It was not a very good training school, like the Boston Latin School, or
Phillips Academy at Exeter, and this is usually the case in a school
where there are pretty young women; but, as Emerson indeed said, much
could be learned with Mr. Sanborn which was not to be had at other
schools,--especially this, that the true aim of life should not be
riches or success or even scholarship, but moral and intellectual
development. Mr. Sanborn's ideal of his profession was a high one, and
but for his interest in the larger field of philanthropy he might have
succeeded in realizing it.
Mr. Sanborn's most troublesome boy had a scriptural name, which we will
call David,--afterwards quite a distinguished lawyer. There was no harm
in David, but an immense deal of mischief. In fact he was irrepressible.
"David, stand up on the floor," was part of the customary routine; and
when this was accompanied by the use of a large lexicon his situation
was a truly amusing one. If he succeeded in escaping this penalty of
transgression until the first recess he was considered fortunate. He
usually returned from the school sports too much exhausted for any
further exertion, but in half an hour was as lively again as ever. All
veneration for authority seemed to have been replaced in David by a
strong sense of the ridiculous. His seat was immediately under the eye
of the master, with his face to the wall, and a large map of ancient
Rome before him, but this did not prevent him from turning about on all
possible occasions and expressing his various states of mind in such
ludicrous pantomime as would set off the young girls and small boys like
a row of torpedoes.
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