In republics today, commerce is also one of the usual occupations of the nobility in times of peace. It is only in monarchies where one thinks differently, imagining that commerce is only suitable for commoners. However, the nobility of France, where they used to be more sensitive about this than in any other Kingdom, was allowed to take (313) an interest in the trading companies that were formed to establish colonies on the Islands of America and to conduct large scale trade[^1] with all parts of the world. Germany should also relax slightly its strictness to facilitate the trade that this great Empire could do with all the nations of the world. And in good faith, managing a trading post should not demean a nobleman any more than managing a score of peasants who plow the fields.
As for the trades, they are in large part derived from the science of mathematics, and this science has never been deemed unworthy of a nobleman. Knowing its application to each trade (314) in particular is as honorable as knowing its principles. Noblemen will not become farmers, merchants, or workers by knowing all the mysteries of these professions, but they will become more useful to the government and to themselves if their minds are nourished[^2] with this knowledge rather than the thousand useless things that they learn and practice.
With regard to the children of commoners and especially of the lower classes,[^3] it is even more necessary to first give them the theory of these three professions in general and then to leave them the choice to embrace and follow the one that most pleases them. The public schools, where we will teach these things that are so necessary and so useful (315) for the state’s wealth, must not be charged to anyone in particular, but everyone must contribute his proportional share to them as to a public expenditure so that the children of the poor are never excluded nor abandoned—because of the powerlessness of their fathers—to roam the streets and ultimately take up a profession that is very harmful to public opulence like that of vagabonds, beggars, and bad people in general. This is more or less what I include in the necessary nourishment[^4] of the mind that the prince must procure for all those who make up the state. Those who are too old to learn any trade will be employed and relieved in a way that I will explain below. (316)
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