It was while the father was in the service of James Thompson, that JOHN BRACEWELL, then a very small boy, was regularly apprenticed to this distinguished manufacturer. The institution of apprenticeship, in anything like its English thoroughness, is little practiced in this country. For a long period in England the term _apprentice_ was applied equally to such as were being taught a trade or a learned profession. The term of seven years was regarded as much a necessity for the learner in any craft, as for the scholar seeking to attain the degree of doctor, or master in the liberal arts. Although the laws which formerly made the apprenticeship compulsory have been abolished in England, yet the principle is universally recognized there in the form of a voluntary contract. Of its immense advantages in the way of securing the most thorough knowledge, and highest skill in the learner, no one can doubt. Mr. John Bracewell, who probably to-day holds the foremost place among those engaged in his business in this country, is a living argument for the excellence of the apprentice system. He began his tutelage as a lad. He began at the lowest round in the ladder of his advancement, and was long and rigidly held at each last until he could safely mount the higher one. There was a very superior French chemist employed in the Primrose Works, and no little of the boy's studies were under him. When eighteen years of age, Mr. Bracewell had established such a reputation for proficiency in the mysteries of color that he was offered a fine position in a great carpet manufactory in France, but his father advised him to decline this flattering offer, feeling that the responsibility was too great for one so young. That subtle but irresistible influence which for so many years has been drawing such tides of population from Europe to America was already settling the question as to the country where this young man was to work out his great success. Only a month after he had declined to go to France, he received and accepted the offer of a position as assistant manager in the Merrimack Print-Works, Lowell, Mass. There he remained five years and a half, winning for himself a distinguished reputation by the energy and skill of his management. Certainly it argues some unusual qualities in his work while there, some extraordinary gifts and capacities in his nature, that could have led the Cocheco Manufacturing Company to call this young man of twenty-three years of age to its most responsible position, that of superintendent of its print-works. There were no less than thirteen applicants for this office. The directors, with entire unanimity, made choice of this youngest of them all, and gave to him the unlimited charge of the most important department of their great industry. Soon after entering upon his new duties, Mr. Bracewell took advantage of the suspension of work in the manufactory, made necessary