Sancho, again, barring likewise his oddities, is the peasant of all countries; studying to live as well as he can, and labour as little as he may. In short, a mind continually occupied about personal wants, and alive to personal interest. In the middle ranks of society there is no such similarity. -=- [end of page #218] apply at all to the middling classes, nor even to the most wealthy class of labourers in a manufacturing country: in those we can find no fixed character; it is as variable as the circumstances in which the individuals are placed, and it is there that a government should interfere. It should interfere in guiding the richer classes of working people, and the middling ranks, in the education of their children, and in assisting those of the lower orders, who are too much pressed upon by indigence. The end in view in all education is to make the persons, whether men or women, fill their place well and properly in life; and this is only to be done by setting a good example, instilling good principles, accustoming them, when young, to good habits; and, above all, by teaching them how to gain more than they are habituated to spend. It follows from this, that industry, and a trade, are the chief parts of education, that reading and writing are not, being but of a very doubtful utility to the labouring class of society. On this subject, it is absolutely necessary to advert to what Dr. Smith says relative to apprenticeships; the opinion of so great a writer is of too much importance not to be examined, and refuted, if found wrong. 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}