Locke: Trade

Some Thoughts Concerning Education - by John Locke, 1693

§ 201 Trade. I have one more thing to add, which as soon as I mention I shall run the danger to be suspected to have forgot what I am about, and what I have above written concerning education, which has all tended towards a gentleman's calling, with which a trade seems wholly to be inconsistent. And yet, I cannot forbear to say, I would have him learn a trade, a manual trade; nay, two or three, but one more particularly.

§ 202 The busy inclination of children being always to be directed to something that may be useful to them, the advantage may be considered of two kinds: 1. Where the skill itself, that is got by exercise, is worth the having. Thus skill not only in languages and learned sciences, but in painting, turning, gardening, tempering and working in iron, and all other useful arts, is worth the having. 2. Where the exercise itself, without any consideration, is necessary or useful for health. Knowledge in some things is so necessary to be got by children whilst they are young, that some part of their time is to be allotted to their improvement in them, though those employments contribute nothing at all to their health: such are reading and writing, and all other sedentary studies, for the improvement of the mind, and are the unavoidable business of gentlemen quite from their cradles. Other manual arts, which are both got and exercised by labour, do many of them by their exercise contribute to our health too, especially such as employ us in the open air. In these, then, health and improvement may be joined together, and of these should some fit ones be chosen, to be made the recreations of one, whose chief business is with books and study. In this choice, the age and inclination of the person is to be considered, and constraint always to be avoided in bringing him to it. For command and force may often create, but can never cure an aversion; and whatever any one is brought to by compulsion he will leave as soon as he can, and be little profited, and less recreated by, whilst he is at it.

§ 203 Painting. That which of all others would please me best would be a painter, were there not an argument or two against it not easy to be answered. First, ill painting is one of the worst things in the world; and to attain a tolerable degree of skill in it, requires too much of a man's time. If he has a natural inclination to it, it will endanger the neglect of all other more useful studies, to give way to that; and if he have no inclination to it, all the time, pains and money that shall be employed in it will be thrown away to no purpose. Another reason why I am not for painting in a gentleman is because it is a sedentary recreation, which more employs the mind than the body. A gentleman's more serious employment I look on to be study; and when that demands relaxation and refreshment, it should be in some exercise of the body, which unbends the thought and confirms the health and strength. For these two reasons I am not for painting.

§ 204 Gardening-Joiner. In the next place, for a country gentleman, I should propose one, or rather both these - viz., gardening and working in wood, as a carpenter, joiner, or turner, as being fit and healthy recreations for a man of study or business. For since the mind endures not to be constantly employed in the same thing or way; and sedentary or studious men should have some exercise, that at the same time might divert their minds and employ their bodies; I know none that could do better for a country gentleman than these two, the one of them affording him exercise, when the weather or season keeps him from the other. Besides, that, by being skilled in the one of them, he will be able to govern and teach his gardener; by the other, contrive and make a great many things both of delight and use: though these I propose not as the chief ends of his labour, but as temptations to it: diversion from his other more serious thoughts and employments by useful and healthy manual exercise being what I chiefly aim at in it.

§ 205 The great men among the ancients understood very well how to reconcile manual labour with affairs of state, and thought it no lessening to their dignity to make the one the recreation to the other. That indeed which seems most generally to have employed and diverted their spate hours, was agriculture. Gideon among the Jews was taken from threshing, as well as Cincinnatus amongst the Romans, from the plough, to command the armies of their countries against their enemies; and 'tis plain their dexterous handling of the flail or the plough, and being good workmen with their tools, did not hinder their skill in arms, nor make them less able in the arts of war or government. They were great captains and statesmen, as well as husbandmen. Cato major, who had with great reputation born all the great offices of the commonwealth, has left us an evidence under his own hand, how much he was versed in country affairs; and, as I remember, Cyrus thought gardening so little beneath the dignity and grandeur of a throne, that he showed Xenophon a large field of fruit-trees, all of his own planting. The records of antiquity, both amongst Jews and Gentiles, are full of instances of this kind, if it were necessary to recommend useful recreations by examples.