T'-.a-A.NGERS A.ND DUTIES OF THE IMERCANTILE
PROFESSION.
AN
ADDRESS
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION,
AT ITS
THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY, NOVEMBER 13, 1850.
BY
GEORGE S. HILLARD.
BOSTON:
T I CKNOR  AND  FIELDS.
M DCCC LIV.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by
TICKNOR, REED, AND FIELDS,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts
TIIRSTON) TORRY, AND EMERSON, FRINTERS. ~




Rooms of the Mercantile Library Association,
BOSTON, NOVEMBER 19th, 1850.
DEAR SIR,
I have the pleasure of informing you, that, at a meeting of the
Board of Directors of the Mercantile Library Association, held
Monday evening, 18th instant, it was unanimously voted, that the
thanks of the Association be presented to you, for the able and
highly instructive Address delivered on the occasion of its thirtieth
anniversary, and that a copy be requested for publication.
Hoping that you will comply with the request, I have the honor
to remain, with sentiments of respect, your obedient servant,
HENRY P. CHAMBERLAIN,
Corresponding Secretary.
Hon. George S. Hillard.
Court Street, November 20, 1850.
DEAR SIR,
The Address, a copy of which you have requested for publication,
was prepared with exclusive reference to the position and claims of
the young men composing your Association. I am induced to comply with your request, upon the assurance of those, whose judgment
and candor I hold in equal respect, that the ends which I had in
view in writing it will be further promoted by its publication.
With my best wishes for the prosperity of your Association, and
for the health and happiness of its members, I remain your friend
and obedient servant,
GEORGE S. HILLARD.
Henry P. Chamberlain, Esq.








ADDRESS.
THE various employments of civilized life may
be divided into two classes, corresponding to the
body and the mind in man. Trade and commerce
minister to material wants, natural or artificial;
science and literature, to intellectual growth. Thus,
the merchant may be taken as the representative of
outward or practical life, and the scholar, of inward
or intellectual life. In this division, no disparaging
comparison is involved. Each class of employments
has its peculiar advantages and its peculiar dangers.
The ideal merchant is, in my judgment, nowise
inferior to the ideal scholar. Indeed, as each approaches the highest point of development, they
draw nearer and nearer towards one another, as the
opposite sides of a pyramid, far apart at the base,
meet at the top. By the ideal merchant, I mean a
man acting, but capable of thinking; by the ideal
scholar, a man thinking, but capable of acting.




6
Politics, or the art of government, in this age of the
world, includes both elements.  The merchant and
the scholar each contributes something to the composition of the statesman.  He must be able to
ascend to the highest generalizations from a solid
basis of carefully selected facts. The homely details
of business, as well as the laws which regulate and
control its great movements, must be familiar to
him.  Speculation must suggest experiment, and
experiment must confirm speculation.
No man can be said to be a finished man who has
not both the power of acting and the power of
thinking; and no community is truly powerful and
prosperous which has not a fair proportion of men of
action and men of thought.  A country in which
all men are either engaged in the acquisition of
property, or steeped in the luxuries which property
commands, - without books, without scholars, without ideas, -besides being the dreariest of deserts to
the spiritual eye, contains within itself the elements
of self-destruction, and is in constant danger of being shattered to pieces by the explosive force of
its own selfish propensities. So, a country in which
the intellectual energies of the people find no practical sphere, which is rich in universities, libraries, and
picture-galleries, but poor in merchants, manufacturers, and engineers, can never have any considera



7
ble amount of constitutional vigor, but is always in
a state of what physicians call atony.
The world at this moment furnishes illustrations
of each of these positions. It is one of the felicities
of England, that, from  her situation, her climate,
her soil, her mineral wealth, and her political institutions, she has been able to furnish so great a variety
of occupation to her sons, and to open a congenial
sphere to every form of energy and enterprise. She
has had universities, scientific associations, philosophers, poets, and artists, and, at the same time, ships,
colonies, commerce, mines, and manufactures.  Her
literature and legislation both show the beneficial
effects of this blending of the active and speculative elements. The literature of England is remarkable, not only for its variety and extent, but for
its pervading characteristics of good sense, and good
taste, which, indeed, is nothing more than good
sense applied to aesthetics.  It is an eminently
healthful literature. In reading the books of England, we are walking in the open air, with the sights
and sounds of Nature around us. Her writers do not
look at life exclusively through the windows of a
study.  As the curve of the rocket and the silvery
plume of the fountain are shaped by the earth's gravity, so, with them, the most daring flights of imagination and the most adventurous quests of the specula



