In Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, completed in 1829, Wilhelm talks with the character Montan. Wilhelm objects that a many-sided education has been held to be useful and necessary. Montan replies: Ja, es ist jetzo die Zeit der Einseitigkeiten; wohl dem, der es begreift, für sich und andere in diesem Sinne wirkt. Yes, now is the age of one-sidedness. Happy is he who understands it and works in this spirit for himself and for others. A little later he says: Sich auf ein Handwerk zu beschränken, ist das Beste. To restrict oneself to one craft is the best. At the end of The Protestant Ethic, Max Weber referred to the Wanderjahre. Restriction to specialized work, he wrote, is in today’s world the condition of any valuable action.