By the like methods, a stop might be put to that ruinous practice of
deep gaming; and the reason why it prevails so much is, because a
treatment, directly opposite in every point, is made use of to promote
it; by which means, the laws enacted against this abuse are wholly
eluded.

It cannot be denied, that the want of strict discipline in the
universities, hath been of pernicious consequence to the youth of this
nation, who are there almost left entirely to their own management,
especially those among them of better quality and fortune; who, because
they are not under a necessity of making learning their maintenance, are
easily allowed to pass their time, and take their degrees, with little
or no improvement; than which there cannot well be a greater absurdity.
For, if no advancement of knowledge can be had from those places, the
time there spent is at best utterly lost, because every ornamental part
of education is better taught elsewhere: And as for keeping youths out
of harm's way, I doubt, where so many of them are got together, at full
liberty of doing what they please, it will not answer the end. But,
whatever abuses, corruptions, or deviations from statutes, have crept
into the universities through neglect, or length of time; they might in
a great degree be reformed, by strict injunctions from court (upon each
particular) to the visitors and heads of houses; besides the peculiar
authority the queen may have in several colleges, whereof her
predecessors were the founders. And among other regulations, it would be
very convenient to prevent the excess of drink, with that scurvy custom
among the lads, and parent of the former vice, the taking of tobacco,
where it is not absolutely necessary in point of health.

From the universities, the young nobility, and others of great fortunes,
are sent for early up to town, for fear of contracting any airs of
pedantry, by a college education. Many of the younger gentry retire to
the Inns of Court, where they are wholly left to their own discretion.
And the consequence of this remissness in education appears, by
observing that nine in ten of those, who rise in the church or the
court, the law, or the army, are younger brothers, or new men, whose
narrow fortunes have forced them upon industry and application.

As for the Inns of Court, unless we suppose them to be much degenerated,
they must needs be the worst instituted seminaries in any Christian
country; but whether they m