4. CONCLUSION.
The hostility existing between students and apprentices, is well
known to all who have lived in a city or town where there is a college.
This feeling of dislike on the part of young mechanics towards those
whom they esteem more favored by fortune than themselves, probably
has its foundation in envy. Whatever be its basis, it is a prejudice
that is foolish and most degrading to the intelligent young apprentices
who suffer themselves to be influenced by it. In the foregoing story
we have attempted to show the folly of such feelings. If but one of
these misguided young men whose eye it is meant to reach, will take
a lesson from William Martin without enduring his painful experience,
we shall be fully repaid for our efforts to combat a prejudice as pernicious
as it is absurd and mischievous. Next in folly to that feeling
which leads a well-dressed young man to despise one that is meanly
clad, is that which prompts the poor young man to despise the other
because he is better clad. The writer who could do most to effect a
mutual reconciliation of opinion between the two, would do a service
which would exert no light influence upon the well-being of society as
it is at present organized.
