By now all schools, colleges and universities in the state are up and operating. There is still enthusiasm for the new academic year and excitement associated with being reunited with friends that students may not have seen since last spring. Moms and dads are giving their first-graders sound advice before leaving them alone for the first time on the steps of the elementary school. Moms and dads are still giving children sound advice as they throw their back packs and duffle bags into back seats of SUVs and cars of all descriptions and head off to some college campus.

How much of this advice do the students hear? How good is the advice? What difference will the advice make in the way those students conduct themselves in their academic world?

Parental advice is nothing new. People have passed along suggestions, advice, even demands to students for ages. Our friend John Wesley was quick to offer advice at the slightest invitation. Even though he was a graduate of Christ Church College of Oxford and a respected member of the faculty of Lincoln College, Oxford, he was quite willing to offer advice to a student at Cambridge.

Luke Tyerman, author of Life and Times of John Wesley, tells us that in March 1754, “Wesley wrote to a Cambridge student that it was not possible for him to save himself in the midst of such a perverse generation, unless he would associate only with those who feared God.” Wonder how many parents have reminded their sons and daughters about the importance of carefully choosing their playmates, their friends, their fraternity brothers or sorority sisters?

Wesley continues, “Better to remain in solitude than to be carried away with the stream into frequent conversation with harmless, good natured, honest triflers [who] will soon steal away all your strength, and stifle all the grace of God in your soul."

Wesley also gave the student a reading list (taken from the Kingswood school) and advised him "to rise not later than five; to allow an hour in the morning and another in the evening for private exercises; an hour before dinner [probably the noon meal]; and one in the afternoon for walking; and to go to bed between nine and ten."

It was just the sort of advice you would expect John Wesley to give a student. Certainly the discipline mirrored Wesley’s own life style. Clearly it would be helpful to today’s students. But I doubt very seriously I could convince Greensboro College students to manage their day so masterfully, then go to bed between nine and 10. Maybe I should give it a try.