Address to Senior Class 1794

An Address to the Senior Class delivered July 6 1704 by Abiel Abbot Preceptor. PA And.

You are now about commencing the most perilous period of your lives. A period in which every portion, unfriendly to virtue, will be excited; every temptation dangerous to morals will be set before you; & every art calculated to mislead will be practised upon you. You are going to act a part upon a Stage where wrong ideas & false principles have great influence. They are ideas & principles, which assume the spacious names of honor independence, spirit; but which much rather deserve the names of Shame, Dependence, & meanness. You will sail on a Sea, whose surface is beautiful & tempting, But dangerous rocks & quicksands lurk beneath. It is a sea on which I have lately sailed, & where I have been the pitying spectator of wreks. I could point you out the vertex which

which has swallowed many youths; & the rock, on which many have made shipwreck of health & religion. What is most to be lamented, you no sooner enter upon this unexplored sea, than a herd of pilots croud around you, who under the mask of friendship would decoy you into danger, if not into ruin. You will allow me as they flow from a heart melting with fear & affection for you, to suggest a few thoughts that may be of use to you in College. If you may not see the necessity of all I shall say now it is probable you will hereafter, 'tho' I wish you never may.

Never think profanity innocent or becoming, because it is fashionable. If it be familiar to your ears, let it be strange to your tongues if you value religion or manners.

Think not that public prayers are mere matter of ceremony, & require no engagement of mind & affections, because many around you may be shamefully inattentive & irrerverent.

Example is poor excuse for folly, & wickedness. Never suppose that a mean action is proof of spirit; or that insolence to authority is a mark of independence. You will find some, who seem to think it honorable to make beasts of themselves. But remember the proverb, "Wine is a mockery strong drink is raging." The fumes of wine put out the lover of reason & then the pashions let loose in the dark, commit such folly & outrage as afford subject of repentance if not public censure. I think it moderate to say, that three fourths of the mischief & punishment, which take place in college are the consequence of wine.

Let me guard you against another danger, which springing out of a virtuous source is the less observed.

The desire to please or be popular is strong in young minds; & never has it more influence upon conduct than at College. The desire itself is laudable & is to be checked only when it becomes irregular. It aims at reputation the end is noble never let the means disgrace the end.

Reputation, esteem, respect, are Honest objects of such honorable nature, that you can never arrive to them by crooked paths. Respect yourself too much to act contrary to your opinions in matters of any moment, with a view to be popular. Such popularity is not worth the having; it is like "The (morning cloud and) early dew which passes away." But Reputation which is won by attention to study by a respectful,

yet not cringing deportment to authority, by an independent yet civilly polite treatment of all your coequals & by friendship & intimacy with a few of them judciously selected; reputation won by this mean the rising sun, which shines brighter & brighter till the perfect day, & unlike the sun will never set nor decline.

Be not hasty to form intimacies. Every one who grasps you hand & speaks the language of friendship is not sound at core. A sweet disposition charms when ever it is seen, but if it be united with bad morals hold the person who has them dangerous. From loving his person & being familiar with his vices your abhorance would gradually abate, & at length you would think them agreeable youthful sallies, that may be adoped without tarnish to your reputation. "But who can touch pitch & not be defiled." Yet