Did apprentices learn skills from the master artisans?

Answer 1

Certainly. Before there was such a thing as Vocational-Technical Schools this is the primary ways that tradesmen learned their craft. A young man would sign on with a craftsman and work like a slave for this person for little more than room and board in order to learn the skills of the craft from their master. This was the only way to learn there crafts and to pass on the skills from one generation to another. The apprentice was usually a very poor person who had no other way to proceed in life other than to learn in this manner. They had no formal education system early on and even after some were taught basics they still needed the hands on education of the artisan masters.