8
tive faculty are controlled by what Bacon calls the
wisdom of business.  Take the case of Shakspeare,
the greatest name in their literature, —perhaps the
greatest name in all literature. He had been an actor and the manager of a theatre, and it has been surmised that he had passed some time in an attorney's
office. Who, that reads his plays with any attention,
can fail to perceive the benefit of this practical training? Who is not grateful for the fact, that he had
been obliged to humor the pit and rule the greenroom,-to conciliate great men, and beat down the
carpenter and the scene-painter? We find the fruit
of all this experience in that golden good-sense, that
mellow wisdom, that piercing insight, that accurate
portraiture, that loyalty to truth and nature, for which
he is quite as remarkable as for imaginative genius.
The legislation of England, like that of every
country that I have ever heard or read of, has been
selfish; it has not always been enlightened, but it
has never been absurd or fantastic. The House of
Commons wastes little either of time or power. Its
members are adverse to rhetoric and fiercely intolerant of abstractions.  You will hear among them
little  fine  speaking, but much sensible talking.
What is once settled there is settled forever. They
will endure no rigmarole about the rights of man,
and the eternal fitness of things, and the shades of




9
Hampden and Sidney. Many things are taken for
granted, to the great saving of time and strength.
Provided, too, that their work is done, they care very
little how it looks. Acts of Parliament are often
clumsily drawn, but they generally hit the grievance
aimed at between wind and water. Everything is
for use, and nothing for show. Parliament is, in
short, a factory for the making of laws, and they
will no more listen to a professor's discourse on the
principles of legislation, than the operatives in a mill
at Lowell would leave off their work to hear a
lecture on the force of gravity or the pressure of
fluids.
Among the great legislative minds of England,
Burke is a striking instance of the combination of
the speculative and practical elements. The foundations of his mind were laid in good sense, sagacity,
and profound knowledge of the history, legislation,
and resources of his country; and upon these was
reared a splendid superstructure of imagination, sensibility, and passion. With him, everything was
subjected to the test of experience and observation.
I-e sought not for an abstract or ideal good, but for
that which was suited to his England and his day.
From metaphysical politicians, who reasoned from
general principles to the case in hand, he had an
excessive and unreasonable aversion. He thought
2




10
deeply, he felt intensely, and he saw far, but he
always stood upon the firm  earth. In his speech
upon Mr. Fox's East India bill, he said,'I feel an
insuperable reluctance in giving my hand to destroy
any established institution of government upon a
theory, however plausible it may be.' In his'Reflections on the Revolution in France,' he says,' The
pretended rights of these theorists are all extremes;
and in proportion as they are metaphysically true,
they are morally and politically false.' These are
representative remarks, and furnish the key-note of
his whole political life.
On the other hand, it has been one of the misfortunes of Germany that the minds of her people have
had such meagre opportunities of practical training,
and that the speculative element is with them so
predominant.  Government is for the most part administered by functionaries.  There is but little
commerce, and no great amount of industrial enterprise of any kind. Hence her ingenuous young men
are all obliged to shut themselves up in libraries, and
take to the writing of books, as if the chief end of
man were to print and publish. Germany is thus a
land of scholars and learned men, to whose indomi.
table researches the world of letters and science is
under the deepest obligations.  But I think the
warmest admirer of German literature will admit,




11
that it would be more vital and energetic, if it were
less bookish; and that if the scholars in Germany
lived less in libraries, they would write better, if not
so much. But it is in the element of politics, that
the unpractical character of the German mind is
most conspicuous. It is deficient in political constructiveness and legislative instinct.  No people
know less how to take advantage of political occasions, as the events of the last two years amply show.
While they are deliberating about some trumpery
abstraction, the fleet angel of opportunity breaks
from their grasp, and leaves them without a blessing.
This is not so much their fault as their misfortune.
They have been taught to be statesmen and legislators, but not trained. It is an inexorable fact, that
no man can learn to swim, without first going into
the water.
The mercantile class, to which you belong, is
exerting an important and an increasing influence
upon the affairs of the world. Feudal ideas are fast
dying out, and kings and nobles are losing the substantial power they once enjoyed, and turning into
pageants and ceremonies. It is well for us that it is
so. It is well for us that the yardstick is displacing
the sword. I rejoice in the growing importance of
men of business, as an historical element, because
they never favor the costly pastime of war.  The




12
pocket is always on the side of peace. And, as the
influence of the mercantile class is always exerted to
keep men from quarrelling with one another, so it
also tends to the softening of national antipathies
and the melting down of the walls of estrangement
which separate the various communities of mankind.
Commercial pursuits naturally liberalize the mind,
and emancipate it from the despotism of local or
provincial prejudices. The enlightened and enterprising merchant is always a traveller, for his
thoughts go abroad, though he himself should remain at home. We cannot buy of men and sell to
them without its leading to a certain kindliness of
feeling. A large intercourse with the world teaches
us that there are good men everywhere. We thus
learn the meaning of the word humanity.  We
become conscious that there is a great human family, whose members speak many languages and are
of various aspects. It is not very long since it was
common to hear speakers and writers in England
applying the phrase'our natural enemies' to the
people of France; an expression which no one could
now venture to use without incurring the imputation
at least of very bad taste.  The merchants and
manufacturers of the two countries have had no
inconsiderable influence in producing this improved
state of feeling. Man is never the natural enemy of




