Creation is hierarchical, most basically in its dimensions-- some things will be closer than others, and hierarchies of cause and effect are intrinsic to time. Created beings, both physical and spiritual, exist in hierarchies that seem to fill every conceivable rank. Man in himself is a hierarchy, the physical ordered to the spiritual, the passions to the will,  the will to the intellect, the agent intellect to the possible intellect.

Natural hierarchy is manifest most perfectly in the most basic unit of human life, the family.  Since the family is the primary domain for woman to exercise her authority, and a woman's physical nature establishes her authority over her children, and since her activities outside the family involve more cooperation than command, by her nature a woman is less inclined to establish hierarchies.

But to the extent that men engage largely in activities with other men requiring supervision and authority, their lives are spent in hierarchies with other men. They consequently have a natural inclination to find their place, and thrive when they are in a hierarchy that is clear and according to sound reason.

Age and social position are natural extensions of family relations and ready means of determining male hierarchies. After these, excellence, either by skill, for activities that rely on it, or more broadly by virtue, are the natural means of establishing order between men.

Schooling that segregates boys strictly by age largely eliminates any natural basis for establishing hierarchies. This is aggravated when they are placed under female supervision. In these circumstances, since the young man's need for a place in a hierarchy is not diminished, unnatural and arbitrary hierarchies develop instead, which can be very damaging.

Boys will thrive in a program that is built with hierarchy, first among the adult men, but also between the boys themselves, in which they can move through a cursus honorem. To begin with, they will see what they are taught demonstrated by boys one or two steps ahead of them. As they progress they will begin to be teachers themselves, and learn to exercise responsibility for younger boys with fraternal charity.

Conventional classroom learning offers little opportunity to develop levels of responsibility and authority between boys.  Skilled manual work, on the other hand, relies on levels of expertise that create natural hierarchies of skill, and involves group actions that require small scale leadership exactly suited to the differences in maturity in a group of boys of different ages.