Excerpt from A Few Thoughts for a Young ManI feel a Vivid and a peculiar pleasure in addressing the young gentlemen of this society. Enrolled among the members of the Boston Mercantile Library Association, there are, at the present time, as I am informed, between eleven and twelve hundred clerks who belong to this city. If not, to-day, therefore, the most powerful, it is surely among the most potential organizations in this metropolis. Though the present in¿uence of its members upon the char acter and fortunes of Boston may not be great, yet it will be great, nor will it require many years to unfold its powers. As the botanist or the anatomist foresees the gigantic proportions of the oak or the elephant, in the embryo germ which he dissects, so the moral seer can proph esy the energy and compass of this fraternity, from the numbers and the capacities of the ingenuous youth who compose it.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.