think them beneath us.  When the choice is ours and we are under no compulsion, why not choose the pleasanter, more attractive and more suitable trade.  Metal work is useful, more useful, perhaps, than the rest, but unless for some special reason Emile shall not be a blacksmith, a locksmith nor an iron-worker.  I do not want to see him a Cyclops at the forge.  Neither would I have him a mason, still less a shoemaker.  All trades must be carried on, but when the choice is ours, cleanliness should be taken into account; this is not a matter of class prejudice, our senses are our guides.  In conclusion, I do not like those stupid trades in which the workmen mechanically perform the same action without pause and almost without mental effort.  Weaving, stocking-knitting, stone-cutting; why employ intelligent men on such work? it is merely one machine employed on another.

All things considered, the trade I should choose for my pupil, among the trades he likes, is that of a carpenter.  It is clean and useful; it may be carried on at home; it gives enough exercise; it calls for skill and industry, and while fashioning articles for everyday use, there is scope for elegance and taste.  If your pupil’s talents happened to take a scientific turn, I should not blame you if you gave him a trade in accordance with his tastes, for instance, he might learn to make mathematical instruments, glasses, telescopes, etc.

When Emile learns his trade I shall learn it too.  I am convinced he will never learn anything thoroughly unless we learn it together.  So we shall both serve our apprenticeship, and we do not mean to be treated as gentlemen, but as real apprentices who are not there for fun; why should not we actually be apprenticed?  Peter the Great was a ship’s carpenter and drummer to his own troops; was not that prince at least your equal in birth and merit?  You understand this is addressed not to Emile but to you—­to you, whoever you may be.

Unluckily we cannot spend the whole of our time at the workshop.  We are not only ’prentice-carpenters but ’prentice-men—­a trade whose apprenticeship is longer and more exacting than the rest.  What shall we do?  Shall we take a master to teach us the use of the plane and engage him by the hour like the dancing-master?  In that case we should be not apprentices but students, and our ambition is not merely to learn carpentry but to be carpenters.  Once or twice a week I think we should spend the whole day at our master’s; we should get up when he does, we should be at our work before him, we should take our meals with him, work under his orders, and after having had the honour of supping at his table we may if we please return to sleep upon our own hard beds.  This is the way to learn several trades at once, to learn to do manual work without neglecting our apprenticeship to life.