Einstein does not consider this desirable, although he himself is deeply interested in all manifestations of public life. He does not favour an elementary political training received at school, presumably above all owing to the fact that in this branch the instruction cannot be removed from official influences, and because political questions require the attention of a mature mind. His picture of how a youth is to meet the requirements of modern life is something quite different, far removed from all theories. His whole efforts are directed at finding a means of counteracting the tendency to overburden one side of the youthful mind. "I should demand the introduction of compulsory practical work. Every pupil must learn some _handicraft_. He should be able to choose for himself which it is to be, but I should allow no one to grow up without having gained some technique, either as a joiner, bookbinder, locksmith, or member of any other trade, and without having delivered some useful product of his trade." "Do you attach greater importance to the technique itself or to the feeling of social relationship with the broad masses of the people which it engenders?" "Both factors are equally important to me," said Einstein, "and others become added to these which help to justify my wish in this respect. The handiwork need not be used as a means of earning money by the pupil of the secondary school, but it will enlarge and make more solid the foundation on which he will rest as an ethical being. In the first place, the school is not to produce future officials, scholars, lecturers, barristers, and authors, but human beings, not merely mental machines. Prometheus did not begin his education of mankind with astronomy, but by teaching the properties of fire and its practical uses...." "This brings to my mind another analogy," I continued, "namely, that of the old _Meistersinger_, who were, all of them, expert smiths, tinkers, or shoemakers, and yet succeeded in building a bridge to the arts. And at bottom, the sciences, too, belong to the category of free arts. Yet, a difficulty seems to me to arise. In demanding a compulsory handicraft, you lay stress on practical use, whereas in your other remarks you declared science in itself as being utterly independent of practice."