In School and Out by Oliver Optic

Camping out was a great event at Tunbrook, and the students looked forward to it with pleasant anticipations for weeks. The principal was shrewd in his policy, and no one knew when it would take place till it was announced, only a day or two before the march. By this plan he prevented any diversion of the thoughts from the lessons. Neither did the boys know where they were going when they started. They obeyed the orders which were given from time to time, and even when they halted for the night and pitched their tents, they could not find out whether they had reached the end of the march or not. The colonel told them that soldiers should be taught to obey orders, and cured of all propensity to ask questions.

The tour of camp duty for the summer term had been almost a continuous march; and during the campaign of ten days, they had travelled over a hundred miles. Colonel Brockridge was an earnest believer in the necessity of physical development in boys. He was of the opinion that they could stand almost every thing, if they were regularly and systematically inured to hardship. Weak papas and tender mammas raised their hands with horror at the idea of having their Johnny sleep on the ground in a tent, and stick to the camp whether it was fair weather or foul; but the colonel could adduce hundreds of instances where boys of puny constitutions had become strong and vigorous under this treatment.