80 THE FLORIST AND 



founded upon the broad principle that the grade of the mind establishes the 

 precedence; and it is an instructive fact, that in the dim distance of anti- 

 quity, perhaps 1 500 years before our era, the words man and mind Were 

 drawn from the same root, it having been observed at that early day that 

 man alone in the visible creation is distinguished by the possession of 

 reason. 



The professional man then, thinks and judges, whilst the routine man 

 plods along with little more expenditure of thought than is necessary to 

 preserve him in his routine habits. The dignity of the former is even ex- 

 tended to his compensation, which is termed a salary or an income, whilst 

 in the other case it is wages. In extension of the same principle, although 

 the human population of a country are counted as so many souls, laborers 

 in the aggregate are called hands. 



From the moment that the implement of a handcraftsman is guided by 

 taste, he becomes an artist; and when the farmer understands the principles 

 of his operations, and acts in accordance with them, even to pursue a rou- 

 tine under standingly, he enters a new sphere, and his business becomes & 

 profession. This view is not to be controverted by the fact that there are 

 jugglers who assume the title of professor, practitioners who would be better 

 employed in breaking stone for a turnpike, if the morals of this industrial 

 interest would not be thereby endangered ; pretended doctors who require 

 the aid of a physician in surgical cases, and compounders of eherry-pecto^ 

 rals who should be in the penitentiary for forgery. 



The education even of professional men requires modification ; a taste,- 

 if not for science, at least for scientific inquiry, being spread through ev- 

 ery condition of society ; so that those who are supposed to be educated, 

 are continually liable to be asked to explain some fact in mechanics, meteor- 

 ology, geology, natural history, or chemistry. 



The lawyer has his patent-right cases involving questions in the con- 

 struction of machinery, where misconception may make him ridiculous be- 

 fore an intelligent juryman, whose occupation perhaps as a smith, may have 

 aided in making him a good mechanician. 



Clergymen are called upon to combat the plausible absurdities of the 

 enemies of revelation ; and physicians are 'universally deemed the proper 

 recipients of curious narratives, which are closed with the undeviating for- 

 mula — " How do you account for it, doctor ?" 



Next to the professional man, the teacher of the nearest school is sup- 

 posed to be able to furnish solutions to difficult questions, although he is 

 seldom able to go beyond the strict line of his pursuit. Teachers frequently 



