high moral principle.  When they began business, it was with a tacit agreement that each would endeavor to deserve the confidence of the other, and of their fellow-men.  There was to be no evasion of principle, no sharp practice, in their house.  They were resolved to make money, but to make it honestly.  They would engage in no transaction which should cause a doubt of their integrity in the breast of the good mother who had sent them forth with her blessing.

More than fifty years have passed away since then, and the Harpers have prospered steadily, and so greatly, too, that for many years their house has stood at the head of the publishing interest of America.  Their career is an instructive one, giving an emphatic denial to the assertion we hear so often repeated, that an “over-honest” man can not make money in New York.  Shut your ears to the calumny, young man, just staring out in life.  “Honesty is the best policy;” and it is only by scrupulous honesty that enduring success can be obtained.  Trickery and sharp practice may earn wealth rapidly, but depend upon it they have their reward; for it is a curious fact in the history of man that wealth acquired by knavery rarely stays with its possessors for more than a generation, if so long.

In starting out, the young Harpers printed books to order, attempting nothing at their own risk.  They did a part of the composition and press-work with their own hands, and were, perhaps, the hardest workers in their establishment.  Their first job was two thousand copies of Seneca’s Morals, and was intrusted to them by Evert Duyckinck, a famous publisher of that day.  The books were delivered in August, 1817, and gave entire satisfaction.

Immediately after this, they undertook to stereotype an edition of the “Book of Common Prayer” for the Protestant Episcopal Church of New York, supposing that they would be able to make a fair profit at the rate at which they had agreed to do the work.  It was their original intention to do the composition themselves, and have the stereotyping done at one of the large establishments of the city; but upon a closer investigation they found that this would cost them more than they had agreed to do the work for.  In this dilemma, they resolved to learn the art of stereotyping themselves, and perform that portion of their contract on their own premises.  It was a tedious undertaking; but they went through with it determinedly, and at the proper time delivered the books to the officials of the Episcopal Church.  Their profit was not very large, but they had become stereotypers as well as printers, and had added a valuable department to their business.  Further than this, their Prayer Book was pronounced the best piece of stereotyping that had ever been seen in the city, and won the young men congratulations on all sides.  They next undertook twenty-five hundred copies of Mair’s “Introduction to Latin,” which they delivered in December, 1817.