Now the Day Is Over: Five Years in a New England Boarding School

Paul Matthews, in his memoir of his five years at South Kent School, paints a picture of the child he was and the man he has become. Subjecting himself to intense scrutiny, Matthews captures his struggle to simultaneously live up to expectations and to rebel against them in an account that evokes both nostalgia and relief that the past is past.

Table of Contents

A Start
Visiting School
The Dorm
Nicknames
The Routine
The Honor System
Jobs
The Dining Room
Thrift
What I Learned There
Teachers' Faces
Football
The Old ManS. S. B.
No Girls
Roommates
Pigtail Against the World
Potatoes and Apples
Clean-Up
Not Only With Our Lips But In Our Lives
Crew
Wister and Whittemore
The Gunnery Game
The Old Man's Retirement
A Letter Home in the Mail
Being Appointed Head Prefect
Four Deaths
Snow
Art
The Fifth Trauma
Insights After the Fact: The Stubborn Hope of Redemption
Graduation: Into the World
Loose Ends: An Epilogue
Acknowledgments