234 



EPISTLES TO STt.DEN'TP. 



These are views, at which young men arrive always, but in many in- 

 stances when it is too late. Cannot you be profited by the experience 

 of others, and acquire wisdom from the mistakes of those who have 

 gone before you, and admonish you ? 



In addition to the loss of time necessarily resulting from too much 

 devotion to female society, it is injurious by unfitting the mind for study. 

 It tends to dissipate it, to fill it with ideas not easily connected with the 

 stern lessons of science and literature. It opens the way for various 

 irregularities in conduct, both in our general relations, and those specific 

 ones in which students stand. More than one man has wounded his 

 conscience and pierced his heart through with sorrow, and made others 

 deeply interested to mourn over his sad declension from the virtue and 

 rectitude he promised, who might trace, in a fair analysis, all the evils 

 which have befallen him, to a course, the opposite of that which is now 

 recommended. 



More than one has experienced a perpetual exile, more than one is 

 experiencing a temporary exile, more than one is failing in the accom- 

 plishment of his studies so as to endanger his standing and his ultimate 

 success, the philosophy of whose calamity may be traced to a greater 

 fondness for the Ladies than for study. 



The mode in which this operates may be learned from the following 

 case, which is that of an individual, and, although it may suit many, is 

 sketched from the career of one, A. who was sent to College and 

 progressed well in the earlier part of his course, secured a favorable re- 

 port in regard to his scholarship from time to time, became a Christian, 

 and a professor of religion. His success in study operated upon his van- 

 ity and produced a high degree of self-importance. He commenced to 

 visit the ladies, and fascinated by their society, he neglected his studies, 

 became irregular in his conduct, frequently violated College regulations, 

 lost the confidence of the Faculty, was reproved frequently and sharply 

 by the President, declined in his scholarship, was reported unfavorably 

 to his father to his deep grief, became more and more deteriorated in his 

 religious character, felt more and more a disinclination to prepare him- 

 self for the sacred office to which his aspirations had been directed since 

 his conversion, produced a conviction in all who knew him, that his 

 moral fitness for it was becoming daily less, and finally experienced in 

 parental disapprobation a banishment, temporary it may be, from his ap- 

 propriate pursuits, which, whilst no one considers it unjust, must be at- 

 tended with reflections to him the most painful. Case upon case might 

 be given, derived not from the imagination but from the memory, illus- 

 trative of the evil of that we now deprecate. These cases are not easily 



