As Cambridge freshers get into the swing of university life and leave freshers’ week behind, a rulebook written in 1660 shows the changes in how the University has offered guidance over time to its new students outside of academic life.

James Duport, a fellow at Trinity College at a time when Isaac Newton was a student, wrote rules for the freshers of the 17th Century in 1660. While today’s freshers’ guides might focus on how to make friends, become a BNOC and maybe even get a First, Duport’s rules are more subdued.

Duport’s priority was instilling “proper behaviour” in the scholars starting their university career.

The freshers of the 17th century were normally younger than their modern counterparts, often matriculating at the age of 16.

Religion was a significant focus, with new students told to attend prayers promptly and “come not dropping in (after the uncouth and ungodly manner of some) when almost all is done...”

Duport also advised against “gading and gossiping from chamber to chamber” or “picking your nose,” deeming both habits to be “uncouth and unseemly.”

Sport was also, perhaps surprisingly, something he didn’t encourage.Duport states that football is a “rude” exercise. He was also not a fan of tennis but considers it to be marginally less offensive: “Use tennis sparingly,” he warns, “and never immediately after rules, it being then too violent and too stirring,” he writes.

Current Cambridge students (except perhaps those at Girton) might consider the centre of town to be an integral part of university life, passing through it every day.

However Duport prefers to tell his students to avoid the town due to its danger and dirt. “Never go into the town, except to ye church or schools or book-seller or book-binder’s shop,” he warns.

Whilst the vast majority of the rules are obviously not applicable to Cambridge life in 2013, there are nevertheless some words of wisdom that are still relevant today within Duport’s tome. “Write frequently to your parents and friends, to ye former especially if you know they desire you and expect it.”

Similarly, many a director of studies will be familiar with Duport’s encouragement to avoid excessive drinking and partying: “Beware of riot, excess & intemperance, which hath drown’d & devoured ye most pregnant parts & choicest of witts,” Duport warns his students.

The rules were researched by C.D. Preston and P.H. Oswald, two Cambridge alumni who published them in the Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society.

The two researchers have said that Duport’s “exuberant language” shows his “understanding of the natural slothfulness and waywardness of youth enjoying a first taste of freedom away from the parental home.”

There is an original copy of the rules in the Wren Library at Trinity College, as well as a manuscript that outlines even more regulations housed in Cambridge University Library.

Likening Duport to current college welfare officers or tutors, Preston and Oswald have described the manuscrpits as painting a “portrait of an energetic fatherly figure cajoling a group of feckless younger men to work hard and keep safe.”