The students on board of the Young America were between the ages of
fourteen and seventeen. By the regulations, no boy under fourteen or
over seventeen could be admitted, and they averaged about fifteen. They
had, therefore, reached the years of discretion. Among them were a great
many who were disposed to be wild boys, and not a few who had found it
difficult to remain in similar institutions on shore. They were not
criminal or depraved, but simply wild; with a tendency to break through
reasonable restraint; with a taste for mad pranks, and a contempt for
authority.

Of this class, who were a trial and a torment to the teachers of the
ordinary high schools and academies, the larger proportion would have
scorned to steal, or commit any wanton outrage upon the persons or
property of others. There were many high-minded, noble-hearted young
men, who could not tamely submit to authority, and were prone to
insubordination, and who only needed the right kind of discipline to
make them earnest and faithful men and useful citizens. There were few,
if any, dunces or blockheads among them, for a life on shipboard had no
attractions for such boys. They were, almost without an exception,
wide-awake, bold, daring fellows, who had a taste for stirring events;
fellows who wanted to climb the Rocky Mountains, visit the North Pole,
and explore the Mammoth Cave. They were full of fun and mischief and it
would have been easy at any time to get up a party among them to march
the principal's cow into the parlor of the Academy; to climb to the
belfry on a winter's night, and fill the inverted bell with water, where
it would freeze solid before morning; or to convey the occupants of the
hen-coop to the recitation room.