LETTERS TO A FUIENP AT COLLEGE. 151 



plied studies takes up about as many hours besides. "What!" you will 

 exclaim, "you the toremost scholar in our class, talk of having to study 

 the elements which you are now to teach ! Why, my dear fellow, do 

 not let this get out or it will destroy the credit of our College." I hope 

 not. It surely cannot be expected that a youngster, who has just gradu- 

 ated, should have the perfect accuracy and universal knowledge of a 

 Professor of ten years' standing. And nothing less than this is, in my 

 opinion, sufficient for the proper discharge of the duties with which I 

 find myself here invested. I am here called upon to teach precisely the 

 same things that make up our College course, and even if I had but the 

 elements of these various sciences to teach, I suppose it would require 

 a perfect familiarity with all their details to do it intelligently. 



Yet even if I were found incompetent to my task, I do not admit 

 that it would reflect any discredit upon my '■'•Ahna Matcry That she, 

 through our revered Professors, did all, and more than all that was ne- 

 cessary to prepare me for this or any similar post, both you, and I, and 

 all her ingenuous sons can testify. A brilliant array of her pupils and 

 graduates in all the professions, and in every honorable and useful walk 

 of life likewise proves, beyond a doubt, that she is by no means stinted 

 ill her communications of knowledge, nor dwarfs the intellect commit- 

 ted to her training. And how unreasonable to hold an institution re- 

 sponsible for all the indolence, stupidity, and perverseness that it could 

 not cure, and for mental abortions that it could not transform into men. 



Enough, however, of myself; let me return to you and your letter, 

 which, though so welcome, contained some things that have made me 

 sad. You speak of being "tired of College, and anxious to get out into 

 tlic world." When I read this I could not help thinking of the lines of 

 Virgil as more appropriate to students than to farmers : 



" O fortunati nimium sua bona si norint 



Agricolifi." 



Allow me to use the liberty of a friend and to express my fears that 

 you are far from appreciating the advantages and privileges of your pre- 

 sent position. Believe me, I speak from experience. I know how fre- 

 quently the feeling to wliich you give utterance has disturbed my peace 

 and turned my mind aside from its appropriate employments. Students 

 often regard their College course as a term of imprisonment, to which 

 they have been sentenced by cruel friends, and where Tutors and Pro- 

 fessors are a kind of jailers, whose business it is to keep them at hard 

 work, and rob them of any little alleviations of their bitter lot, which 

 they from time to time devise for themselves. Such, I must confess, 

 was often the color of mv thoughts. 



