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are educated and encouraged to seek other avocations 

 for a living. 



The professions are honorable and indispensable to 

 the wants of business and the good of society. The 

 divine is the messenger of " Peace on ear:h and good 

 will to men." The physician holds the mysteries of the 

 healino; art to mitiorate the infirmities of man. The 

 lawyer, our counsellor and adviser, rectifying our misde- 

 meanors, and wielding the arm of the law for the ends 

 of justice. 



In all these professions men rise to great eminence 

 and usefulness, and we admire them for their learning 

 and their skill. But their number is comparatively few, 

 and the professions are most all crowded, especially those 

 of lawand medicine. The in ducements are so small, and 

 the chances of success being so uncertain, would it not be 

 well for young men to stop and consider before they choose? 

 The greatest rush of our young men is to a commercial 

 life, where there is the greatest danger and the most 

 shipwrecks of character and fortune. With a super- 

 ficial education, young men enter our cities with high 

 hopes of making a fortune. What are the facts ? Our 

 cities are overrun with young men from the country, 

 (and mostly farmer's sons.) They enter the retailing 

 or jobbing stores, on small salaries, expecting some day 

 to be princely merchants. It will cost as much to edu- 

 cate a young man in a good jobbing store in the city 

 as it will to carry him prudently through college. The 

 scenes of vice and extravagance are before him, and 

 too many are easily seduced; the good habits acquired 

 at home are overcome, and but few, comparatively, rise 

 above the capacity of clerks, and those who do, what 



