Babe Ruth

  St. Mary's was an unusual institution - part orphanage, part reform school, part private academy. The school was run by the Xaverian brothers, a Roman Catholic order whose members embraced piety and celibacy but not full priesthood, and the conditions were rigorously monastic.

 All the students had a history of behavioral problems, but the brothers attributed that to inadequacies of upbringing rather than any deficiency of character - a  decidedly enlightened view for the time. They believed that any boy treated with decency, encouragement and respect would grow into a model citizen, and they were nearly always right. Ninety-five percent of the Xaverian  boys went on to live normal, stable lives.

~ Bill Bryson, describing the institution where Babe Ruth spent part of his childhood