Excerpts from Chanler Chapman's 1940 "The Wrong Attitude: A Bad Boy at a Good School": Submitted by C. Gray "Boys are queer creatures. In every one there is a brigand as well as a good citizen, both of whom are constantly struggling for the mastery. Boarding school is the traditional device to control this struggle and bring about the victory of the right side. "It was a great big school named after a great big powerful Saint, whom some of us boys thought a little narrow-minded. The place was full of tradition. It was one of the oldest boarding schools in New England. The hockey was good and the scholarship did the best it could. "It was customary at The School not to let new boys loiter in their showers. Such loitering was called "soaking". Soaking was a luxury and the pecking order required that it should be reserved for the proper parties. If necessary, force was used to evict wrongful soakers, and after they were evicted they might be driven about a bit by superiors who flicked them with towels used as whips. In the right hands this method could be remarkably persuasive. "A great deal has been said pro and con the church part of church schools, and in spite of my record I have always cast my vote for the pros. Many of my contemporaries have found this hard to believe. I explain it partly on the score that for me -- and I believe for many other boys -- the chapel services, which came daily and twice on Sundays, were moments of active communion or stillness or at least pause and self-examination which the whole school took part in at regular and frequent intervals. "That I was not expelled was due largely to the kindness of the Rector of the school, who was really a Christian Gentleman. Perhaps he made a mistake in not getting rid of me. Some of my friends have said so subsequently. My father even urged him to take this course on one or two occasions. According to my father, this would have done me more good than harm. But the Rector knew best. "