ABSTRACT
Today, when in every country which would count itself educationally respectable, school guidance and vocational guidance services already exist or are being rapidly built up, the story of how Jean-Jacques at the age of thirteen or fourteen was ‘guided’ by his relations into a job is a sad one. But, of course, it was typical of what went on all over the world until a generation or two ago:
After my return to Geneva, I lived for two or three years with my uncle, waiting until my friends had decided what was to be done with me. As he intended his own son to be an engineer, my uncle made him learn a litde drawing and taught him the elements of Euclid. I learned these subjects together with him, and acquired a taste for them, especially for drawing. In the meantime, it was debated whether I should be a watchmaker, an attorney, or a minister. My own preference was for the last, for preaching seemed to me a very fine thing; but the small income from my mother’s property, which had to be divided between my brother and myself, was not sufficient to allow me to pursue my studies. As, considering my age at that time, there was no immediate need to decide, I remained for the present with my uncle, making little use of my time and, in addition, as was only fair, paying a tolerably large sum for my board. My uncle, a man of pleasure like my father, was unable, like him, to tie himself down to his duties, and troubled himself little enough about us. My aunt was somewhat of a pietist, and prepared to sing psalms rather than attend to our education. We were allowed almost absolute freedom, which we never abused. Always inseparable, we were quite contented with our own society; and having no temptation to make companions of the street boys of our own age, we learned none of the habits into which idleness might have led us. I am even wrong in saying that we were idle, for we were never less so in our lives; and the most fortunate thing was, that all the ways of amusing ourselves, with which we 11successively became infatuated, kept us busy in the house, without our even being tempted to go out into the street. We made cages, flutes, shuttlecocks, drums, houses, squirts and cross-bows. We spoilt my good old grandfather’s tools in trying to make watches, as he did. We had a special taste for wasting paper, drawing, painting in water colours…
Thus the most valuable time of my boyhood was wasted in follies, before my future career had been decided upon. After long deliberation as to the bent of my natural inclination, a profession was determined upon for which I had the least taste; I was put with M. Masseron, the town-clerk, in order to learn, under his tuition, the useful trade of a ‘fee-grabber - the slang term for a lawyer. This nickname was extremely distasteful to me; the hope of gaining a number of crowns in a somewhat sordid business by no means flattered my pride; the occupation itself appeared to me wearisome and unendurable; the constant application, the feeling of servitude completed my dislike, and I never entered the office without a feeling of horror, which daily increased in intensity. M. Masseron, on his part, was ill-satisfied with me, and treated me with contempt; he continually reproached me with my dullness and stupidity, dinning into my ears every day that my uncle had told him that I knew something, whereas, in reality, I knew nothing; that he had promised him a sharp lad, and had given him a jackass. At last I was dismissed from the office in disgrace as being utterly incapable, and M. Masseron’s clerks declared that I was good for nothing except to handle a file.
My calling being thus settled, I was apprenticed, not, however, to a watchmaker but to an engraver.