13
man, and a vision no more piercing than that of
enlightened self-interest is quite sufficient to discern
this truth. Merchants thus belong to the reforming
and progressive class; and their efforts in this direction are all the more efficacious because they are in
a great measure unconsciously exerted.  Each one
is thinking of increasing his fortune, of enlarging his
business, of founding a family, and the general result
is an improvement in social life. The moral lever
which they wield is always powerful, because the
selfish propensities constitute the moving power, and
the laws of nature the fulcrum.
But my purpose is not to treat of trade and commerce in their external relations, but rather of the
way in which they act upon the minds and characters
of those who pursue them.
Social progress and material civilization lead, of
necessity, to a great variety and subdivision of pursuits. The struggle for subsistence is so keen, that a
man consents to do but one thing, in order that he
may do that in the best manner. The whole stream
of his activity runs through his hand, his eye, his
tongue, or his brain.  The king of the Sandwich
Islands is said to wear, on state occasions, a cloak
made of feathers of which only two are found in
the bird that produces them.  In like manner,
civilization flutters in decorations which have occu



14
pied only a fragment or a fibre of a man. The
weaver is an animated shuttle; the seamstress, a
living needle; the laborer, a spade that eats and
sleeps. To find a perfect man, we must take a brain
from one, senses from another, a stomach from a
third, and a conscience from a fourth. Hence arises
a new and important relation,-the relation between
a man and his work. That which we do shapes and
colors that which we are. Very few of the occupations by which men earn their bread are directly
conducive  to  spiritual and  intellectual growth.
Most of them are at best but neutral in this respect,
and'few of them are free from certain dwarfing or
deforming tendencies, which a man sedulous of selfculture will foresee and guard against.
The idea of exchange lies at the foundation of
that vast aggregation of energy and activity which
we call by the comprehensive name of business.
One man wants what another man has. On this
simple foundation rests the colossal fabric of trade.
Indeed, all movement, whether in things spiritual or
things material, may be traced back to inequality.
Were all minds identical, there would be no discourse, no argument, no teaching. Were there no
break in the level of the Merrimack, there would be
no Lowell. The stream runs, the breeze blows, the
eloquent man speaks, from diversity. So it is with




15
commerce. One side of a range of hills produces
corn, and another wine; the fig is in the valley, the
pine on the mountains; the North has firs, the
South, jewels and spices. Each wants what it has
not. Hence come the merchant, the caravan, the
ship, the canal, the railway.
The business of a merchant, stated in its baldest
and barest form, is to supply men with what they
want, but have not. He has only to ascertain what
is wanted, and where it may be found. This seems
simple enough; but when it comes to the complicated
and fluctuating necessities of an advanced period of
civilization, it will be admitted that a man can hardly be an accomplished merchant, without a certain
amount of energy, enterprise, knowledge, sagacity,
and forecast. But here, perhaps, the inevitable catalogue of virtues ceases. There are many graces of
mind and character which he need not have, and
which are in no wise essential to professional success. He need not have religious faith, or moral
thoughtfulness, or generous sentiments, or benevolent
impulses, or intellectual cultivation, or refined tastes.
In short, it is possible to be a successful merchant,
and yet be sordid, hard-hearted, unprincipled, narrow-minded, selfish, and sensual. But, on the other
hand, the converse of the proposition is equally true.
There is nothing in the occupation of a merchant




16
inconsistent with the highest intellectual cultivation,
the grandest moral stature, and the most bounteous
and genial affections.
Thus, my young friends, the mercantile profession,
to which you have dedicated yourselves, is not without its dangers; nor will it employ all your faculties,
or furnish you with all the elements of a generous
and expanded self-culture. There is nothing in this
statement which need throw a shadow upon your
thoughts. It is no more than the common lot; and
in your position, and with your opportunities, there
is much to aid you in supplying whatever is defective and counteracting all that is injurious.
The very name which you bear implies a consciousness on your part that you owe a debt to
yourselves, as well as to your profession. You call
yourselves the Mercantile Library Association; and
these very words intimate a laudable purpose of
infusing into your active and external life the serene
and purifying influence of liberal studies. If the
fruit of books could be gathered in counting-rooms
and shops, your fine library would be a superfluous
luxury. But you and your predecessors have collected it for use, and not for ostentation. You have
felt that the life of man should not be limited to
buying and selling, the keeping of accounts, and the
watching of markets. A library is a warehouse in




