Henry Ford
How do you follow Rears and Sawbucks and Monkey Ward? The early 1900s had some interesting people. Do you know anyone that is adept at mechanical things. I had a friend when I was a lad that was a mechanical genius. I noticed it mostly because I am not at all mechanically inclined. I would probably categorize myself as a farmer.
Dwayne built a hay bailer from scratch when he was just a lad. We would bail hay every evening. Later on he built a tractor from scratch using a car rear end and transmission and a Wisconsin V4 engine. Where he got the funds for all of this, it was probably just parts he got at the junkyard.
Henry Ford was born in 1863 the second of eight children. He was born on a farm in Dearborn, Michigan. His dad wanted him to farm but it became clear that he had tremendous mechanical ability. He fixed stationary steam engines for neighbors and any kind of gadgets he could get a hold of.
His dad give him a pocket watch at age 12, he took it apart and put it back together numerous times. In 1896 he built his first car called a quadricycle. He drove it all over the countryside. He worked for many machine shops, until 1903. He formed Ford Motor Company. In 1908 started making the Ford Model T.
From the very start he tried to make a car that the common man could afford. All of the cars produced previously were quite expensive. He also attracted workers by paying several times the average wage. Different companies were experimenting with the assembly line, so he put this into practice.
Now a worker would only need to be proficient with one or two different parts of the car. One guy did the wheels, one guy did the doors. Prior to this it took days to assemble a car. He got this down to 12 hours and eventually was turning out a car every 93 minutes.
The model T was quite simple and easy to work on. It proved to be quite reliable for its day. He made this model for 12 years until he upgraded to the model A. Those were simpler times when there were fewer government regulations, and you wouldn’t get sued for blinking your eye in the wrong direction.
Ford was one of the richest men in the world in his time. He made his own steel, most of his own components so he was able to avoid the middleman. Ford worked until he was in his ’90s, when his grandson Edsel Ford took over the company. Today their company is the leader in pickup trucks and many other models.
This makes me wonder, in our general population what percentage of people are mechanically inclined. What percentage like to farm, what percentage are artistic. I think It might be quite obvious, and early grade school teachers should be able to encourage students in the proper direction. How many enjoy writing stories?
I think you are best at something that you enjoy doing. I think it would be easy to set up a test and find out what areas students enjoy. If you watch a little league game it’s easy to tell who are the best players at age 8. Years ago Russia was a leader in the Olympics because they took young people who showed certain abilities and put them in a separate program. Even taking them away from their parents. I think this is going a bit far.
But I do feel we should have ways of finding people’s interests and abilities and not send everyone to a 4-year college college to study general studies. Most of which have no clue what they want to do.
—James Neuhouser
