By Anthony Esolen, Crisis Magazine - Can we have the discussion? A great part of the problem of poverty in our time is that millions of boys, many of them fatherless, are not ready at age eighteen either for college or a trade. Yet I suspect that there is ample untapped demand for the tradesman’s labor. Of course, to learn a trade well you need some virtues that we neglect or scorn: submission to a master, diligence, self-denial, the keeping of promises, and patience. You will not learn these virtues in our schools. You will certainly not learn them from mass entertainment or politics.