excerpt from School of Hard Knots
by Alex Hanson
The typical apprenticeship with a Japanese traditional boatbulder
lasts six years, during which an apprentice can expect to spend a
kot of time sweeping the shop floor and sharpening tools while
watching the master ply his trade Work as conducted in silence,
questions are answered elliptically it at at, and, by the end, the
master will have withheld key pieces of knowledge that the
apprentice is expected to acquire through gule or outright theft
Even in Japan, where traditional crafts are revered this system is
too gructing too much at odds with modem te to survive, it is no
wonder, then, that as a generation of Japanese boatwrights has
retred, the knowledge has retired with them Vermont boutbuilder
Douglas Brooks is trying to ensure that the centuries-old designs
for fishing boats and water taxes don't follow these craftsmen to the
grave
For more than two decades, Brooks has researched traditional
boatmaking in Japan, and has done short, nontraditional
apprenticeships to record boat designs. Ordinarity, no Westemer
would have a hope of leaming in a few weeks what usually takes
years of patient observation to acquire
This article was first published in May June 2013 issue of
Humantes, which is published by the National Endowment for the
Humantes
10
Select the correct answer from each drop down menu
Read the excerpt. Then choose the conect way to complete the paragraph
for modem students,
A central idea in the excerpt is that the Japanese art of boat building may be lost to future generations The underlined detal
shapes this idea by showing that the system for learning Japanese boat building is too
which means that future generations