Latter Day Saints' Messenger and Advocate/Volume 3/Number 6/Duties of Masters to Apprentices

DUTIES OF MASTERS TO APPRENTICES.

The following capital remarks on this subject are from a late charge to the Grand Jury of his Court by the Recorder of Philadelphia. The neglect of the manners and morals among apprentices, is undoubtedly among the leading causes of the increase of vice and crime in our day and the subject is here well presented:

"Apprenticeship is a term of probation, and should be made the scene of vigorous exertion & moral study. When therefore, we see the corners of our streets beset after the night fall of each evening by crowds of idlers, we cannot but regret the carelessness of the master, and the danger of the apprentice. When every moment that is exempt from labor is devoted to studied idleness, among ignorant and depraved companions, we cannot wonder that worthless habits should ensue. The gathered bands remove, in process of time, to the door of the tavern. The jests are soon pointed with ribald obscenity, and their language swelled with boasting profanity, until citizens shrink and shudder as they pass. The beer house or the brothel next becomes the scene of their mispent [misspent] hours. The Sabbaths and evenings are passed amid debauchery and vice; they return each morning enfeebled and disgusted to their labor. Thus they wear out their term of service. Their minds are left to ignorance, and their manners to debasement. They become men with minds and bodies diseased -without industry, ambition, or character-and sink into that class from which the dockets of our courts and the cells of our prisons, are filled. The causes of these evils are no doubt manifold. There are, and necessarily must be, in a crowded city, many resources of demoralization. But as the law gives the master the power to protect the morals of his apprentice it makes it also his duty-a duty from which nothing can excuse him. The man who takes an apprentice, voluntarily assumes towards him the relation of a father. Such is the light in which the law regards the master and apprentice. Humanity also dictates that in removing a child from his parental roof, the master should supply the place of a parent; instruct and guide his inexperience, and watch and protect him as a child. Such a course would not only render the apprentice an ornament to society but would fill his bosom with gratitude to his master, and naturally inspire him with a desire to repay the kindness of his benefactor. No master should take an apprentice unless prepared to discharge these duties."