17
which the precious merchandise of knowledge may
be had for the asking. The reading of good books
will cultivate and fertilize such portions of the mind
as your profession  abandons to neglect, so that
your intellectual development will be symmetrical
and harmonious.  There is no condition of life
which is not bettered by knowledge. Are you successful?  Knowledge will crown and embellish your
prosperity, as the capital does the shaft. It will save
you from the vanity that awakens ridicule and the
insolence that begets envy. Are you unsuccessful?
It will dignify your adversity, and defend you against
the assaults of despair. It will insure you the sunshine of cheerfulness and the tranquil air of peace.
Books will shield you from the narrowing and hardening influence of worldly pursuits. They will set
you upon heights of contemplation, and broaden the
landscapes of the mind. The actual life that is
around us is, for the most part, a struggle for subsistence. We see men, as a general rule, under the
influence of the selfish appetites, warped and belittled by the love of money or the love of power,
soiled with the dust and sweat of ignoble conflicts,
drunk with success, or desperate from failure. The
dark side of humanity is turned towards us. Never
to see any thing else is to fall into a habit of contempt for our kind which hardens the heart and
3




18
dwarfs the mind.  Beware of contempt; it is a
sharp acid that corrodes the vessel in which it is
kept. Books furnish a corrective to this state of
feeling. From  them  we learn that man is, as Sir
Thomas Browne has called him,'a noble animal.'
Through them we contemplate a wider stage, actors
of more regal port and bearing, more heroic passions,
more majestic sorrows.  We cannot linger in the
beautiful creations of inventive genius, or pursue the
splendid discoveries of modern science, without a
new sense of the capacities and dignity of human
nature, which naturally leads to a sterner self-respect,
to manlier resolves and higher aspirations.  We
cannot read the ways of God to man as revealed in
the history of nations, of sublime virtues as exemplified in the lives of great and good men, without
falling into that mood of thoughtful admiration,
which, though it be but a transient glow, is a purifying and elevating influence while it lasts.  The
study of history is especially valuable as an antidote
to self-exaggeration.  It teaches lessons of humility,
patience, and submission.  When we read of realms
smitten with the scourge of famine or pestilence, or
strewn with the bloody ashes of war, of grass growing in the streets of great cities, of ships rotting at
the wharves, of fathers burying their sons, of strong
men begging their bread, of fields untilled and silent




19
workshops and despairing countenances, we hear a
voice of rebuke to our own clamorous sorrows and
peevish complaints. We learn that pain and suffering and disappointment are a part of God's providence, and that no contract was ever yet made with
man by which virtue should secure to him temporal
happiness.
In books, be it remembered, we have the best products of the best minds. We should any of us
esteem it a great privilege to pass an evening with
Shakspeare or Bacon, were such a thing possible.
But were we admitted to the presence of one of
these illustrious men, we might find him touched
with infirmity, or oppressed with weariness, or darkened with the shadow of a recent trouble, or absorbed
by intrusive and tyrannous thoughts. To us the
oracle might be dumb, and the light eclipsed. But
when we take down one of their volumes, we run
no such risk. Here we have their best thoughts
embalmed in their best words; immortal flowers of
poetry, wet with Castalian dews, and the golden
fruit of wisdom that had long ripened on the bough
before it was gathered. Here we find the growth of
the choicest seasons of the mind, when mortal cares
were forgotten and mortal weaknesses were subdued,
and the soul, stripped of its vanities and its passions,
lay bare to the finest effluences of truth and beauty.




20
We may be sure that Shakspeare never out-talked
his Hamlet, nor Bacon his Essays. Great writers
are indeed best known through their books. How
little, for instance, do we know of the life of Shakspeare, but how much do we know of him!
In that most interesting and instructive book, Boswell's Life of Johnson, an incident is mentioned
which I beg leave to quote in illustration of this
part of my subject. The Doctor and his biographer
were going down the Thames, in a boat, to Greenwich, and the conversation turned upon the benefits
of learning, which Dr. Johnson maintained to be of
use to all men. "' And yet,' said Boswell'people
go through the world very well, and carry on the
business of life to good advantage, without learning.'' Why, Sir,' replied Dr. Johnson,'that may be true
in cases where learning cannot possibly be of any
use; for instance, this boy rows us as well without
learning, as if he could sing the song of Orpheus to
the Argonauts, who were the first sailors.' He then
called to the boy,' What would you give, my lad, to
know about the Argonauts?''Sir,' said the boy,'I would give what I have.' Johnson was much
pleased with this answer, and we gave him a double
fare. Dr. Johnson then turning to me,'Sir,' said he,'a desire of knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind; and every human being, whose mind is not




21
debauched, will be willing to give all that he has to
get knowledge.'" *
This conversation occurred in the year 1763. The
boy that rowed Dr. Johnson and his friend down
the river that day had little opportunity to acquire
the knowledge which he coveted, and was doubtless
doomed to a life of constant toil and hopeless ignorance. But it is pleasant to think that the son of a
waterman plying at this moment on our own river
Charles, with similar aspirations, would find books
and schools and intellectual opportunity, and might
learn who Orpheus and the Argonauts were; and if
he did not row any better, he would row none the
worse, for such knowledge.
For the knowledge that comes from books I would
claim no more than it is fairly entitled to. I am
well aware that there is no inevitable connection
between intellectual cultivation, on the one hand,
and individual virtue or social well-being, on the
other.'The tree of knowledge is not the tree of
life.' I admit that genius and learning are sometimes found in combination with gross vices, and
not unfrequently with contemptible weaknesses, and
that a community at once cultivated and corrupt
is no impossible monster. But it is no overstate* Boswell's Johnson, II. 245, Murray's ed. 1835.




