Note 6 — NICHOLAS GOGOL. (continued 2)

Formerly Saturday was a dreaded day in Russian schools. Every pupil received on the evening of that day a severe flogging—the bad pupils as a punishment for their past misdeeds and laziness, the good ones as a foretaste of what awaited them in case of their altering their conduct. Some strange notion existed of accustoming the pupils to endure bodily pain, and of giving a periodical impulse to the circulation of their blood, and this had some connection with the barbarous system.