I ran across some of that buried treasure a few days ago when I was on vacation at home in Illinois. It’s a book of essays for students by Thomas Arkle Clark, dean of men at the University of Illinois, called The Sunday Eight O’Clock: Brief Sermons for the Undergraduate. Published in 1916, it serves up both fascinating insights into an earlier generation and timeless gems relevant to our own.

Begin with the title. It’s tough to imagine an official of a secular university (a state university, no less) writing anything for students forthrightly called a “sermon.” In Clark’s time, however — less than a century ago — his essays ran regularly in the student newspaper, The Daily Illini. He didn’t deliver sermons in a preaching-the-Gospel sense; their topic was character, not salvation. Yet at that time Clark could presume that readers shared a basically Christian understanding and thus he routinely refers to God. He describes a student of low character as “a wild, untrained, harum scarum fellow, who cared little for God or for his instructors.”

That sort of talk sounds strange to modern ears for reasons besides words like “harum scarum.” But historically speaking, it’s really our age that’s strange; moral standards like those Clark assumed — based on what was widely understood to be God’s will — were assumed throughout most of our country’s history. Me, I find Clark’s words refreshing. There’s no blather about the right to choose your own lifestyle; there’s no meek suggestion that maybe the student would be better off if he were a tad more disciplined — but strictly for his own self-interest, because we wouldn’t dream of telling him how he should live. No, Clark simply said the student was wrong.

But times (which is to say, people) weren’t completely different. Take, for example, Clark’s description of Spring Break’s aftermath.

I have often felt it might be a good thing to require students to pass a physical test to determine whether or not they are strong enough to indulge in the dissipations of a vacation. The line of pale, sad eyed, tired and physically knocked-out undergraduates who come into my office after every vacation may have had “a peach of a time,” but they very seldom reveal much of the bloom on their return. A real vacation ought to be stimulating and restful, but it oftentimes leaves students exhausted, unprepared for their work, and worth nothing for days after they get back. Instead of finding themselves eager and ready for hard work, they come back to rest up.

Or see if there’s anything familiar in Clark’s account of a Christian student who’d taken to swearing.

[Brown] is a senior who has an educated, religious father and a refined, gentle mother. At home Brown is himself an active member of the leading Protestant church, and sometimes at vacation he leads the Christian Endeavor meeting. . . . He is not a coarse fellow; he has simply learned to swear as he learned in the grades to chew tobacco — because he thought it was smart and made him appear grown up. He swore at first to let people know, who would not at first have suspected it, what a young devil he was, and he swears now because he wants people to realize what an important character he is. Of course, at home he doesn’t swear at his mother or his father or his pastor or at any one or in the presence of any one whom he respects; and at college he is more or less careful who hears him.

Or see if you’ve ever known anyone who matches this description.

”My son failed in two subjects last semester,” a father wrote me recently. “Since he has now got the hang of college, will it not be possible next semester for him to carry these two subjects in addition to his regular course?” Having carried but nine hours one semester, most loafers feel confident that they can easily carry twenty-five the next.

Yes, get past the occasionally archaic language and you’ll recognize a lot of what Clark’s talking about. And do the same for his advice about character and you’ll find some truths that haven’t changed a bit.

For example:

For every good time you have, for every luxury you enjoy, for every dissipation in which you indulge or graft which you take advantage of, somebody is having to pay. You may charge the account at times, but ultimately the bills come in with interest.

Or on honesty (and the consequences of dishonesty):

Truth is a virtue; it is more than that; it is a cash account in the bank against which one may always draw. The liar’s statements come in time to be discounted even when he is telling the truth.

Or on responsibility (a lesson for parents and academic advisers as much as for students):

When we know that some one will coddle us and wait on us and run after us and think for us — when some one is always at hand to bear our sorrows and carry our burdens and pull us back from danger we grow to expect it. . . . I know seniors who can not get up in the morning without being called; I know freshmen who never get out the books unless they are told. If our education is worth anything it ought to teach us to be independent.

Or on using your time well:

There is no young person in college today, if he amounts to anything, who will ever have as much leisure time as he does at this moment; who will ever have as easy a chance to be wise and good and happy as he has today. The time and opportunity that is lost is seldom if ever redeemed. Those who wait until the last to do their work, to make their reforms, usually fail. Behold now is the accepted time, behold today is the day of salvation.

I wish I could tell you where to get this book for yourself; it is, alas, long since out of print. But I can tell you that it’s worth looking for books like this — books written by men who passed on decades if not centuries ago, and whose wisdom and insight are waiting to be rediscovered. Ask your parents and, better yet, your grandparents to recommend some old books. Ask a professor or a former high school teacher whose opinions you especially respect. Ask your pastor.

There’s no shortage of buried treasure out there, far richer and more rewarding than most of what you’ll find in the average bookstore. It’s just waiting for someone to dig it up.