APPRENTICES
1. From many of these old-fashioned schools boys and girls were
apprenticed. Connected with old parishes there are still funds for so
placing out boys and girls.
2. All through the Middle Ages the only way by which a man could
become a craftsman was by being first of all an =apprentice=, and the
rules by which a lad was bound to a master were very strict. Things
did not alter much in this respect in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and
eighteenth centuries. An apprentice was always bound for seven years in
the presence of magistrates. The master had to find his apprentice in
food, clothing, lodging, and to instruct him in his art, or "mystery"
as it was called. The apprentice lived in his master's house, and was
bound to serve him.
3. His master could chastise him if he was idle or "saucy", and even
have him sent to the house of correction for further punishment. Both
masters and apprentices could complain of each other to the magistrates
at the Quarter Sessions, and the hearing of the complaints often
took up a lot of time. According to many of the complaints, of which
records still exist, some of the apprentices must have had rather a
hard time--"seven years, hard". Some complained of having to eat mouldy
cheese and rotten meat; others, of their ragged clothes; others, that
their masters beat them with pokers, hammers, pint-pots, to say nothing
of whips and sticks; prevented them from going to church; and others,
that their masters turned them out-of-doors, or ran away and left them.
The masters, on their side, often complain that their apprentices are
idle, that they rob them, that they stop out at night and keep company
with bad characters, and so on. So it seems they did not always get on
well together.
4. But then there were the others--those who made the best of it.
Where the master did his duty, and the apprentice took pains to learn,
they got on pretty well together. It was not an easy life for the
apprentice, but it made him a craftsman.
5. In some parts of the country, in manufacturing districts, there
were little schools where children were taught =straw-plait= and
=lace-making=. Then, especially in villages, the parish clerk, or some
old lady, kept a =small school=, in which a few boys and girls picked
up a little reading, writing, and arithmetic.
6. =Elementary schools=, out of which our present schools have grown,
began about a century ago. Many and great changes have taken place
since then, and knowledge is within the reach of every boy or girl
to-day.
=Summary.=--Many boys and girls were put out as _apprentices_
from old charity schools, and many parishes have still funds for
apprenticing boys and girls to trades. For centuries a man could
only become a craftsman who had been an apprentice. The apprentice
had to serve for seven years, and the life was often very hard
and trying, but it made good craftsmen in many cases. There were
_plait schools_ and _lace-making_ schools in some parts of the
country, and almost every village had its _little school_ taught
by the parish clerk or an old lady. Our present _elementary
schools_ began less than a century ago, and they have passed
through many changes already.