A copy of our laws will be placed in the hands of each one of you: read and respect them. On the part of the Faculty, with which I have the honor to be connected, I have to state that the discipline of the college must and will be enforced. The oath of office, the reputation of the institution, your own welfare and success, all demand vigilance and promptness on our part. From your instructers you will always receive kind, affectionate, and parental treatment, and you may well believe it will ever be painful to us to animadvert on your conduct, or to inflict the penalties required by our laws. Nothing but a high sense of duty could lead us to proceed against those for whom the bare relation which subsists between us must generate feelings of the kindest character. The professor, who is kind to the student, and attentive to his interests, while he nerves himself upon all occasions to a discharge of his duty, is always his greatest benefactor; and the student will acknowledge it as soon as he has left the college walls. Be diligent, be perseveringly attentive to your studies, and you have the antidote against all the evils and temptations to which college life is incident. And let me advise you, particularly in your evening rambles and social gatherings, to direct your thoughts and conversation to subjects of importance, particularly to the subject of your lectures. Enlightened, intelligent conversation is a source of great mental improvement; it brings mind into conflict with mind, sharpens the faculties, gives increased relish for study, and greatly enlarges the stock of information by an interchange of ideas. It is for this reason that a few intelligent men in a county will be found quickly to raise its intellectual level; and a few inquiring, successful students in a college, will in like manner quickly inspire the whole number with ardor and devotion to study. Hence the fact which the statistics of all long established colleges will prove, that great men are not sent out from their walls one by one, from year to year, in regular succession, but they come at longer intervals, and always in little platoons. Thus are we convinced of the interesting fact, that genius is rarely solitary—it delights in company. The example and conversation of the successful student arouse and stimulate his companions, and lead them along with himself to distinction.[7]