Supplement to the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica/Apprenticeship
APPRENTICESHIP. The Encyclopædia contains an account of the rules by which apprenticeships are regulated in different countries, together with a view of the objections urged by Dr Smith, against the utility of the engagement concluded between the apprentice and his master.
Dr Smith considers the institution of apprenticeships as a device, by which trading corporations endeavour to confine to as few hands as possible the mystery of their craft, and by which, keeping the market always understocked with their particular sort of labour, they expect to regulate according to their discretion the price of such manufactures as they bring to market. He accordingly condemns all those laws which limit the number of apprentices, to be taken by each master in particular trades, or which prescribe to apprentices a certain term of service before they are permitted to work as journeymen. The tendency of such laws, he observes, is to restrain the competition to a much smaller number than might otherwise be disposed to enter into the trade; the limitations of the number of apprentices restraining it directly, and a long apprenticeship restraining it indirectly, but as effectually, by increasing the expence of education. Long apprenticeships, or indeed any apprenticeship, for however short a term, Dr Smith considers quite unnecessary, as the nicest mechanical arts, such as the making of clocks and watches, contain, according to his theory, no such mystery as to require a long course of instruction. A few weeks, he calculates, or even a few days, would be sufficient to enable a mechanic to set to work in any of those trades; and if he were paid the full price for his work, he paying of course for such materials as he might spoil through awkwardness and inexperience, he imagines that he would learn his business more effectually, and be more apt to acquire habits of attention and industry, than when he works under a master who has a right to share in the produce of his labour.
It may be generally remarked, however, that, in his reasonings on these subjects, Dr Smith seems uniformly disposed to overrate the practical effect of those expedients by which corporations have been always endeavouring to secure special advantages for particular trades; and that his theory respecting apprenticeships is only a part of that more general theory, by which he endeavours to show that the policy of Europe has always been to encourage the industry of the towns at the expence of that of the country; and that the effect of this policy has been to enable the merchants and manufacturers of the town, in bartering their produce for that of the country, to levy, for several centuries, an unjust and oppressive tax on the agricultural classes of the community. We know, however, that, according to the nature of human society, as it is so admirably explained in Dr Smith's work, monopoly can never succeed on so great a scale; and, on the same principle, we may rationally question if the contract between the apprentice and his master were merely the device of corporations, whether it ever could have come into such universal use throughout Europe. The engagement by which the apprentice is bound to his master, is his own voluntary act. He agrees to bind himself to work to his master at an inferior rate, on condition of receiving from his master the necessary instruction in his business. This instruction, Dr Smith asserts, may be given him in the course of a few days or weeks. It is well known, however, to every practical tradesman, or to any one acquainted with the nature of mechanical employments, that the instruction of three days or weeks would scarcely teach an apprentice the name of his tools, and that almost all the mechanical trades require, throughout their various operations, such nicety and exactness, that the necessary habits are not formed by the training of years, in place of weeks or days. It is for the troublesome superintendence of the apprentice during this period that the master exacts compensation, without which he would employ none but finished workmen. But he puts up with the awkwardness of his apprentice, because he expects to be benefited by his labour after he shall be better instructed in his business; on the same principle that the farmer lays out his capital on the improvement of his land, in expectation of a future increase of produce. The contract of apprenticeship is thus a voluntary agreement between two parties for their mutual benefit, the result neither of law nor of the usages of petty corporations, but of circumstances. The law, indeed, takes cognizance of the contract, and enforces its fulfilment; and it may also have encumbered it with absurd regulations. But the contract itself stands independent both of law and usage, having its origin in the plainest principles of reciprocal expediency. There seems no reason therefore to class it with those artificial expedients which originate in the exclusive spirit of trading corporations.
Dr Smith appears also to have greatly overrated the effects of those laws, the object of which is to limit the number of apprentices which shall be reared to particular trades. No law of any corporation will ever be found in practice to impose any limitation on the number of apprentices which will be trained to a business. It will depend on the state of the business, whether it is advancing, stationary, or declining, what number of apprentices will be bred to it; and if, while a flourishing trade called for a continual supply of new hands, any corporation were to enact a law, limiting the masters to such a number of apprentices as would barely keep up their present stock, a scarcity of hands would soon be felt, wages would rise, and the masters would soon be induced, by regard to their own interest, to rescind the law which imposed so great an inconvenience on themselves. But if the law is thus modified and accommodated to the state of the trade, it is a mere form. It imposes in reality no restraint, since it is always in the power of the masters to alter it whenever they feel that it interferes with their arrangements.
But though the law were even rigidly persisted in, it is evident that it would not permanently diminish the number of apprentices, which would be bred to a business, since the consequence would be, that the workmen would turn masters, and each taking the full allowance of apprentices which the law permits, would soon train up an ample supply of hands. All those petty contrivances of corporations, therefore, though they may originate in the lowest mercantile jealousy, and though they may be exceedingly absurd, cannot materially disturb the general progress of things; and, though they may harass individuals, their effect on the industry of a great country hardly deserves notice; their bad effects being corrected by those general causes on which society depends for completing its arrangements, in spite of the obstacles arising from the mistaken policy of legislators.—See Smith’s Wealth of Nations, with Notes, and an additional volume of Dissertations, by David Buchanan. (O.)