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.
It is certainly a matter of general good, "most devoutly to be wished," that the present exertions to promote an improvement in the veterinary science may be ultimately successful, and that it may also tend rapidly to remove the paltry stigma of disgrace hitherto annexed to the practice; but to do this, more _stimulative_ means must be attempted, than those already adopted, which have held out nothing but a _flattering glare_ of emulation, without the least prospect of additional reward. There needs no "ghost from the grave" to demonstrate an incontrovertible fact, that the _more_ the mind becomes expanded by the sublunary rays of intellectual refinement, the less it is disposed to encounter the subservience of drudgery, and the mortifying sensations of partial indifference and public contempt; from the influence of which impressive contemplation, it becomes conclusive, that very few, if any, who become proficients (at the College or elsewhere) in the study of PHYSIC, ANATOMY, and the peculiar property of medicine, will ever condescend to blend those qualifications so industriously acquired with the _act_ of _shoeing_, but consider themselves in a degree superior to the _leathern apron_, the _vulcanian sledge_, the massy _anvil_, and such inferior offices annexed to the operative department, as will, in all human probability, continue it in the same state of predestined subordination.