clothing. The committee contracted for the shoes and clothes supplied
to the boys; hence the weekly inspection of which I have spoken. This
plan, though admirable for the manager, is always disastrous to the
managed. Woe to the boy who indulged in the bad habit of treading his
shoes down at heel, of cracking the shoe-leather, or wearing out the
soles too fast, whether from a defect in his gait, or by fidgeting
during lessons in obedience to the instinctive need of movement common
to all children. That boy did not get through the winter without great
suffering. In the first place, his chilblains would ache and shot as
badly as a fit of the gout; then the rivets and pack-thread intended
to repair the shoes would give way, or the broken heels would prevent
the wretched shoes from keeping on his feet; he was obliged to drag
them wearily along the frozen roads, or sometimes to dispute their
possession with the clay soil of the district; the water and snow got
in through some unnoticed crack or ill-sewn patch, and the foot would
swell.

Out of sixty boys, not ten perhaps could walk without some special
form of torture; and yet they all kept up with the body of the troop,
dragged on by the general movement, as men are driven through life by
life itself. Many a time some proud-tempered boy would shed tears of
rage while summoning his remaining energy to run ahead and get home
again in spite of pain, so sensitively afraid of laughter or of pity
--two forms of scorn--is the still tender soul at that age.

At school, as in social life, the strong despise the feeble without
knowing in what true strength consists.

Nor was this all. No gloves. If by good hap a boy's parents, the
infirmary nurse, or the headmaster gave gloves to a particularly