“Certainly, the horror of going to this school and the cruel and unsympathetic way that I was sent there gave me a shock that I never got over.  The only thing that reconciled me to going was my intense indignation with those who sent me.  I appealed to be allowed to learn Latin and boys’ subjects, but was laughed at.

“I was so helpless that I knew I could not run away without being caught, or I would have run away anywhere from home and school.  I never cried or fretted, but burnt with anger and went like a trapped rabbit.

“In no words can I describe the severity of the nervous shock, or the suffering of my first year at school.  The school was noted for its severity and I heard that at one period the elder girls ran away so often that they wore a uniform dress.  I knew two who had run away.  The teachers in my time were ignorant, self-indulgent women who cared nothing for the girls or their education and made much money out of them.  There was a suspicious reformatory atmosphere, and my money was taken from me and my letters read.

“I was intensely shy.  I hated the other girls.  There were no refinements anywhere; I had no privacy in my room, which was always overcrowded; we had no hot water, no baths, improper food, and no education.  We were not allowed to wear enough clean linen, and for five years I never felt clean.

“I never had one moment to myself, was not allowed to read anything, had even not enough lesson books, was taught nothing to speak of except a little inferior music and drawing.  I never got enough exercise, and was always tired and dull, and could not keep my digestion in order.  My pride and self-respect were degraded in innumerable ways, I suffered agonies of disgust, and the whole thing was a dreary penal servitude.

“I did not complain.  I made friends with a few of the girls.  Some of the older girls were attracted to me.  Some talked of men and love affairs to me, but I was not greatly interested.  No one ever spoke of any other matters of sex to me or in my hearing, but most of the girls were shy with me and I with them.

    “In about two years’ time the teachers got to like me and thought
    me one of their nicest girls.  I certainly influenced them and got
    them to allow the girls more privileges.

“I lay great stress upon the physical privations and disgust that I felt during these years.  The mental starvation was not quite so great because it was impossible for them to crush my mind as they did my body.  That it all materially aided to arrest the development of my body I am certain.

“It is difficult to estimate sexual influences of which as a child I was practically