I had always supposed that brickmaking was very simple, but I soon found out by bitter experience that it required special skill and knowledge, particularly in the burning of the bricks.

After a good deal of effort we moulded about twenty-five thousand bricks, and put them into a kiln to be burned.

This kiln turned out to be a failure, because it was not properly constructed or properly burned.

We began at once, however, on a second kiln.

This, for some reason, also proved a failure.
The failure of this kiln made it still more difficult to get the students to take part in the work.