 As a boy , Booth was athletic and popular , and he became skilled at horsemanship and fencing . A sometimes indifferent student , he attended the Bel Air Academy ( now Bel Air High School ) , where the headmaster described him as " [ n ] ot deficient in intelligence , but disinclined to take advantage of the educational opportunities offered him . Each day he rode back and forth from farm to school , taking more interest in what happened along the way than in reaching his classes on time " . In 1850 – 1851 , he attended the Quaker @-@ run Milton Boarding School for Boys located in Sparks , Maryland and later St. Timothy 's Hall , an Episcopal military academy in Catonsville , Maryland , beginning when he was 13 years old . At the Milton school , students recited classical works by such authors as Cicero , Herodotus , and Tacitus . Students at St. Timothy 's wore military uniforms , and were subject to a regimen of daily formation drills and strict discipline . Booth left school at 14 , after his father 's death . 