22
ment to say, that, other things being equal, the man
who has the greatest amount of intellectual resources
is in the least danger from inferior temptations; if
for no other reason, because he has fewer idle moments. The ruin of most men dates from some
vacant hour. Occupation is the armor of the soul,
and the train of Idleness is borne up by all the vices.
I remember a satirical poem in which the Devil is
represented as fishing for men, and adapting his
baits to the taste and temperament of his prey; but
the idler, he said, pleased him most, because he bit
the naked hook. To a young man away from home,
friendless and forlorn in a great city, the hours of
peril are those between sunset and bed-time, for the
moon and stars see more of evil in a single hour
than the sun in his whole day's circuit. The poet's
visions of evening are all compact of tender and
soothing images.  It brings the wanderer to his
home, the child to his mother's arms, the ox to his
stall, and the weary laborer to his rest. But to the
gentle-hearted youth who is thrown upon the rocks
of a pitiless city, and stands'homeless amid a
thousand homes,' the approach of evening brings
with it an aching sense of loneliness and desolation,
which comes down upon the spirit like darkness
upon the earth. In this mood, his best impulses
become a snare to him, and he is led astray because




23
he is social, affectionate, sympathetic, and warmhearted. If there be a young man thus circumstanced within the sound of my voice, let me say to
him that books are the friends of the friendless, and
that a library is the home of the homeless. A taste
for reading will always carry you into the best possible company, and enable you to converse with men
who will instruct you by their wisdom and charm
you by their wit, who will soothe you when fretted,
refresh you when weary, counsel you when perplexed, and sympathize with you at all times. Evil
spirits, in the Middle Ages, were exorcised and
driven away by bell, book, and candle;-you want
but two of these agents, the book and the candle.
In the use of books there is room for much discrimination. Books themselves are of various classes; some are good, some are bad, and many are
neither good nor bad. Some are to be studied, some
to be read, and some to be thrown into the fire.
The profusion of books at the present time, and the
ease with which they may be procured, I look upon
as by no means an unmixed good. There is a great
deal of trash current in the form of cheap literature,
which, like cheap confectionary, is at once tempting
and pernicious. Cheap as these books are in appearance, most of them would be dear at nothing at
all. Especially is this true of the swarms of novels,




24
of English and French manufacture, which come
warping upon every eastern wind, most of them
worthless, and many of them worse than worthless.
If you have any purpose of self-culture, one of your
first duties is resolutely to abstain from such books,
as you would from opium or brandy. But the promiscuous reading, without purpose and without
method, of books in themselves good, is little better
than an intellectual pastime. Of two young men
of equal capacity, suppose that one occupies himself
for a certain period in light reading of a miscellaneous character, and the other devotes the same time
to the vigorous study of one or two works requiring
close attention and continuous thought, such as Butler's Analogy, Smith's Wealth of Nations, Locke's
Essay on the Human Understanding, or Mill's Logic,
the amount of intellectual benefit derived by the
two will be greatly in favor of the latter. The
former will have gained merely a crowd of heterogeneous impressions, lying in confused masses in his
memory, like the shreds and patches of a rag-bag,
while the other will have been through an athletic
course of mental discipline, by which every faculty
is invigorated. Beware of the man of one book,
says a Latin proverb. He knows no more than that,
but that he knows thoroughly. Let me commend
to every young man who hears me to form the habit




25
of reading with a definite object, and with concentrated attention, and not to roam over a library as
one strolls through a garden, pitching upon books
because there is something taking in the titles, or
because the contents have an inviting look as we
turn over the leaves. Be content to be entirely ignorant of some things, in order that you may know
other things well.  It is better to know everything
of something, than something of everything. Study,
says Cicero, —and no man ever had a better right
to define study than he, for no man ever studied
harder,-is the intense and assiduous occupation of
the mind applied to some subject with earnest goodwill.:  One hour of such study is worth a day of
listless dawdling over a shelf of books.
Men engaged in business and with a taste for
reading are apt to underrate their own intellectual
advantages, and to overrate those of men with whom
literature or science is a profession. Especially do
they magnify the benefits of what is commonly called a liberal education, which means a residence of a
certain number of years within the walls of a college.
For men of learning and learned institutions I have
a sincere respect; but they have not, nor do they
*' Studium est animi assidua et vehemens ad aliquam rem applicata magna cam voluntate occupatio.'- Cic. De Inventione, Lib. I.
c. 25.
4




