But if instead of this recondite learning adapted to feed the mind, not the body, you have recourse, at need, to your hands and your handiwork, there is no call for deceit, your trade is ready when required. Honour and honesty will not stand in the way of your living. You need no longer cringe and lie to the great, nor creep and crawl before rogues, a despicable flatterer of both, a borrower or a thief, for there is little to choose between them when you are penniless. Other people's opinions are no concern of yours, you need not pay court to any one, there is no fool to flatter, no flunkey to bribe, no woman to win over. Let rogues conduct the affairs of state; in your lowly rank you can still be an honest man and yet get a living. You walk into the first workshop of your trade. "Master, I want work." "Comrade, take your place and work." Before dinner-time you have earned your dinner. If you are sober and industrious, before the week is out you will have earned your keep for another week; you will have lived in freedom, health, truth, industry, and righteousness. Time is not wasted when it brings these returns. Emile shall learn a trade. "An honest trade, at least," you say. What do you mean by honest? Is not every useful trade honest? I would not make an embroiderer, a gilder, a polisher of him, like Locke's young gentleman. Neither would I make him a musician, an actor, or an author.[Footnote: You are an author yourself, you will reply. Yes, for my sins; and my ill deeds, which I think I have fully expiated, are no reason why others should be like me. I do not write to excuse my faults, but to prevent my readers from copying them.] With the exception of these and others like them, let him choose his own trade, I do not mean to interfere with his choice. I would rather have him a shoemaker than a poet, I would rather he paved streets than painted flowers on china. "But," you will say, "policemen, spies, and hangmen are useful people." There would be no use for them if it were not for the government. But let that pass. I was wrong. It is not enough to choose an honest trade, it must be a trade which does not develop detestable qualities in the mind, qualities incompatible with humanity. To return to our original expression, "Let us choose an honest trade," but let us remember there can be no honesty without usefulness.