trust, going out of my way to form or express an opinion, yet having had some opportunity of acquaintance with similar institutions at home and abroad, and been pretty well acquainted with this for nearly a quarter of a century, I am ready, for one, in all times and places, to make and stand by the assertion, as far as such opportunities may justify it, and that, as being within the limits of truth, that this institution, in the respect in question, has reason to fear comparison with no other, nor with itself at any previous date within the same term of years. Reasoning back from apparent results, one might even suppose that to keep its character free from any stain of this sort, had grown up, among those who give a tone to its sentiments and practices, into something like a point of honor.

2. If the person whom we are describing is not a profligate, no more is he an idler.

He will no more consent to do nothing with his time, than to do mischief with it. He is influenced by high and effectual motives to diligence. And he cannot have been long here, before he sees ample reason to rejoice that he is so, taking nothing but his present daily comfort into view. If he had begun by trying the experiment, he has found for himself, if happily he have not tried it, he may have learned from, or observed in others, or his own good sense alone may have shown him, - that a college, after a prison and a ship, is the dullest of all conceivable places to kill time in. Those who might otherwise help him to dispose of it agreeably, - whose society would offer some immediate at

traction, or, at all events, would afford some sufficient resource, - he sees, for a general rule, all too busy, to give any one aid in the task, so much more unmanageable than theirs, of living on without an object; while those who are on that search for themselves, he perceives, have, for a general rule, little capacity to yield another relief under the burden of unoccupied hours. As he has no inclination to be miserable for the years which he has to pass here, so he will give way to no inclination to be a drone. If he had no better reason for being diligent, he would see cause to be so here, on the principle of self-defence against intolerable weariness and discontent. The resources of the place for getting rid of one's time, are those of agreeable intellectual employment. He who would find others, will be more in the way to what he seeks, by directing his attention elsewhere.

3. Again; the person of whom we are speaking is not impatient of authority.

That there should be authority in such an institution, and submission to it, he sees is indispensable to its being carried on. If it is to be, it is to be administered. If it is to operate at all, it is in such uniform and methodical mode of operation, as nothing but regulations, prescribing the course of those connected with it in all ranks, can secure. He is disposed to place a candid, respectful confidence in the wisdom and honest intentions of those entrusted with the devising and the application of such rules, knowing that they have been selected from the whole community, as persons competent

in both respects to the work; selected by those, who in this matter represent that community, whose tenderest and most anxious cares are for its youth; which would be more sensitive to nothing else, than to a danger of its youth being injudiciously or hardly treated. He endeavors to see, and is disposed favorably to estimate, the reasons of their acts; and as often as those reasons, understood sufficiently, approve themselves to his own dispassionate judgment, his feelings and determinations will ask no more, but promptly go along with his conviction. If, in any case, he fails of such satisfaction, still he does not disguise from himself that at least his judgment is less experienced, and may be less impartial, and may not be in possession of all facts needful wisely to decide it; and that they whose acts have not pleased him, are at least acting under influences disposing them to seek the right, because to find the right is an object intimately concerning their own interest and fame, and are certainly acting under a high and distinct responsibility before the public, which would not allow them in a course incapable of being defended to its satisfaction. Again; he remembers that he came hither, and remains here, voluntarily, because for some reasons of his own cognizance, he has thought it, on the whole, best to come and remain; and enjoying the privileges he sought here, he would not desire to withhold observance of the conditions, on which alone they were offered by those authorised to allow or to deny them. Or if he came hither by the will of others, and not by his own, still, coming, he re

members that he put his own hand to an engagement, by which, as a man of honor, he sees himself to be bound, in all to which its terms extend. He means that his word shall be as good as any man's. However much, or however little reason he may see cause to respect other things and other people, his own word, once passed, he does respect, and he means that other people shall always have reason to respect it.

4. Though a point, no doubt, of inferior importance to those which have been touched upon, still, as one of serious practical moment, I will add, while speaking of what the person under our notice is not, that he is not inclined to undertake the guidance of his own studies.

He does not think it enough to plead, that he is diligent, but chuses to be diligent in his own way. He understands that modesty is a part of wisdom; that, in youth or in age, there is no being wise without it; and he is willing to suppose it probable that his own way might not be the best way to be diligent in. It would be very extraordinary, if it should be so; if they who had been over the same ground which he is now traversing, and much more beyond it,-who had both the lights on which he relies, and other lights which they had been longer seeking, who were able to look back, and with the advantages of youthful and mature experience both, to discern the needs of the ripening mind, the business of whose lives it was, to come to just results in the decision of this question,- were able to give him no valuable aid of the kind he may have thought of rejecting.

His choice, in rejecting it, would seem to be merely that of the navigator, who should leave behind him, at home, the charts already provided for him at great expense of time and pains, and repeated anxieties and embarrassments of earlier voyagers, preferring to discover the headlands, and take the soundings, and project the charts for himself, as he went. Such a navigator might, it is true, and he might not, make his voyage safely in sufficient time; but at the best, others would, meanwhile, have returned with their cargoes of the commodity of which he went in quest, or, having used his time without finding his destined port, he would have to return with such inferior wares as he might have picked up by the way, and, in either case, would lose the advantage of the market.

II. Having glanced at the folly mentioned in the text, in the local aspect I proposed, let us, secondly, turn our attention to the wisdom, which, if it conform to the condition expressed, ought to excel the folly, as much as light excelleth darkness. And here, as it would be undertaking an endless task, to enter into the details of conduct becoming in the relation in question, and as I am addressing such, as, when principles are before them, need no aid in discerning their requisite applications to practice, let me speak rather of impulses, under which the wisdom, which is so excellent, requires a person, so circumstanced, to

act.

And not to propose too wide a range of view, let us confine ourselves to the impulses of a just ambition for one's self, a just regard to the claims of others, and a desire of the divine approbation.