Middlemen in English Business 397 



their apprenticeship, to increase their knowledge and to improve their 

 efficiency." They lived abroad from six to eight years and acted as 

 factors for the home merchants.^ Josiah Child was of the opinion 

 that English merchants in his day did not give their sons and daugh- 

 ters a sufficient training in writing, arithmetic and accounting,^ and 

 ascribed Holland's ascendancy over England in commerce partly to 

 this cause. The 'same opinion was expressed by Postlethwayt a 

 century later.^ It is important to note, therefore, that the EngUsh 

 emphasized rather practical experience than scholastic training in 

 preparation for the mercantile life. 



The Ehzabethan Statute of Apprentices^ required a seven year 

 apprenticeship of all who aspired to exercise the craft or mystery of 

 merchandizing. It specified that no apprentices could be taken by 

 merchants whose parents could not dispend 40 s yearl}- income 

 from landed estate, and, if they Hved in a market town not cor- 

 porate, £3 sterhng. Again in 1638 in the Royal Charter which 

 Charles I gave to London a full seven years' apprenticeship was 

 insisted upon for merchants of London and the environs within ten 

 miles.^ The French had a very detailed and extensive system of 

 mercantile apprenticeship.*^ The "Mystery of this Trade" consisted 

 in knowing the "difference in the qualities of wares,"" the prices and 

 profits that were customary with respect to each, and all the matters 

 and practices of commerce in general. 



The apprentices and journeymen to a tradesman lived in their mas- 

 ter's home. The parents of the candidates were required by the 

 master to give bonds for the good conduct of their children, and also 

 a premium at the time of entering. The premiums increased in 

 amount during the century, especially in the last quarter of the seven- 

 teenth, when it was said they increased a third. The premium which 

 parents were wiUing to pay varied not only with the calibre of the 

 merchant-master and the training given, but also with the chance 

 the master gave the apprentice to make money for his own account 



1 Surtees, 101 : XXIV. 

 - Child, Brief Observations, 1-2. 

 ' Postlethwayt, Diet., s. v. Mercantile College. 

 ' 5 Eliz., Cap. 4, Sees. 27, 29, 31. 

 ° Maitland, I, 315. 



^ See expositions of it in Savary. Par. Neg., 50-63, 1 18-121, 291-5; Postlethwayt, 

 Diet., s. V. Apprenticeship. 



" Barbon, Discourse, 12 Savarj', Par. Negoc, 58-63. 



