Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children | Page 8

respect you for it; or, even if you should stand alone, like Abdiel, "among the faithless, the only faithful," you will be supported by the testimony of your own heart, and by an humble confidence in the approbation of the Almighty. One or two instances may, probably, make my meaning more clear.
Perhaps a few joyous spirits have devised some scheme of irregular, sensual gratification,--of Bacchanalian revelry;--or, perhaps, two or three dunces, whose intellects and moral feelings are of such a stamp, as to render them rather impracticable subjects for academical discipline, have contrived some plan of impotent resistance to the college authorities, or some plot of petty and vexatious annoyance, in order to give vent to their mortification, when such silly resistance has been proved to be ineffectual. Wishing for the screen or protection of numbers, they will try to persuade their companions, that they will be wanting in manly spirit, or in social feeling, if they refuse to join them. And is there, after all, any thing so very spirited, any thing of high-minded and noble daring in behaviour, which seeks to screen itself by concealment and subterfuge, and which, if detected, braves, not any personal danger or suffering, but merely the terrors of an imposition? If the offence is so aggravated as to entail the heavier penalty, rustication, or expulsion, such punishment inflicts, indeed, severe grief upon the parents and friends of the offender; but he himself, with the short-sightedness of folly, perhaps almost enjoys the idleness and the freedom from academical restraint, to which rustication consigns him. A young Oxonian is apt to feel very indignant if not treated by deans and tutors, as a man and as a gentleman; but has he any right to expect to be so treated, if he condescends to adopt the practices of a mischievous or a truant school boy?
I am no friend to the unnecessary imposition of oaths; but, I own, I do not see how any thing like deliberate and systematic opposition to academical authority, can be reconciled with the oath of academical obedience taken by every freshman. I know well that the usual construction of that oath,--(I doubt not the legitimate construction)--is, that the person who takes it will obey the statutes, or submit to the penalty imposed upon the infraction of them. I am aware, too, that the violation of the strict letter of many of the statutes is acquiesced in, and almost sanctioned, by those in authority; but surely a deliberate and contumacious contravention of the statutes, accompanied by a natural endeavour to evade punishment, is hardly consistent with the spirit of the oath. Certainly it is inconsistent with the spirit of Christianity, which everywhere inculcates a dutiful submission to the constituted authorities; a compliance, in all things lawful, with the regulations of the place in which we are, and of the society which has received us among its members. No man is compelled to go to the University; but if he does go thither, he should make up his mind to comply with its rules, during the short period of his residence.
Perhaps, my dear nephew, you may think that I have all this time been combating, or, rather, seeking to lay, a phantom of my own raising; that I have been making mole-hills into mountains; or, like Don Quixote, turning wind-mills into giants: but, in my long Oxford life, I have heard of so many instances of the silly behaviour of which I have been speaking, that I wish to put you on your guard against it. True manliness consists in adhering to what you think to be right. In keeping steadily to the path of duty, notwithstanding the solicitations, or the taunts, or the ridicule of your associates, there is more proper spirit and moral courage, than in braving the rebuke or the impositions of a dean or a proctor.
I remain, My dear Nephew, Your affectionate Uncle.

LETTER V.
IMPROVEMENT OF TIME.
MY DEAR NEPHEW,
I trust that you are now hard at work. I can figure you with your Herodotus before you, your Scapula on one side, and your maps on the other, setting-to in good earnest. You have, I am sure, fully determined to make the most of your time. The time which you must necessarily pass in Oxford, in order to take your bachelor's degree, is but little after all. Your whole actual residence, during the three years, will probably not much exceed a year and a half. Certainly, of this modicum of time you cannot afford to waste any portion. Make a point of devoting it to real study, to real strenuous exertion. You owe this to yourself--to your own credit and character; you owe it to your parents, who have probably put themselves to some pecuniary inconvenience, in order to give you the