they will be clowns.

And among the first necessities are the surroundings of a gentleman.
When a man is grown up, he can live in a sty and not be a pig; but turn
a horde of boys in, and when they come out they will root out. A man is
strong and stiff. His inward, inherent power, toughened by exposure and
fortified by knowledge, overmasters opposing circumstances. He can
neglect the prickles and assume the rose of his position. He stands
scornfully erect amid the grovelling influences that would pull him
down. It may perhaps be, also, that here and there a boy, with a strong
native predilection to refinement, shall be eclectic, and, with the
water-lily's instinct, select from coarse contiguities only that which
will nourish a delicate soul. But human nature in its infancy is usually
a very susceptible material. It grows as it is trained. It will be rude,
if it is left rude, and fine only as it is wrought finely. Educate a boy
to tumbled hair and grimy hands, and he will go tumbled and grimy to his
grave. Put a hundred boys together where they will have the
appurtenances of a clown, and I do not believe there will be ten out of
the hundred who will not become precisely to that degree clownish. I am
not battling for the luxuries of life, but I am for its decencies. I
would not turn boys into Sybarites, but neither would I let them riot
into Satyrs. The effeminacy of a false aristocracy is no nearer the
heights of true manhood than the clumsiness of the clod, but I think it
is just as near. I would have college rooms, college entrances, and all
college domains cleanly and attractive. I would, in the first place,
have every rough board planed, and painted in soft and cheerful tints. I
would have the walls pleasantly colored, or covered with delicate, or
bright, or warm-hued paper. The floor should be either tiled, or hidden
under carpets, durable, if possible, at any rate, decent. Straw or rope
matting is better than brown, yawning boards. There you have things put
upon an entirely new basis. At no immoderate expense there is a new sky,
a new earth, a new horizon. If a boy is rich and can furnish his room
handsomely, the furnishings will not shame the room and its vicinity. If
he is poor and can provide but cheaply, he will still have a comely home
provided for him by the Mater who then will be Alma to some purpose.

Do you laugh at all this? So did Sarah laugh at the angels, but the
angels had the right of it for all that