were surprised. They saw at once that I was of a
different race from themselves, and that I should still be marching
forward when they had reached the bounds set for them. But in rhetoric
I did not stand so well. I looked upon it as a pure waste of time and
ingenuity to write when one has no thoughts of one's own to express.

The groundwork of ideas upon which education at St. Nicholas was based
was shallow, but it was brilliant upon the surface, and the elevation
of feeling which pervaded the whole system was another notable
feature. I have said that no kind of punishment was administered; or,
to speak more accurately, there was only one, expulsion. Except in
cases where some grave offence had been committed, there was nothing
degrading in being dismissed. No particular reason was alleged, the
superior saying to the student who was sent away: "You are a very
worthy young man, but your intelligence is not of the turn we require.
Let us part friends. Is there any service I can do you?" The favour
of being allowed to share in an education considered to be so
exceptionally good was thought so much of that we dreaded an
announcement of this kind like a sentence of death. This is one of
the secrets of the superiority of ecclesiastical over state colleges;
their _regime_ is much more liberal, for none of the students are
there by right, and coercion must inevitably lead to separation.
There is something cold and hard about the schools and colleges of
the state, while the fact of a student having secured by a competitive
examination an inalienable right to his place in them, is an
infallible source of weakness. For my own part I have never been
able to understand how the master of a normal school, for instance,
manages, inasmuch as he is unable to say, without further explanation,
to the pupils who are unsuited for their vocation: "You have not the
bent of intelligence for our calling, but I have no doubt that you are
a very good lad, and that you will get on better elsewhere. Good-bye."
Even the most trifling punishment implies a servile principle of
obedience from fear. So far as I am myself concerned, I do not think
that at any period of my life I have been obedient. I have, I know,
been docile and submissive, but it has been to a spiritual principle,
not to a material force wielding the dread of punishment. My
mother never ordered me to do a thing. The relations between my
ecclesiastical teachers and myself were entirely