1. From many of these old-fashioned schools boys and girls were apprenticed. Connected with old parishes there are still funds for so placing out boys and girls.

2. All through the Middle Ages the only way by which a man could become a craftsman was by being first of all an apprentice, and the rules by which a lad was bound to a master were very strict. Things did not alter much in this respect in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. An apprentice was always bound for seven years in the presence of magistrates. The master had to find his apprentice in food, clothing, lodging, and to instruct him in his art, or "mystery" as it was called. The apprentice lived in his master's house, and was bound to serve him.

3. His master could chastise him if he was idle or "saucy", and even have him sent to the house of correction for further punishment. Both masters and apprentices could complain of each other to the magistrates at the Quarter Sessions, and the hearing of the complaints often took up a lot of time. According to many of the complaints, of which records still exist, some of the apprentices must have had rather a hard time—"seven years, hard". Some complained of having to eat mouldy cheese and rotten meat; others, of their ragged clothes; others, that their masters beat them with pokers, hammers, pint-pots, to say nothing of whips and sticks; prevented them from going to church; and others, that their masters turned them out-of-doors, or ran away and left them. The masters, on their side, often complain that their apprentices are idle, that they rob them, that they stop out at night and keep company with bad characters, and so on. So it seems they did not always get on well together.

4. But then there were the others—those who made the best of it. Where the master did his duty, and the apprentice took pains to learn, they got on pretty well together. It was not an easy life for the apprentice, but it made him a craftsman.

5. In some parts of the country, in manufacturing districts, there were little schools where children were taught straw-plait and lace-making. Then, especially in villages, the parish clerk, or some old lady, kept a small school, in which a few boys and girls picked up a little reading, writing, and arithmetic.

6. Elementary schools, out of which our present schools have grown, began about a century ago. Many and great changes have taken place since then, and knowledge is within the reach of every boy or girl to-day.

Summary.—Many boys and girls were put out as apprentices from old charity schools, and many parishes have still funds for apprenticing boys and girls to trades. For centuries a man could only become a craftsman who had been an apprentice. The apprentice had to serve for seven years, and the life was often very hard and trying, but it made good craftsmen in many cases. There were plait schools and lace-making schools in some parts of the country, and almost every village had its little school taught by the parish clerk or an old lady. Our present elementary schools began less than a century ago, and they have passed through many changes already.