26
pretend to have, any patent machinery for the manufacture of knowledge. To breathe the air of Cambridge for a given period will not make a man a
scholar. Learning there, as everywhere else, is
acquired by hard work,-by the book and the brain.
Unquestionably it is an advantage to pursue a systematic course of study under the guidance of learned
and accomplished men; but, after all, the best part
of what a young man brings away from college is
what he has done and acquired for himself. The
word education comprises two distinct things; one,
the accumulation of knowledge, and the other, the
training of the faculties; and, of the two, the latter
is the more important. That is the best education,
as a general rule, which best fits a man to discharge
the duties to which he is destined. So far as the
acquisition of knowledge is concerned, the young
men at college have the advantage of you; but not,
of necessity, so far as the training of the faculties
is concerned. Two youths, for instance, of the same
age leave school at the same time, and one enters
college and the other goes into a counting-room in
Boston. And let us suppose them equally conscientious and equally disposed to make the best use of
their opportunities. The collegian works hard, learns
much, and acquires honorable distinction, but in the
mean time he has perhaps lost his health; for, so




27
far as my observation goes, I should say that one
quarter, at least, of the young men who are educated
at our colleges leave them with impaired health.
From the recluse life which he has led, he is likely
to have awkward manners and an unprepossessing
address. From not having been trained to habits of
self-control, he is perhaps impatient of contradiction,
and needlessly sensitive. He is probably conceited,
possibly pedantic, and pretty sure to want that sixth
sense which is called tact. He knows much of books,
but little of men or of life, and from mere confusion
of mind incurs the reproach of weakness of character. On the other hand, the lad who enters a
counting-room finds himself perhaps the youngest
member of a large establishment, and whatever of
conceit he may have brought from the village academy is soon rubbed out of him. He learns to obey,
to submit, and to be patient; to endure reproof
without anger, and to bear contradiction with goodhumor. He is obliged to keep his wits about him, to
decide quickly, to have accurate eyes and truthful ears,
to learn that there are just sixty minutes in an hour,
and just one hundred cents in a dollar. He is compelled to bear and forbear, to resist temptation, to
struggle down rebellious impulses, and to put on the
armor of a brave silence. The hours of his day
come freighted with lessons of self-reliance and self



28
command, and the grain of his character grows firm
under the discipline of life.
Thus, when we come to take an account of what
the young scholar and the young merchant have
respectively acquired, the preponderance is not so
decidedly in favor of the young scholar. If the one
has gained the more knowledge, the other has been
through the more training. The one has read more
books, but the other can do more things. Each has
what the other wants.  Perhaps, in stating this
parallel, I have drawn the picture of the merchant
too much in light, and that of the scholar too much
in shadow; but illustrations are not presented upon
affidavit. It is my deliberate opinion, that a man
engaged in active pursuits, if he have studious tastes
and industrious habits, is most favorably circumstanced for the acquisition of serviceable knowledge.
He, be it remembered, can never fall into the distempers and infirmities of learning. He can never
become a pedant, a bookworm, or a dreamer. His
practical training will give directness, efficacy, and
convergence to his attainments.  His knowledge
will bear the current stamp, and always pass for
what it is worth. His learning will be packed
in convenient parcels.  Solitude is the nurse of
genius; but character, that power which is so easy
to recognize and so hard to define, - which like the




29
milky-way in the heavens, is a blending of beneficent
and nameless lights, — is the result of wide and
varied intercourse with men, and of large experience
in the chances and changes of life. When the ornaments of learning are reared upon the firm foundation of a vigorous character, when the graces of
scholarship are added to a resolute spirit and an
energetic will, and when we see, to borrow the language of Bacon,'a conjunction like unto that of
the two highest planets, Saturn, the planet of rest
and contemplation, and Jupiter, the planet of civil
society and action,' we have a rare, a noble, butnot
an impossible, combination.
I have thus far spoken rather of the short-comings of
your profession than of its dangers. But besides that
it will not furnish your minds with all the food that
is convenient for them, it has elements, or at least
tendencies, which it becomes you to guard against,
as not favorable to moral progress and the growth
of the character. I have left myself but little space
for this branch of my subject, and can only touch
upon one or two prominent considerations.
We are all inclined to pursue too keenly, and to
value too highly, what is called success in life, which
means a good estate, a distinguished social position,
power, influence, and consideration. All the elements that mould the growing mind tend to strength



30
en this passion.  Open the common biographies
which are written for our children, and what do you
find set down in them?  This man, when he was a
boy, was docile, diligent, and frugal; he studied
hard; he was never idle, and never naughty; he
made friends; he acquired knowledge; he laid up all
the money that he earned. And what was the result? He became prosperous and powerful and rich;
he held high offices and enjoyed great honors, and
was esteemed and exalted. If you do likewise, you
will be what he was, and gain what he gained. This
is but another form of appealing to the love of excelling, rather than the love of excellence, —that
inferior motive, which, though it may quicken the
faculties, dims the beauty of the soul. I confess,
that increasing years bring with them an increasing
respect for men who do not succeed in life, as those
words are commonly used. Heaven has been said
to be a place for those who have not succeeded upon
earth; and it is surely true that celestial graces do
not best thrive and bloom in the hot blaze of worldly
prosperity. Ill-success sometimes arises from a superabundance of qualities in themselves good,- from
a conscience too sensitive, a taste too fastidious, a
self-forgetfulness too romantic, a modesty too retiring.
I will not go so far as to say, with a living poet, that'the world knows nothing of its greatest men,' but




