y of it was
unnecessary, or might have been done in a better way. Let him notice
Crusoe's mistakes and avoid them under like circumstances. He will
very likely plan for himself surroundings like Crusoe's,--a real castle
in the air, natural at his happy age when we think ourselves rich if we
are free and have the necessaries of life. How useful this hobby might
be made if some man of sense would only suggest it and turn it to good
account! The child, eager to build a storehouse for his island, would
be more desirous to learn than his master would be to teach him. He
would be anxious to know everything he could make use of, and nothing
besides. You would not need to guide, but to restrain him.

Here Rousseau insists upon giving a child some trade, no matter what
his station in life may be; and in 1762 he uttered these prophetic
words, remarkable indeed, when we call to mind the disorders at the
close of that century:--

You trust to the present condition of society, without reflecting that
it is subject to unavoidable revolutions, and that you can neither
foresee nor prevent what is to affect the fate of your own children.
The great are brought low, the poor are made rich, the king becomes a
subject. Are the blows of fate so uncommon that you can expect to
escape them? We are approaching a crisis, the age of revolutions. Who
can tell what will become of you then? All that man has done man may
destroy. No characters but those stamped by nature are ineffaceable;
and nature did not make princes, or rich men, or nobles.

This advice was followed. In the highest grades of society it became
the fashion to learn some handicraft. It is well known that Louis XVI.
was proud of his skill as a locksmith. Among the exiles of a later
period, many owed their living to the trade they had thus learned.

To return to Emile: Rousseau selects for him the trade of a joiner, and
goes so far as to employ him and his tutor in that kind of labor for
one or more days of every week under a master who pays them actual
wages for their work.

Judging from Appearances. The Broken Stick.

If I have thus far made myself understood, you may see how, with
regular physical exercise and manual labor, I am at the same time
giving my pupil a taste for reflection and meditation. This will
counterbalance the indolence which might result from his indifference
to other men and from the dormant state of his passions. He must work
lik