The various speculations and expressions ofopinion to which our movements have givenrise would, if accurately noted, supply themost interesting exposition of what we have tocontend with on the one hand, and what wehave to encourage us on the other. Weshould gather from it the most convincingtestimony of the necessity of some such effortas that which we are now making to removethe general ignorance on all points connectedwith Building, whether as regards the scienceor its professors and practitioners. Grave andexperienced men are to be found whohold up their hands in astonishment at therashness, as they consider it, of our enterprise—menwho argue upon general principlesagainst the success of our plan. They say theBuilders are not a reading class, nor a class atall, either in themselves or their connection,to support a periodical like the one we proposeto give. The publishers in particular, and they,in their experience on all points connectedwith publication, are certainly entitled to beconsidered oracles—the publishers generallyhave but a mean opinion, or say they canform no opinion at all of the probabilities ofsuccess. They confess themselves astonishedat the numbers of the Building Class; butthey mistrust the conclusions to which we havecome upon the data which these numbers supply.So little have publishers had to do withthe Building Class, and so little the Builderswith the publishers, that they might have livedon the opposite sides of the same globe as regardsthe acquaintance each has with theother for any practical interchange of theirmutual special interests; but we propose tobring them into more intimate union, and tomake the publisher at least confess that heknew not one half the territory over which hisappointment was designed to extend.
But there are parties connected with thearts who might have been supposed to havelived in something like a consciousness of theimmense, as it is intimate, alliance that subsistsbetween them and the Builders as members, itmay be said, of one common fraternity; and theseare as ignorant of the more important facts as itis possible to suppose men to be. An eminentsculptor addressed us the other day in a strainof this character: “The Builders,” said he,“are too small a body to support a class paper;look around you,” he continued, “and you findthem dotted here and there only, and not likethe Shoemakers, or the Publicans, or theButchers, meeting you at every turn.” Itshould be stated that he had seen our PrecursorNumber. We asked him if he was awareof the fact the Carpenters alone outnumberedthe Shoemakers, and that the whole body ofBuilders are as five to one of that very numerousclass: that in round numbers we had130,000 Carpenters, 60,000 Masons, 40,000Bricklayers, 30,000 Painters, Plumbers, andGlaziers, and so on. And that these were anintelligent, a reading, a thinking, and providentclass, and well to do in the world. At this heexpressed his surprise, but yet in such terms asto shew us that there was a leaven of incredulitymixed with it. Again we referred to themas an advertising class, on which he seemedamazed, but more so when we pointed out tohim seventy-one advertisements in the Precursor,and expressed our belief that shortly itwould amount to five times that number. Onthis head, indeed, it would be easy for us togive convincing proof, were we so disposed,and we know not but we may, for the curiosityof the matter, some day do it; we could printthe largest part of a paper in thickly-set advertisementspertaining to building, and allselected from the London and provi