Apprenticeships, or teaching a trade, is the basis of the future happiness and prosperity of the individual in the lower and middle classes.  On this subject, however, Mr. Smith says quite the contrary.  That the idleness of apprentices is well known, that their inducement to industry is small, and that, as to what they have to learn, a few weeks, or sometimes a few days, would, in most cases, be sufficient.  In short, he maintains, that they would learn better, be more industrious and useful, if employed on wages, than if bound for a term of years; and, finally, that there were no apprentices amongst the ancients.  As to there being no apprentices in the ancient world, if that was the case, is no argument with respect to the present state of things; for, while most part of working men were slaves, there could not possibly be much occasion for apprentices; but are we quite certain, that the freed men, so often mentioned, were not people who had served apprenticeships?  Freed men are so often mentioned, that there must have been probably something else to which they owed their freedom, besides the goodwill or [end of page #219] caprice of their masters, particularly as that goodwill must have been exercised to deserving objects, and consequently the sacrifice made in giving liberty was the greater. {176}

As men cultivated difficult arts; that is, as luxury increased, it must have become difficult to get labour done by slaves, merely by compulsive means; there must have been bargain and mutual interest settled between the master and the slave, so as to accomplish the end intended. {177} Amongst rewards to a slave, liberty, at a certain period, is not only the greatest, but is the only one that effectually serves the slave; for, while he remains the property of a master, his rewards can consist of little else than good treatment, as all property given is liable to be taken back again.

Supposing, however, the point yielded, and that there were no apprentices in the early ages; but that the practice originated in the days of ignorance; in the dark ages, under the feudal system, together with the invention of corporations and privileged bodies, against whose existence the whole set of economists have leagued together, as the Greeks did against Troy; still the obscurity of the origin is no objection.  A constitution like that of Britain, for example, is not an invention of antiquity; it took its rise in the dark ages and in times of ignorance, but it is not for that the less an object of admiration.  Many other examples may be furnished of the admirable things that took rise in the dark ages; and amongst them, not the least, is the abolition of slavery itself. {178}

Let us, however, examine the effect of apprenticeships in those places where they can be compared with persons brought up entirely free.

—–­ {176} We may form some idea of the difficulty of getting work done by people in no way interested in the success, by the workhouses in this country.  The smallest quantity, and of the most simple nature, is all we get done, because the overseers are ignorant, and the nation inattentive, and the labour compulsive.