![]() ![]() After supper they spend an hour in some diversion, in summer in their gardens, and in winter in the halls where they eat, where they entertain each other either with music or discourse. It is ordinary to have public lectures every morning before daybreak, at which none are obliged to appear but those who are marked out for literature yet a great many, both men and women, of all ranks, go to hear lectures of one sort or other, according to their inclinations: but if others that are not made for contemplation, choose rather to employ themselves at that time in their trades, as many of them do, they are not hindered, but are rather commended, as men that take care to serve their country. ![]() The chief, and almost the only, business of the Syphogrants is to take care that no man may live idle, but that every one may follow his trade diligently yet they do not wear themselves out with perpetual toil from morning to night, as if they were beasts of burden, which as it is indeed a heavy slavery, so it is everywhere the common course of life amongst all mechanics except the Utopians: but they, dividing the day and night into twenty-four hours, appoint six of these for work, three of which are before dinner and three after they then sup, and at eight o’clock, counting from noon, go to bed and sleep eight hours: the rest of their time, besides that taken up in work, eating, and sleeping, is left to every man’s discretion yet they are not to abuse that interval to luxury and idleness, but must employ it in some proper exercise, according to their various inclinations, which is, for the most part, reading. ![]() When he has learned both, he follows that which he likes best, unless the public has more occasion for the other. The same trade generally passes down from father to son, inclinations often following descent: but if any man’s genius lies another way he is, by adoption, translated into a family that deals in the trade to which he is inclined and when that is to be done, care is taken, not only by his father, but by the magistrate, that he may be put to a discreet and good man: and if, after a person has learned one trade, he desires to acquire another, that is also allowed, and is managed in the same manner as the former. Women, for the most part, deal in wool and flax, which suit best with their weakness, leaving the ruder trades to the men. Every family makes their own clothes but all among them, women as well as men, learn one or other of the trades formerly mentioned. The fashion never alters, and as it is neither disagreeable nor uneasy, so it is suited to the climate, and calculated both for their summers and winters. Throughout the island they wear the same sort of clothes, without any other distinction except what is necessary to distinguish the two sexes and the married and unmarried. ![]() Besides agriculture, which is so common to them all, every man has some peculiar trade to which he applies himself such as the manufacture of wool or flax, masonry, smith’s work, or carpenter’s work for there is no sort of trade that is in great esteem among them. Agriculture is that which is so universally understood among them that no person, either man or woman, is ignorant of it they are instructed in it from their childhood, partly by what they learn at school, and partly by practice, they being led out often into the fields about the town, where they not only see others at work but are likewise exercised in it themselves. ![]()
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