31
there are forms of greatness, or at least of excellence,
which'die and make no sign'; there are martyrs
that miss the palm, but not the stake; heroes without
the laurel, and conquerors without the triumph.
In the mercantile profession, the acquisition of
property is the obvious index of success. A successful merchant is a rich merchant. The two ideas can
hardly be disjoined. Thus the universal passion for
the prizes of life is apt, in your case, to take its
lowest form, that of the love of money.  I would
hold up no fanatical or ascetic views of life for your
admiration  and  applause.  Wealth brings noble
opportunities, and competence is a proper object of
pursuit; but wealth and even competence may be
bought at too high a price.  Wealth itself has no
moral attribute.' It is not money, but the love of
money, which is the root of all evil. It is the relation between wealth and the mind and the character
of its possessor, which is the essential thing. It is
the passionate, absorbing, and concentrated pursuit
of wealth,- the surrendering of the whole being to
one despotic thought, - the starving of all the nobler
powers in order to glut one fierce and clamorous
appetite,- against which I would warn you.  This
form  of idolatry will not only check intellectual
growth, but it is adverse to all'the delicacies and
refinements of virtue. I know that there is a certain




32
coarse morality which draws its nutriment from the
soil of its dustiest heart. I know that to steal and
commit forgery  and  swindle lead, in the long
run, to poverty, as well as to shame. But there is
a border-land between unblushing knavery and virgin honesty, into which successful forays may be
made under the cloud of night and secrecy. We
say that honesty is the best policy, but no man was
ever honest who acted from mere policy; and it is
also not true that the best honesty is the best policy.
The most serviceable honesty, like the most current
coin, is that in which the fine gold of virtue is
mingled with the alloy of worldly thrift. The most
successful man of business, other things being equal,
is he whose habitual course of dealing is so far
upright as to admit of occasional slight deviations,
and thus give the color of integrity to acts in themselves doubtful. There is such a thing as a'losing
honesty,' which never deliberates and never parleys,
which is as pure as the snow'that's bolted by the
northern blast, twice o'er'; an honesty sometimes
crowned with brilliant success, but more commonly
dwelling with modest fortunes and a lowly estate.
Let me also caution you against too exclusive a
devotion to your profession, upon grounds connected
with the growth of the mind, and its consequent
capacity alike for improvement and enjoyment. We




33
are all in danger of becoming' subdued to what we
work in, like the dyer's hand.' With men engaged in
some one absorbing pursuit, the accidental is always
encroaching upon the essential, and the part is eating up the whole.  In manual occupations where
only one set of muscles is exercised, a partial deformity ensues, and those which are unused lose in
time their power of action.  The mind, too, is in
like manner affected by partial paralysis and partial
distortion. This is a world of inflexible compensations. Nothing is ever given away, but every thing
is bought and paid for. If, by exclusive and absolute
surrender of ourselves to material pursuits, we materialize the mind, we lose that class of satisfactions of
which the mind is the region and the source. A
young man in business, for instance, begins to feel
the exhilarating glow of success, and deliberately
determines to abandon himself to its delirious whirl.
He says to himself,'I will think of nothing but
business till I shall have made so much money, and
then I will begin a new life. I will gather round me
books and pictures and friends. I will have knowledge, taste, and cultivation,-the perfume of scholarship, and winning speech, and graceful manners.
I will see foreign countries, and converse with accomplished men. I will drink deep of the fountains
of classic lore. Philosophy shall guide me; history
5




34
shall instruct, and poetry shall charm me. Science
shall open to me her world of wonders. I shall then
remember my present life of drudgery as one recalls
a troubled dream when the morning has dawned.'
He keeps his self-registered vow. He bends his
thoughts downward and nails them  to the dust.
Every power, every affection, every taste, except
those which his particular occupation calls into play,
is left to starve. Over the gates of his mind he
writes in letters which he who runs may read,'No
admittance except on business.' In time he reaches
the goal of his hopes; but now insulted Nature
begins to claim her revenge. That which was once
unnatural is now natural to him. The enforced
constraint has become a rigid deformity.  The
spring of his mind is broken. He can no longer lift
his thoughts from the ground. Books and knowledge and wise dircourse, and the amenities of art,
and the cordial of friendship, are like words in a
strange tongue. To the hard, smooth surface of his
soul, nothing genial, graceful, or winning will cling.
He cannot even purge his voice of its fawning tone,
or pluck from his face the mean money-getting mask
which the child does not look at without ceasing to
smile. Amid the graces and ornaments of wealth,
he is like a blind man in a picture-gallery. That
which he has done he must continue to do. He




