Augusta Triumphans

Daniel Defoe was a prolific English writer, who is mostly known for the adventure novel 'The adventures Of Robinson Crusoe. Defoe was a tradesman but many trading campaigns he took part in went bankrupt. 

The decay of learning was among us, the system of the university was totally corrupted. We were brave and learned people, and are insensibly dwindling into an effeminate, superficial race. Our youth were sent to the universities by the parents in Oxford or Cambridge, but not under restraint or correction as formerly; not to study, but to drink, to become arrogant but ignoramus. It is true we ought to have those places in reverence for the many learned men they have sent us; but why must we go so far for knowledge? Why should a young gentleman be sent raw from the nursery to live on his own hands, to be liable to a thousand temptations, and run the risk of being snapped up by sharping jilts, with which both universities abound, who make our youth of fortune their prey, and have brought misery into too many good families?