On the use and abuse of apprenticeship

Abstract

Any satisfactory solution of the various questions arising out of the custom of apprenticeship, must be based on a species of statistical knowledge which nobody has been, as yet, at the trouble of collecting. But I also think that the statistical inquiry itself may be rendered more compendious and fruitful, by distinctly stating what are the questions that have to be settled, and by putting them in certain points of view which have perhaps been hitherto not sufficiently attended to. This I shall endeavour to accomplish, and however imperfect may be my success in a subject which has been so much neglected by political economists, I trust that much benefit will accrue at all events from evoking the discussion of it in this Society.