Fortunately for him, he had a teacher, Valentine Jeune by name, the son of French Protestants, who was better fitted for his position than the majority of the more liberally-patronized Catholic instructors. He was well taught by Valentine Jeune in the rudiments of a plain education, and the tutor and the Protestant minister of the village together succeeded so well in his religious instruction that at the age of fourteen he was confirmed. Confirmation is the decisive point in the career of the German youth. Until then he is only a child. Afterward he is regarded as on the threshold of manhood, and is given to understand that the time has come for him to make choice of a career in life. To the German peasant two courses only lie open, to learn a trade or go out to service. John Jacob was resolved not to do the latter, and he was in no condition to adopt the former. He was already familiar with his father's trade, but he shrank from it with disgust, and he could not hope to obtain money enough to pay for his tuition as an apprentice in any other calling. No workman in the village would receive him as an apprentice for less than fifty dollars, and fifty dollars were then further beyond his reach than as many millions in after years. The harvest was approaching, and Jacob Astor, seeing an unusual amount of work in store for him at that season, decided the matter for his son by informing him that he must prepare to settle down as his assistant. He obeyed, but discontentedly, and with a determination to abandon his home at the earliest practicable moment.