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The purpose of this paper is to understand the middle-class school culture promoted in the “Ginásio Catarinense,” a private high school established in Florianópolis, a city in southern Brazil, during the first half of the twentieth century. This school, headed by Jesuits of German origin, was for male teenagers. The initial focus of the analysis was on the type of knowledge transmitted by this school. While this knowledge was defined by public officials as part of the national curriculum, it was redefined by the Catholic and Germanized vision of the Jesuits in charge of the school. The distinctive patterns encouraged among teenagers toward the development of a middle-class habitus are then analyzed. The paper is based on interviews with alumni and abundant written archives studied in a socio-historical perspective.