Of the apprentice system, as it existed in the time of Henry VIII., Mr. Froude speaks with high approval, and he appears to look with some regret on its decay. (1) The best that can be said is, that it was better than nothing; and how well-soever it may have answered the wants of an earlier period, it gradually became unsuited to the growing necessities of the country. It neither was nor pretended to be a system of education, as we use the expression in these days; and even as a system of industrial training, it was, outside London, where the apprentices very soon became organised and powerful, cruel in its application, irregular and barbarous in its method, and strongly partook of the character of slavery, which was hardly extinct when the early apprenticeship laws were made.

Industrial education was of very early date, beginning in the tenth century in the time of Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, who directed the priests to instruct youth in trades. (2) The chief Apprentice Acts however date from the time of Henry VIII. Acts dealing with the system had been framed previously, some of which encouraged it, while others placed it under restrictions.

Very early in history there were guilds of traders, members of religious orders, having powers which gradually increased, for the regulation of industry, and after the conquest these guilds became very powerful. Apprenticeship was one of their regulations, and the condition of admittance to trade. (3)

With great cunning Edward III. had, about 1337, enticed a large number of Dutch apprentices to England, and scattered them about the country to teach the people the manufacture of cloth. (*) This led to the extension and

1 English History, 1, 44-76, and Short Studies, 263.

2 Hook's Lives of Archbishops, 1, 419.

Spencer's Descriptive Sociology, 4. + Fuller's Church History, 2, 185.

general adoption of the system, and was also the beginning of the cloth manufacture in England.

It was not, however, until the period of the Reformation that laws were passed making apprenticeship necessary. The injunctions of Henry VIII. to the clergy, commanded them to exhort the people to bring up all children to some trade or way of living. (1) The pulpit, however, does not seem to have been effectual for the purpose, and therefore at a later period, justices of the peace, constables, and other authorities, were empowered to take up children between the ages of five and thirteen, who were found begging or idle, and appoint them to masters of husbandry or other crafts. (2)

The Act was aimed at the prevailing vices of the times: idleness and vagabondage, evils which had been very prevalent before the dissolution of the monasteries, but which were suddenly and largely increased by that event. Some idea of the state of the country in this "merry" age may be gathered from the fact that in Henry VIII.'s reign 72,000 people were executed for robbery and theft. (3) The policy was continued and extended by Edward VI. Children "idly wandering about" might be taken by any person before a justice of the peace and straightway apprenticed, and they might even be removed from their parents. A child who ran away from his master might be recaptured and punished in chains, and "used in all points as a slave," and masters were empowered to sell and bequeath the services of such "slave children." (4) In certain cases they became slaves for life. It was thus that the Ministers of Edward VI. undertook to give effect to his pious wish, that children when they came to man's estate might not "loiter" and "neglect," but "think their travail sweet and honest." (") These

1

1 Burnet's History of the Reformation, 1, part 1, 410. 227 Henry VIII., c. 5. 3 Nicholls' History of the Poor Law, 1, 130.

4

* 1 Edward VI., chapter 3.

Burnet's Reformation, 2, part 2, 104.

enactments more than justify Mr. Senior's opinion that the earlier poor laws were "an attempt substantially to restore the expiring system of slavery." (1)

By two statutes of Elizabeth the system was further rivetted upon the country. Churchwardens and overseers had authority, with the assent of justices, to bind all children, whose parents were not able to maintain them, "where they should see convenient."

Persons were compelled by law to receive apprentices, and various Statutes of Labourers restricted the exercise of any manual labour to persons who had been apprenticed for seven years. (2) This latter provision, notwithstanding the attacks of Adam Smith and other political economists, continued in force down to 1814; and the compulsory reception of apprentices was not finally abolished until the reign of the present Queen. Whatsoever individual benefit may have been derived from the apprentice laws, which, under favourable conditions, must have been great, there is every reason to believe that they were generally made the instruments of rapacity and cruelty. There was no obligation upon the masters to give any instruction in letters to their apprentices, and though they formally undertook to teach them their business, they gave generally only as much technical training as enabled them to get from them the fullest amount of labour. The original object and principle of the system was industrial education, but its chief and practical effect soon became the restriction of labour.

It was not until the present century that the health and education of children were taken in any degree under the care of the Government. About 1802, the first Sir Robert Peel, father of the Prime Minister, passed a bill restricting the hours of labour for apprentices in cotton and woollen 1 Edinburgh Review, No. 149, p. 2.

25 Elizabeth, cap. 4. 39 Elizabeth and 43 Elizabeth, cap. 2.

mills, and providing that during the first four years of service, instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic should be given at the expense of the master, in some part of each working day. (1) The act, however, was easily evaded. The letter could be fulfilled by nominal performance, while in practice it was altogether powerless and ineffective. Some small measure of protection was subsequently given to young children by an Act passed in 1819, prohibiting their employment in factories under nine years of age. (2)

In 1833, the exertions of Lord Ashley, the present Earl of Shaftesbury, secured a further reform, and the daily labour of children under thirteen was restricted to eight hours, and that of older children to twelve hours per day. (3) These concessions were regarded, and in the then existing circum ́stances, actually were of great importance and value. (†)

The debates on the early factory bills of this century will satisfy any one how urgently a strong legislative and administrative control was needed. The growth of all branches of manufacturing industry had created a great demand for cheap labour, and as children's labour was the cheapest to be had, it was eagerly sought after. Almost as soon as they could walk, the little children were swept into cotton manufactories. Waggon loads of children were taken from the London streets and apprenticed to manufacturers in Lancashire. In defiance or in evasion of the law, they often began to work at the age of five or six, and the ordinary hours of labour were twelve hours per day, often protracted to fifteen. Such laws as existed failed to guard their health, to provide for their education, to preserve their morals, or to protect their persons from abominable cruelties. Sir Samuel Romilly wrote of them, "the poor children have not a human being in the world to whom they can look up for redress." Their 1 Duke of Newcastle's Commission, Report, 202. 2 Ibid, 202. 3 3 and 4, Wm. IV. c. 103. 4 Walpole's History of England, 3, 208.

enactments more than justify Mr. Senior's opinion that the earlier poor laws were "an attempt substantially to restore the expiring system of slavery." (1)

By two statutes of Elizabeth the system was further rivetted upon the country. Churchwardens and overseers had authority, with the assent of justices, to bind all children, whose parents were not able to maintain them, "where they should see convenient."

Persons were compelled by law to receive apprentices, and various Statutes of Labourers restricted the exercise of any manual labour to persons who had been apprenticed for seven years. (2) This latter provision, notwithstanding the attacks of Adam Smith and other political economists, continued in force down to 1814; and the compulsory reception of apprentices was not finally abolished until the reign of the present Queen. Whatsoever individual benefit may have been derived from the apprentice laws, which, under favourable conditions, must have been great, there is every reason to believe that they were generally made the instruments of rapacity and cruelty. There was no obligation upon the masters to give any instruction in letters to their apprentices, and though they formally undertook to teach them their business, they gave generally only as much technical training as enabled them to get from them the fullest amount of labour. The original object and principle of the system was industrial education, but its chief and practical effect soon became the restriction of labour.

It was not until the present century that the health and education of children were taken in any degree under the care of the Government. About 1802, the first Sir Robert Peel, father of the Prime Minister, passed a bill restricting the hours of labour for apprentices in cotton and woollen 1 Edinburgh Review, No. 149, p. 2.

25 Elizabeth, cap. 4. 39 Elizabeth and 43 Elizabeth, cap. 2.