modesty is only
egotism turned wrong side out, I will make no special endeavor to conceal
the fact that I have had something to do with the venture.

In London, from about Sixteen Hundred Fifty to Sixteen Hundred Ninety,
Samuel and Thomas Roycroft printed and made very beautiful books. In
choosing the name "Roycroft" for our Shop we had these men in mind, but
beyond this the word has a special significance, meaning King's
Craft--King's craftsmen being a term used in the Guilds of the olden
times for men who had achieved a high degree of skill--men who made
things for the King. So a Roycrofter is a person who makes beautiful
things, and makes them as well as he can. "The Roycrofters" is the legal
name of our institution. It is a corporation, and the shares are
distributed among the workers. No shares are held by any one but
Roycrofters, and it is agreed that any worker who quits the Shop shall
sell his shares back to the concern. This co-operative plan, it has been
found, begets a high degree of personal diligence, a loyalty to the
institution, a sentiment of fraternity and a feeling of permanency among
the workers that is very beneficial to all concerned. Each worker, even
the most humble, ca