Career Change
An unemployed French labourer was amazed when a friend suggested becoming a French master to refined English ladies.
1859
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
An unemployed French labourer was amazed when a friend suggested becoming a French master to refined English ladies.
1859
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
Samuel Smiles’s Self-Help; with Illustrations of Conduct and Perseverance (1859, 1866) was a book suited to a time of social change. For centuries, the elite had dictated a man’s trade and harvested most of the fruits of his labour, but the Industrial Revolution was changing all that. Smiles gave an example of just what was now possible in a free country.
abridged
WE have been informed of an equally striking instance of perseverance and application in learning on the part of a French political exile in London. His original occupation was that of a stonemason, at which he found employment for some time; but work becoming slack, he lost his place, and poverty stared him in the face. In his dilemma he called upon a fellow exile, profitably engaged in teaching French, and consulted him what he ought to do to earn a living. The answer was, “Become a professor!”
“A professor?” answered the mason — “I, who am only workman, speaking but a patois! Surely you are jesting?” “On the contrary, I am quite serious,” said the other, “and again I advise you become a professor; place yourself under me, and I will undertake to teach you how to teach others.” “No, no!” replied the mason, “it is impossible; I am too old to learn; I am too little of a scholar; I cannot be a professor.”
He went away, and again he tried to obtain employment at his trade.
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
There was political unrest in France. A Frenchman man moved to London. He worked as a stonemason.
See if you can include one or more of these words in your answer.
IEarn. IIEmigrate. IIIRefugee.