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. {177} In Egypt, and most other ancient countries, the son followed, by law, the trade of his father: this was equivalent to an apprenticeship. {178} Whether it arose from the mixture of a northern with the southern people, or from what other cause, it is certain, that, during the ages of ignorance, the foundation was laid for almost all that is great, at the present time. -=- [end of page #220]