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INTELLECTUAL CULTURE.. 355
dangers to which their children maybe exposed if placed in ill-conducted seminaries. Let them consider too that there is no charm in a college which ensures any benefit whatever. It is a fact, well established, that many young men graduate, knowing little more than when they entered. Nol more than one in five really improves the advantages which the college affords. Not more than one in five fulfils the hopes and expectations of his friends in sending him to college. Beside this, many young men are taught vices at these seminaries wliieh they never shake off—many who enter them in purity go forth corrupted for life.
Before sending children to a college, therefore, parents should acquaint themselves thoroughly with the character of its officers and professors. and with the practical effects of the institution. literary, moral and religious; they should then duly consider the temptations to which the students are exposed, and whether those whom they propose to place within their influence, are of a disposition to withstand them. It is obvious that some of these difficulties are mitigated or removed where parents reside in the immediate vicinity of the college, and can watch over their sons: or in cases where some judicious person, in the institution or near it, |
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