I want also to speak for the triumphant boys who took everything the system could throw at them, endured every torment and excess, and survived the ordeal of the freshman year with a feeling of transformation and achievement that they never had felt before and would never know again with such clarity and elation.

I want to speak for the boys who were violated by this school, the ones who left ashamed and broken and dishonored, who departed from the Institute with wounds and bitter grievances. I cannot come to this story in full voice. “I will take you down my own avenue of remembrance, which winds among the hazards and shadows of my single year as a plebe. ― Pat Conroy, quote from The Lords of Discipline And the truly wonderful thing about them is they would applaud my theft, laugh at the thought of it, realizing they had taught me their larcenous skills well.” I exchange their handy gifts with strangers on trains, and I pretend the gifts are mine. They ride with me during all my days, and I pass on to others what they have imparted to me. Bad teachers do not touch me the great ones never leave me. He tells me that teaching is the art of theft: of knowing what to steal and from whom. He leaves me tame and grateful for the new language he has purloined from other kings whose granaries are filled and whose libraries are famous. A great teacher is my adversary, my conqueror, commissioned to chastise me. And I wanted my teachers to make me smart. I did not like decorum or rectitude in a classroom I preferred a highly oxygenated atmosphere, a climate of intemperance, rhetoric, and feverish melodrama. 'The Great Santini,' called the 'World's Champion Flame-Diver,' appeared as a circus act in the 1931 film Side Show.“Great teachers had great personalities and that the greatest teachers had outrageous personalities.

The novel was made into a film of the same name in 1979, starring Robert Duvall in the title role. The novel exposes the love-hate relationship between Ben and his father, and the lengths Ben goes to in an effort to win his father's acceptance and love. The novel explores main character Ben Meecham's growth into manhood, his experiences playing basketball for his high school, as well as his friendships with a Jewish classmate and an African-American farmer.

Conroy makes the point that Santini is a warrior without a war, and in turn is at war alternately with the service that he loves and his family. In 1962, before the Vietnam War, the Meecham family struggles to fit into the Marine town of Ravenel, South Carolina (closely based on Beaufort, South Carolina) where they are newcomers. Wilbur 'Bull' Meecham calls himself 'The Great Santini'. The Great Santini is a novel written by Pat Conroy and published in 1976.

The lords of discipline by pat conroy