Arvine Wales letter to Arvine C. Wales, February 2, 1845

              D-430-5
page 1

 Dear Son                   Feby 2d 1845
     Yours of 26 of last mo came duly to hand & as I had written you in sanswer to your request a short time previous to the receipt of it. I shall wait for this to go by R Ryley which will be in the course of the week most likely I have reflected since on your desire to graduate & upon reflection I cannot change my opinion for 49 out of 50 graduates that go through a regular colledge course come out the best qualified for business. 
   But as before told you I have no ambition of your becoming a professional character the professions & merchants have gluted the marekt & the evil is likely to continue untill they become so numerous as to destroy themselves. I had knowledge of a wealthy formen in Ct that had an only son & he raised him delicately & he graduated at Yale he was too rich to go through the drudgery of a profession & finally married an only daughter of a rich man in the city. His father built him a new house and put him on a farm well stocked & the young folks went to house keeping and his old ploding neighbors were astonished at the sience displayed in their farming well in two or three years they had contracted dets they could not which resulted in their fathers looking into the state of their affairs & the result was the father of the wife proposed to unite & pay their dets and would give a sum certain per ann for the