Page:Petty 1647 Advice to Hartlib.djvu/29

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For how can it otherwise be? when the Revenues of the State shall be encreased by new and more Customes, all Beggers feeding upon the Labours of other men, and even Theeves and Robbers (made for want of better employment) shall be set on work, barren grounds made fruitfull, wet dry, and dry wet, when even hogs and more indocile beasts shall be taught to labour, when all vile Materials shall be turned to Noble uses, when one man or horse shall do as much as three, and every thing improved to strange Advantages.

  1. There would not then be so many Fustian and Unworthy Preachers in Divinity, so many petti foggers in the Law, so many Quack-salvers in Physick, so many Grammaticasters in Country-schooles, and so many Lazy-serving men in Gentlemens houses, when every man might learne to live otherwise in more plenty and honour. For all men desirous to take paines might by this Book survey all the wayes of Subsistance, and choose out of them all, one that best suits with his own Genius and Abilities.
  2. Schollers now disesteemed for their Poverty (what ever other thing commends them) and unable even for want of lively-hood, to perfect any thing even in their own way, would quickly help themselves, by opening Treasures, with the Key of Lucriferous Inventions.
  3. Boyes in stead of reading hard Hebrew words in the Bible (where they either trample on, or play with Mysteries) or parratlike repeating heteroclitous nounes, and verbs, might read and hear the History of Faculties expounded, so that before they be bound Apprentices to any Trade, they may foreknow the good and bad of it, what will and strength they have to it, and not spend seven years in repenting, and in swimming against the stream of their Inclinations.

All Apprentices by this Book might learn the Theory of their Trades before they are bound to a Master, and consequently may be exempted from the Taedium of a

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