It was the custom then to
regard boys as little animals, possessed of a capacity for hard work,
but without any reasoning powers of their own. To the adage that
"children should be seen and not heard," the good people of that day
added another clause, in effect, "and should never pretend to think for
themselves." It was this profound conviction that induced parents and
guardians, in so many instances, to disregard the wishes of the children
committed to their care, and to condemn so many to lives for which they
were utterly unfitted. So it was with the guardian of Chauncey Jerome.
He listened to the boy's expression of a preference, it is true, but
paid no attention to it, and ended by apprenticing his ward to a
carpenter.
The life of an apprentice is always hard, and in those days it was
especially so. No negro slave ever worked harder, and but few fared
worse, so far as their bodily comfort was concerned, than the New
England apprentices of the olden time. Masters seemed almost to regard
the lads indentured to them as their property, and in return for the
support they gave them exacted from them the maximum amount of work they
were capable of performing.
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