We must keep books, and our ledgers were overhauled at the month's end by the principal or his assistants.

To add a spice of verisimilitude, "college paper" (like poker chips) had an actual marketable value.

It was bought for each pupil by anxious parents and guardians at the rate of one cent for the dollar.

The same pupil, when his education was complete, resold, at the same figure, so much as was left him to the college; and even in the midst of his curriculum, a successful operator would sometimes realize a proportion of his holding, and stand a supper on the sly in the neighbouring hamlet.

In short, if there was ever a worse education, it must have been in that academy where Oliver met Charlie Bates.
When I was first guided into the exchange to have my desk pointed out by one of the assistant teachers, I was overwhelmed by the clamour and confusion.