The property of the establishment was extensive, comprising in its buildings space for four hundred pupils, with wood and meadow land, half a dozen playing-fields, farm buildings, and stalls for hundreds of cows. The institution was at once boarding-school, model farm, athletic training-school, foster-mother of future scholars, and temple of the muses⁠—for there were constant performances of plays and music. The life was both monastic and manorial. With its discipline and elegance, its quiet good cheer, its well-being, its intellectual atmosphere, and the precision of its varied daily regimen, it soothed and flattered the lad Leo’s deepest instincts. He was exaggeratedly happy. He ate excellent meals in a spacious refectory where the rule of silence obtained⁠—as in the corridors of the establishment⁠—and in the centre of which a young prefect sat on a raised platform and read aloud. Leo’s zeal in his classes was fiery; and despite the weakness of his chest he made every effort to hold his own in the games and sports. He went devotedly to early mass, and took part in the Sunday service with a fervour which must have been gratifying to his priestly teachers. His social bearing was no less satisfactory to them.