Everyone suspected that the rigors of a good school would have the desired, dulling effect on Noah and Simon--Gravesend Academy would assault them with a host of new demands, of impossible standards. The sheer volume (if not the value) of the homework would tire them out, and everyone knew that tired boys were safer boys; the numbing routine, the strict attentions paid to the dress code, the regulations regarding only the most occasional and highly chaperoned encounters with the female sex ... all this would certainly civilize them. Why