appointed fifty boys to live with him as his playmates and amusers.
These boys were provided with every possible means of indulgence, and
were subject to very little restraint. The intention of Sophia was
that they should do just as they pleased, and she had no doubt that
they would spend their time in such a manner that they would all grow
up idle, vicious, and good for nothing. There was even some hope that
Peter would impair his health to such an extent by excessive
indulgences as to bring him to an early grave.

Indeed, the plot was so well contrived that there are probably not many
boys who would not, under such circumstances, have fallen into the
snare so adroitly laid for them and been ruined; but Peter escaped it.
Whether it was from the influence of the counsels and instructions of
his former governor, or from his own native good sense, or from both
combined, he resisted the temptations that were laid before him, and,
instead of giving up his studies, and spending his time in indolence
and vice, he improved such privileges as he enjoyed to the best of his
ability. He even contrived to turn the hours of play, and the
companions who had been given to him as mere instruments of pleasure,
into means of improvement. He caused the boys to be organized into a
sort of military school, and learned with them all the evolutions, and
practiced all the discipline necessary in a camp. He himself began at
the very beginning. He caused himself to be taught to drum, not merely
as most boys do, just to make a noise for his amusement, but regularly
and scientifically, so as to enable him to understand and execute all
the beats and signals used in camp and on the field of battle. He
studied fortification, and set the boys at work, himself among them, in
constructing a battery in a regular and scientific manner. He learned
the use of tools, too, practically, in a shop which had been provided
for the boys as a place for play; and the wheelbarrow with which he
worked in making the fortification was one which he had constructed
with his own hands.

He did not assume any superiority over his companions in these
exercises, but took his place among them as an equal, obeying the
commands which were given to him, when it came to his turn to serve,
and taking his full share of all the hardest of the work which was to
be done.

Nor was this all mere boys' play, pursued for a little time as long as
the novelty lasted, and then thro