754 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
an apprenticeship in a business, craft or art, albeit compulsory. Unmitigated slavery with nothing to compensate the loss of freedom is of course to be condemned. But to enslave a person and to train him is certainly better than a state of barbarity accompanied by freedom. Slavery did mean an exchange of semi-barbarism for civilization, a vague enough gift but none the less real. The full opportunities for civilized life could only be fully used in freedom, no doubt, but slavery was an apprenticeship, or in the words of Prof. Myres “an initiation into a higher culture”.
This view of slavery is eminently a correct view. This training, this initiation of culture was undoubtedly a great benefit to the slave. Equally it involved considerable cost to the master to train his slave, to initiate him into culture. “There can have been little supply of slaves, educated or trained, before enslavement. The alternative was to train them when young slaves in domestic work or in skilled craft, as was indeed done to some extent before the Empire, by Cato, the Elder, for example. The training was done by his owner and his existing staff indeed the household of the rich contained special pedagogy for this purpose. Such training took many forms : industry, trade, arts and letter”.
The question is why was the slave initiated into the high culture and why did it not fall to the lot of the untouchable to be so initiated ? The question is very pertinent and I have raised it because the answer to the question will further reinforce the conclusion that has been reached namely that untouchability is worse than slavery and that is because the slave had a personality and the untouchable has not.
The reason why the master took so much trouble to train the slave and to initiate him in the higher forms of labour and culture was undoubtedly the motive of gain. A skilled slave as an item was more valuable than an unskilled slave. If sold he would fetch better price, if hired out he would bring in more wages. It was therefore an Investment to the owner to train his slave. But this is not enough to account for the elevation of the slave and the degradation of the untouchable. Suppose Roman society had an objection to buy vegetables, milk, butter, water or wine from the hands of the slave ? Suppose Roman society had an objection to