I think the old teacher should be sitting here for a different reason. Not to help you avoid having petty thoughts or speaking poorly about yourselves. Instead, he should make sure we don't have any young men who think like this: Once they realize they're related to God and that we're chained down by our bodies and possessions — and all the other things we need for daily life and dealing with people — they decide to throw off these things like they're painful burdens they can't stand. Then they want to leave and go back to their divine family.
I indeed think that the old man ought to be sitting here, not to contrive how you may have no mean thoughts nor mean and ignoble talk about yourselves, but to take care that there be not among us any young men of such a mind, that when they have recognized their kinship to God, and that we are fettered by these bonds, the body, I mean, and its possessions, and whatever else on account of them is necessary to us for the economy and commerce of life, they should intend to throw off these things as if they were burdens painful and intolerable, and to depart to their kinsmen.