An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of

106

The Wealth of Nations

ploy an improper person, is evidently as impertinent as it is op-

pressive.

The institution of long apprenticeships can give no security that

insufficient workmanship shall not frequently be exposed to pub-

lic sale. When this is done, it is generally the effect of fraud, and

not of inability; and the longest apprenticeship can give no secu-

rity against fraud. Quite different regulations are necessary to pre-

vent this abuse. The sterling mark upon plate, and the stamps

upon linen and woollen cloth, give the purchaser much greater

security than any statute of apprenticeship. He generally looks at

these, but never thinks it worth while to enquire whether the work-

man had served a seven years apprenticeship.

The institution of long apprenticeships has no tendency to form

young people to industry. A journeyman who works by the piece

is likely to be industrious, because he derives a benefit from every

exertion of his industry. An apprentice is likely to be idle, and

almost always is so, because he has no immediate interest to be

otherwise. In the inferior employments, the sweets of labour con-

sist altogether in the recompence of labour. They who are soonest

in a condition to enjoy the sweets of it, are likely soonest to con-

ceive a relish for it, and to acquire the early habit of industry. A

young man naturally conceives an aversion to labour, when for a

long time he receives no benefit from it. The boys who are put out

apprentices from public charities are generally bound for more

than the usual number of years, and they generally turn out very

idle and worthless.

Apprenticeships were altogether unknown to the ancients. The

reciprocal duties of master and apprentice make a considerable ar-

ticle in every modern code. The Roman law is perfectly silent with

regard to them. I know no Greek or Latin word (I might venture, I

believe, to assert that there is none) which expresses the idea we now

annex to the word apprentice, a servant bound to work at a particu-

lar trade for the benefit of a master, during a term of years, upon

condition that the master shall teach him that trade.

Long apprenticeships are altogether unnecessary. The arts, which

are much superior to common trades, such as those of making

clocks and watches, contain no such mystery as to require a long

course of instruction. The first invention of such beautiful ma-

chines, indeed, and even that of some of the instruments employed

in making them, must no doubt have been the work of deep

thought and long time, and may justly be considered as among

the happiest efforts of human ingenuity. But when both have been

fairly invented, and are well understood, to explain to any young

man, in the completest manner, how to apply the instruments,

and how to construct the machines, cannot well require more than

the lessons of a few weeks; perhaps those of a few days might be

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107

Adam Smith

sufficient. In the common mechanic trades, those of a few days

might certainly be sufficient. The dexterity of hand, indeed, even

in common trades, cannot be acquired without much practice

and experience. But a young man would practice with much more

diligence and attention, if from the beginning he wrought as a

journeyman, being paid in proportion to the little work which he

could execute, and paying in his turn for the materials which he

might sometimes spoil through awkwardness and inexperience.

His education would generally in this way be more effectual, and

always less tedious and expensive. The master, indeed, would be a

loser. He would lose all the wages of the apprentice, which he now

saves, for seven years together. In the end, perhaps, the apprentice

himself would be a loser. In a trade so easily learnt he would have

more competitors, and his wages, when he came to be a complete

workman, would be much less than at present. The same increase

of competition would reduce the profits of the masters, as well as

the wages of workmen. The trades, the crafts, the mysteries, would

all be losers. But the public would be a gainer, the work of all

artificers coming in this way much cheaper to market.

It is to prevent his reduction of price, and consequently of wages

and profit, by restraining that free competition which would most

certainly occasion it, that all corporations, and the greater part of

corporation laws have been established. In order to erect a corpo-

ration, no other authority in ancient times was requisite, in many

parts of Europe, but that of the town-corporate in which it was

established. In England, indeed, a charter from the king was like-

wise necessary. But this prerogative of the crown seems to have

been reserved rather for extorting money from the subject, than

for the defence of the common liberty against such oppressive

monopolies. Upon paying a fine to the king, the charter seems

generally to have been readily granted; and when any particular

class of artificers or traders thought proper to act as a corporation,

without a charter, such adulterine guilds, as they were called, were

not always disfranchised upon that account, but obliged to fine

annually to the king, for permission to exercise their usurped privi-

leges {See Madox Firma Burgi p. 26 etc.}. The immediate inspec-

tion of all corporations, and of the bye-laws which they might

think proper to enact for their own government, belonged to the

town-corporate in which they were established; and whatever dis-

cipline was exercised over them, proceeded commonly, not from

the king, but from that greater incorporation of which those sub-

ordinate ones were only parts or members.

The government of towns-corporate was altogether in the hands

of traders and artificers, and it was the manifest interest of every

particular class of them, to prevent the market from being over-

stocked, as they commonly express it, with their own particular

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