O’erlooked and unemployed, fell sick and died. Then study languished, emulation slept, And virtue fled. The schools became a scene Of solemn farce, where ignorance in stilts, His cap well lined with logic not his own, With parrot tongue performed the scholar’s part, Proceeding soon a graduated dunce. Then compromise had place, and scrutiny Became stone-blind, precedence went in truck, And he was competent whose purse was so. A dissolution of all bonds ensued, The curbs invented for the mulish mouth Of headstrong youth were broken; bars and bolts Grew rusty by disuse, and massy gates Forgot their office, opening with a touch; Till gowns at length are found mere masquerade; The tasselled cap and the spruce band a jest, A mockery of the world. What need of these For gamesters, jockeys, brothellers impure, Spendthrifts and booted sportsmen, oftener seen With belted waist, and pointers at their heels, Than in the bounds of duty? What was learned, If aught was learned in childhood, is forgot, And such expense as pinches parents blue And mortifies the liberal hand of love, Is squandered in pursuit of idle sports And vicious pleasures; buys the boy a name, That sits a stigma on his father’s house, And cleaves through life inseparably close To him that wears it. What can after-games Of riper joys, and commerce with the world, The lewd vain world that must receive him soon, Add to such erudition thus acquired, Where science and where virtue are professed? They may confirm his habits, rivet fast His folly, but to spoil him is a task That bids defiance to the united powers Of fashion, dissipation, taverns, stews. Now, blame we most the nurselings, or the nurse? The children crooked and twisted and deformed Through want of care, or her whose winking eye And slumbering oscitancy mars the brood? The nurse no doubt. Regardless of her charge, She needs herself correction; needs to learn That it is dangerous sporting with the world, With things so sacred as a nation’s trust; The nurture of her youth, her dearest pledge.