Those lines are Spartan, or, at least, Platonic. The boys are admitted at eight, and their parents take a solemn pledge not to remove them or allow their marriage till they are twenty-five, the lowest age fixed for a man’s marriage by the Vedic Scriptures. During these sixteen years the Brahmacharies, or disciples, do not go home, nor are they allowed to write letters or receive them; but their parents may visit them once a month, and do, in fact, visit them about twice a year. The great occasion for these visits is the school anniversary, which happens to be St. Patrick’s Day, when over sixty thousand Samajists come, including many thousands of women, and encamp on the edge of the jungle in grass and wicker huts, which were being prepared for them during my stay in the school. Unlike the parents who come to see their sons on speech-days at our public-schools, the pilgrim visitors bring their own supplies, and they generally stay three days, that being all of family life the boys ever know. And that is all they know of woman’s society, too, for it is, as I said, an Eveless Paradise. [Illustration: A STREET IN HARDWAR. HARDWAR STRAND. [_Face p. 306._ ] Such isolation in the midst of our common and intermingled world is, perhaps, dangerous. It comes too near the inhuman monotony of workhouse schools. It is likely to exaggerate the desires and curiosity of growing men, or to produce the hesitation of bashful and secluded lives when confronted with the need for action. The entire removal of home influence might appear harsh if we did not remember the scores of men whom we have known ruined by their parents’ vulgarity or their mothers’ indulgence. But even if we grant that most parents are quite unfit to bring up children, sixteen years seems too long for any boy to remain in the same place, with the same teachers and the same companions. Even the holiday excursions to historic cities of India, which are arranged by the Governor, and usually conducted by him, do not sufficiently break up the one-sidedness of such a life; and think of the boy who is genuinely unfitted for school and is compelled to remain unhappy for a quarter of man’s existence!