Whether the refinement of a college education may give a more sublime complexion of respectability to the practice, and divest it of the distinguished appellation of "_horse-doctor_," with its collateral indignities, time alone must ascertain; it becoming here applicable only to consider the state and condition of those who have hitherto _voluntarily_ placed their children to so laborious, so hazardous, and so unprofitable an employment. The _poor_ most probably feel equal parental affection with the RICH, and would consequently venture as far to prevent their offspring from embarking in a service of danger: thus, then, it evidently is, the eyes of the most indigent, and the most illiterate, are equally open, and require not to be told, that the trade is a trade of constant labour, some danger, and little profit: they, of course, reject it with contempt; and it has been very weakly supplied even from the confines of a cottage, or the walls of a workhouse. If there can possibly remain "a doubt to hang a loop upon," let a moment's reflection solve the question, whether it can with consistency be conceived, that any man, in moderate circumstances, who had given his son a tolerable education, and had merely a few hundreds to give him, at the hour of his own dissolution, would ever, for one hour, indulge the idea or intent of placing him to a _blacksmith_? According to the principles and facts already laid down, it is to be presumed, that a circumstance so truly paradoxical and heterogeneous, has not often occurred, and, from present appearances, is not likely to be often repeated.