SCHOOL INDULGENCE.
Nothing is more prejudicial to after-success in life than indulgence to youth when at school. Sir James Mackintosh felt and acknowledged this error. He tells us that when he left school he could only imperfectly construe a small part of Virgil, Horace, and Sallust: he adds, “Whatever I have done beyond, has been since added by my own irregular reading. But no subsequent circumstance could make up for that invaluable habit of vigorous and methodical industry which the indulgence and irregularity of my school-life prevented me from acquiring, and of which I have painfully felt the want in every part of my life.”
Another mistake is a profuse allowance of Pocket-money at School: we once heard an old Westminster declare that to his unlimited supply of money when at the college he attributed over-indulgence in luxuries which had injured his health, and often rendered him the dupe of mean and designing persons—full-grown parasites—mischievous as the plants of that name, which bear down the trees they attack, and rob them of the food intended for their own leaves and fruit.