I should meet any of my pupils as I went to school in the morning, or
back at midday, with my books in a strap under my arm. Not to betray
myself, I used to stuff these books in the most extraordinary places,
inside the breast of my coat till it bulged, and in all my pockets till
they burst.


IX.

School is a foretaste of life. A boy in a large Copenhagen school would
become acquainted, as it were in miniature, with Society in its entirety
and with every description of human character. I encountered among my
comrades the most varied human traits, from frankness to reserve, from
goodness, uprightness and kindness, to brutality and baseness.

In our quarter of an hour's playtime it was easy to see how cowardice
and meanness met with their reward in the boy commonwealth. There was a
Jewish boy of repulsive appearance, very easy to cow, with a positively
slavish disposition. Every single playtime his schoolfellows would make
him stand up against a wall and jump about with his feet close together
till playtime was over, while the others stood in front of him and
laughed at him. He became later a highly respected Conservative
journalist.

In lesson time it was easy to see that the equality under one
discipline, under the hierarchy of merit, which was expressed in the
boys' places on the forms, from highest to lowest, was not maintained
when opposed to the very different hierarchy of Society. On the lowest
form sat a boy whose gifts were exceedingly mediocre, and who was
ignorant, moreover, from sheer laziness; to him were permitted things