It&#x27;s fairly difficult to find someone who cares enough to mentor you. They can&#x27;t buy stock in your person, they are busy with things in their life, they don&#x27;t have much power over you so they can&#x27;t quite be sure to get even a short-term payoff.<p>It might work if the pupil is willing to just do the bidding of the master to relief him from his chores, so that the master has incentive to spend effort on pupil&#x27;s education. I surmise so few students want to play this role that there is no cultural norm to draw from, the concept is too alien.<p>It&#x27;s a pity, too. There ought to be a way to transfer knowledge and skill from one generation to another.