f the business at all times. There is a great deal of difference
between being diligent in the business _in_ the shop, and leading the
whole business _of_ the shop. An apprentice who is diligent may be
master of his business, but should never be master of the shop; the one
is to be useful to his master, the other is to be master of his master;
and, indeed, this shows the absolute necessity of diligence and
application in a tradesman, and how, for want of it, that very thing
which is the blessing of another tradesman's business is the ruin of
his.

Servants, especially apprentices, ought to be considered, as they really
are, in their moveable station, that they are here with you but seven
years, and that then they act or move in a sphere or station of their
own: their diligence is now for you, but ever after it is for
themselves; that the better servants they have been while they were with
you, the more dangerous they will be to you when you part; that,
therefore, though you are bound in justice to them to let them into your
business in every branch of it, yet you are not bound to give your
business away to them; the diligence, therefore, of a good servant in
the master's business, should be a spur to the master's diligence to
take care of himself.

There is a great deal of difference also between trusting a servant in
your business, and trusting him with your business: the first is leaving
your business with him, the other is leaving your business to him. He
that trusts a servant in his business, leaves his shop only to him; but
he that leaves his business to his servant, leaves his wife and children
at his disposal--in a word, such a trusting, or leaving the business to
the servant, is no less than a giving up all to him, abandoning the care
of his shop and all his affairs to him; and when such a servant is out
of his time, the master runs a terrible risk, such as, indeed, it is not
fit any tradesman should run--namely, of losing the best of his
business.

What I have been now saying, is of the tradesman leaving his business to
his apprentices and servants, when they prove good, when they are honest
and diligent, faithful, and industrious; and if there are dangers even
in trusting good servants, and such as do their duty perfectly well,
what, then, must it be when the business is left to idle, negligent, and
extravagant servants, who both neglect their masters' business and their
own, who neither learn their trade f