It is customary, but I think it is a mistake, to speak of happy childhood.
Children are often overanxious and acutely sensitive.
The effects of infantile instruction are, like syphilis, never completely cured. I lived there for more than two years. I made very little progress at my lessons, and none at all at games. I counted the days and the hours to the end of every term, when I should return home from this hateful servitude and range my soldiers in line of battle on the nursery floor. The greatest pleasure I had in those days was reading.