[His work is addressed]... not to the learned and experienced mathematicians who are already, or should be, better acquainted with them... [and most of whom] have studied mechanics more as a subject of curiosity and a hobby, than with any view of service to the public. The people we had in mind were rather the mechanic, handicraftsman and the like, who, without education or knowledge of foreign languages have no access to many sources of information...

Jacob Leupold (1724-39) Theatrium machinarum, as quoted in: Biography of Jacob Leupold (1674–1727) on history-computer.com, 2013