How to Succeed at University, c. 1316

Cantigas de Santa Maria, 13th century

I have recently discovered that you live dissolutely and slothfully, preferring license to restraint and play to work and strumming a guitar while the others are at their studies, whence it happens that you have read but one volume of law while your more industrious companions have read several. Wherefore I have decided to exhort you herewith to repent utterly of your dissolute and careless ways, that you may no longer be called a waster and your shame may be turned to good repute.

Letter from a father to his son in Orléans (trans. Charles Homer Haskins)

For Father’s Day, some advice from a medieval dad who thinks his son should not major in Guitar Hero.