Search -
The Dangers and Duties of the Mercantile Profession
The Dangers and Duties of the Mercantile Profession Author:George Stillman Hillard Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 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 ... more »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 con- structiveness 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. Thepocket 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 enterprisin...« less