It too often happens that the youth at college imagines that he has rights and interests to defend adverse to those of his instructers. This false impression is pregnant with the most mischievous consequences. It arrays the student against the professor, introduces disorder and idleness into the institution, and in the end becomes, perhaps, the cause of the student’s dismission, and consequently of irreparable injury to himself, and of pain and mortification to his friends and relatives. Now, gentlemen, I beg you to reflect a moment on the absurdity of this opinion. Where can there be any hostility of interest between your instructers and yourselves? Is it not our interest, as well as yours, that you should be diligent in your studies, correct and moral in your deportment? Does not the student who makes the greatest proficiency in his studies, earn the greatest honor for himself, while he reflects the greatest renown upon the college? and I can assure you that we feel proud indeed when we behold those who have received our instruction gracing and adorning the spheres in which they move. Where, then, is the hostility of interest? There is none; the belief is vain and idle. The right for which the student is induced to contend, is often nothing more than the _right_ to do _wrong_, the exercise of which always proves more destructive to himself than detrimental to us. If the student would only take a correct view of this subject, there would be nothing more endearing and harmonious than the relation of professor and pupil. The complexion of his whole future life may depend upon his acquirements and conduct whilst here. It is our duty, and it is his interest, that we should guard and restrain when he would run into excess. It has been my fortune to meet with several in the world who have spent their collegiate lives in reckless dissipation and idleness. I have beheld them while reaping the bitter fruits of their conduct; have heard their confessions of deep regret, and seen them shed the tear of heartfelt repentance; and I have not met with one who did not wish that he could run his race again, that he might avoid the errors of his youth.