THE YOUTH'S COMPANION AND COUNSELLOR EDITED BY W. CHAMBERS AUTHOR OF THINGS AS THEY ARE IN AMERICA, JOINT-EDITOR LONDON W. & R. CHAMBERS, PATERNOSTER ROW AND HIGH STREET, EDINBURGH 1857 270.c.71. I N my early years, there was a volume pretty well known on the book-stalls-the Young Man's Best Companion, a work containing some elementary instruction in Grammar, Arithmetic, Geography, and other subjects, and which has long been superseded by books of a more comprehensive and popular character. The recollection of this obsolete classic, which lads of an aspiring turn used to secure with their first spare shilling, suggested to me the idea of composing a YOUTH'S COMPANION, which should, if possible, combine familiar instruction with friendly counsels on a variety of topics not ordinarily embraced in educational treatises; the object more especially in view being to strengthen good resolves in the young, and by cheering onward those in adverse circumstances, to inspire hopes which can only be realised by means of earnest study and industry. Whether I have succeeded in this humble design, I do not presume to say. It is proper, at least, to mention that I have not relied entirely on my own experience, but as occasion required, have presented such 'wise and pithy words of others' as seemed to harmonise with the general purposes of the work. In some instances, also, matter has been incorporated from my brother's, and my own less effective, addresses to the young in the early volumes of the Periodical with which our names are jointly associated. GLENORMISTON, October 1857. W. C. |