Oh, yes, especially knowing that in those days, there was no official body like a teacher or Child Welfare to step in if things got too bad, and knowing also how much more severe the "discipline" of children used to be. Yes, I do feel sorry for his childhood.

What I also find interesting about this paragraph is that highly-moral JA took it for granted that *one* of the main reasons to go to university was to "form (some) useful acquaintance" (i.e: networking, in today's terms). I've been reading Irene Collins' "JA and the Clergy" and Brian Southam's "JA and the Navy", and these books make it obvious just how necessary connections were in both fields to get ahead at all. Even an "unworldly" clergyman like Mr. Austen understood this, if you look at the letter he wrote his son Frank as *he* was starting his career. Mr. Collins seems to have been very lucky in attracting the notice of Lady Catherine!