School and Home were two different worlds, and it often struck me that
I led a double life. Six hours a day I lived under school discipline in
active intercourse with people none of whom were known to those at
home, and the other hours of the twenty-four I spent at home, or with
relatives of the people at home, none of whom were known to anybody at
school.
On Oct. 1st, 1849, I was taken to school, led in through the
sober-looking doorway, and up into a classroom, where I was received by
a kindly man, the arithmetic master, who made me feel at my ease. I
noticed at once that when the master asked a boy anything which another
knew, this other had a right to publish his knowledge by holding up a
finger--a right of which I myself made an excessive use in the first
lessons, until I perceived the sense of not trying, in season and out
of season, to attract attention to my knowledge or superiority, and
kept my hands on the table in front of me.