But, independently of the motives of interest which should operate on you, there are others, of an elevated character, which must ever stimulate the generous and the virtuous. The friends and relatives, who dwell around the enchanted spot of your nativity and boyhood, and seem associated with your very existence, are looking with interest to your career whilst here, and calling upon you for exertion during this eventful period of your lives. But, most of all, should the anxious, the painful solicitude, which is felt for your welfare by those beloved beings who have guided you along the path of infancy urge you onwards. Never forget the joy with which you may recompense your kind indulgent parents by your assiduity and success while here; nor the sorrow and mortification which you may occasion by your idleness and misconduct. You have, indeed, the happiness of the authors of your existence in your hands, and a generous heart will recoil from the infliction of sorrow. And let me urge you to keep up a frequent and unreserved correspondence with your families; reveal, frankly, all that occurs concerning yourselves, and never neglect the mandate of a father, or spurn the advice of a mother. Perhaps I could not give you better counsel, than to beg you never to forget the example of Marmontel. When you are about to perform a questionable act, let each one pause, and ask himself, “what would my mother say if she knew what I am about to do?”[5] [Footnote 5: I know of no one thing more essential to the prosperity of any college than the co-operation of the parent or guardian with the discipline of the institution. Such co-operation furnishes a sanction to the laws which can be derived from no other quarter. Hence my anxiety that a constant and frequent correspondence, of the most unreserved character, should be carried on between the students and their families. A timely letter from a father or a mother, has saved many a young man from ruin, by making him pause in his career and reflect on his conduct.]