35
must accumulate riches which he cannot enjoy, and
contemplate the dreary prospect of growing old
without anything to make age venerable or attractive; for age without wisdom and without knowledge
is the winter's cold without the winter's fire.
As we are all too much given to make an idol of
success, so we shape our lives with reference to this
worship. In our calculations, we lay aside the adverse chances. Hence, if we do not achieve success,
we are apt to fall into gloomy despair, or bitter repining, or heart-corroding envy. The self-exaggeration of adversity is quite as dangerous to the health
of the soul as the self-exaggeration of prosperity.
But though fortune and power are desirable things,
yet more desirable is that mood of mind which can
see them  denied without a murmur. My young
friends, these considerations come close home to you.
You are aware of the inexorable statistics of trade
and commerce. You know how few there are that
have not, at some period in the course of their
business life, encountered disaster and embarrassment. You know how many there are, that, after
long struggling with adverse fortune, have at last
thrown up their hands, and declined into a recluse
condition, and given themselves over to dumb despair.
You are all looking forward with hope to the future,
and already, in anticipation, grasping the prizes of




36
life. But as the past has been, the future will be.
Success and failure will be distributed among you in
the same proportion as among your predecessors.
Are you prepared to meet the drawing of a blank in
the lottery of life? Can you stand and wait, and
yet feel that you are still serving?  Have you
thought of furnishing yourselves with the moral and
mental resources which will enable you to rise superior to disappointment and disaster, and to sit down
contentedly, if need be, with poverty. We shrink
from poverty with unmanly weakness. We exaggerate its terrors, as we exaggerate the attractions of
wealth.  To our morbid apprehensions, it includes
the sting of shame, the burden of self-reproach, the
gloom of solitude, and the anguish of a broken spirit.
There is, indeed, a pitiless and soul-crushing poverty,
which binds and seals the heart with an arctic frost,
and shuts out the light of hope, and tries the temper
of love, and steals from childhood its blessed prerogative of careless content, and plants by the side of
the cradle the lacerating thorns of life; but into this,
no man in our country, of average capacity, need
fall, except from his vices. There is also a milder
and serener form of poverty, the nurse of manly
energy and heaven-climbing thoughts, attended by
love and faith and hope, around whose steps the
mountain breezes blow, and from whose countenance




37
all the virtues gather strength. Look around you
upon the distinguished men that in every department
of life guide and control the times, and inquire what
was their origin and what were their early fortunes.
Were they, as a general rule, rocked and dandled on
the lap of wealth? No; such men emerge from the
homes of decent competence or struggling poverty.
Necessity sharpens their faculties and privation and
sacrifice brace their moral nature. They learn the
great art of renunciation, and enjoy the happiness of
having few wants. They know nothing of indifference or satiety. There is not an idle fibre in their
frames. They put the vigor of a resolute purpose
into every act. The edge of their minds is always
kept sharp. In the shocks of life, men like these
meet the softly-nurtured darlings of prosperity as the
vessel of iron meets the vessel of porcelain. Lift
your hearts above the region of wild hopes and
cowardly fears. Put on that even temper of mind
which shall be a shadow in success and a light in
adversity. If wealth and distinction come, receive
them in a thankful and moderate spirit. If they do
not come, fill their places with better guests. Remember that all which truly exalts and ennobles a
man is bound to him by ties as indissoluble as those
which link the planets to the sun. Plant yourselves
upon God's immutable laws, and fortune and failure




will be no more than vapors that curl and play far
beneath your feet.
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Mercantile
Library Association, in preparing these desultory
remarks, I have thought of you, and you alone.
What I have written has been prompted by a sincere
interest in your welfare. I can never look upon an
assemblage of ingenuous young men without involuntary greetings and benedictions. The beauty
of promise lies upon them like blossoms on the tree.
You have reason to rejoice in your youth. Shakspeare, in one of his sublimest passages, makes Lear
appeal for sympathy to the heavens, because they
were old like him. Between you and the world
around you there is a similar affinity. The land in
which you live is young. There is nothing in the
past of the Old World so magnificent as our future.
It is a noble thing to feel ourselves cast, not upon
the decrepitude of Time, but upon his unwrinkled
youth; not rotting idly upon the shore, but borne
upon the topmost crest of the dancing wave. We
welcome you to this boundless and exulting future.
No feudal barriers check your progress; no teasing
prescriptions clog your steps; no worn-out usages
block your path. The world is your field, and your
mansion is vaulted and walled with the covering
heavens. We welcome you to a community slow




39
alike to give and to withdraw its confidence. We
welcome you to the bracing air of competition, and
to the golden harvests of opportunity. We welcome
you to the discipline of industry and patience, to
the rewards of enterprise and skill, to the refining
influences of books and society, to the sweets of
domestic life, to the light of everlasting truth.