Penguin Modern Classics: The Prodigy

Herman Hesse's early, partly autobiographical novel follows the young life of Hans, a bright boy whose over-ambitious father and the insistent pressure of his schoolteachers drive him to a nervous breakdown. An outspoken criticism of the cruel and narrow system of which Hesse himself was a victim, The Prodigy marks the point at which the author began to see the value of the Eastern methods of self-development which became central to his later work.
'It is the school's job to break in the natural man, subdue and greatly reduce him.'
Herman Hesse