This dormitory, to which I and my belongings repaired, was a long, narrow, whitewashed room, crowded with iron cots and intruding wardrobes. At night, when the bugle had blown taps and the lights were dimmed, there was a ghostly quality to the rows of white and huddled figures that lay the length of the room. There was never absolute quiet. Sometimes some little boy would be sobbing, sometimes two of the older ones would be telling each other the sort of jokes that daylight forbids--and sometimes it would be the heavy, asthmatic breathing of the proctor who was there to keep charge. Of the boys themselves I could not judge at first. I was too young to judge, at that: but I was not too young that I could not realize they were not of the same sort as I had known in the city. There I had known the pupils of a public school, poor, rough, almost always hard workers, eager for whatever seemed fair and quick and democratic. But these boys were of wealthy parents, most of them. There were only a few of them who held scholarships, and these did jobs so menial and embarrassing that, even under the most ideal conditions, they must have suffered in the opinions of the rest of the school. As a matter of fact, we were a brutal little crowd of snobs, and made life miserable for these poorer scholars who must sweep the halls and wash dishes. I do not think all military schools are like the one I attended. I hope not. I gained from my year there much in the way of physical development--but that is all. For every inch of muscle that I put on I lost something worth incalculably more: honesty and cleanliness of mind and what little shred of self-reliance I possessed. Somehow or other, it seemed to me that I had reached the lowest rung of boyhood here--and, as I look back upon it, I know that I was not much mistaken. I wrote to ask my aunt to take me away. She refused to come to see me--but scribbled a few empty lines to accuse me of homesickness, and to assure me I should soon be rid of it. We did much more drilling than studying. Though nearly all of us intended to go to college, our school day was confined to about three hours at the most--and under teachers who were always surly, sneering and uncouth. The standard of work in the classroom was very low. At first I did not have any trouble at all in leading the entire school in scholarship; but gradually, under the careless and relaxed conditions, I grew unambitious, lazy--and found myself failing among a class of boys who, I secretly knew, were my mental inferiors. It is so much a matter of competition, of environment.