what would Salter say, belonging to such a respectable family, to find his chum in jail!

When Salter did come and find Packer gone, with trembling voice he upbraided himself for not confiding in him. "Had I been frank with him," he muttered, “he would never have kept his troubles from me. He could have lived with me and saved his reckoning here and eked out his money. One allowance of toddy would have done for us both, and one fire would have made us warm. He might have helped with the backlogs and chored around the garden; but 'tis too late, too late, all because I had secrets.' He wiped his eyes again and again as he scuffed about the deserted room, tenderly handling Packer's familiar belongings. At last he stopped his accusations and started for the jail. Here he found Packer unexpectedly cheerful. Indeed his only worry seemed to be that he was parted from his friend; and his first words were: "No more gunning on Hampton marshes, no more stories by Captain Marston's hearth, no more of the Squire's parties for me."

Salter asked for a statement of his debts, at once declaring that he would pay them all. "It is no use-no use,” muttered Packer. "I should be just as bad off again in no time. It wouldn't do one mite o' good." In spite of tears and protestations he remained firm, and would not touch one cent of Salter's money. So the friends parted. Oh, the pipes they had smoked together; the boxes of snuff they had emptied; the mugs of mulled cider and glasses of punch they had told stories over! Oh, the fat ducks and yellow-billed coots that had disappeared before them; the swarms of bees they had hived! And were these all things of the past?

Salter was a man of character and decision; and when he found that Packer's case was hopeless, that his household goods were transferred to the jail for good, and that thereafter the defunct Packers in oil would look

down on him from prison walls, he made up his mind what to do. Straightway he transferred his household goods to the jail,-blue cups and saucers and all. He presented his bees to the jailer, a good-natured fellow, promising to care for them himself; and in lieu of his room he begged of his cousin a cow, which he also gave to the jailer with the provision that he and Packer should have a share of milk and butter and honey.

There they spent the few remaining years of their lives: Packer at the town's expense, provided with luxuries from Salter's purse, both revelling in milk and honey from the jailer's cows and bees, on a shorter allowance of snuff, tobacco and toddy to be sure, but still happy because together. Captain Marston did not forget them, and many a bunch of birds found its way to the jail.

Packer was the one to go first; he was always the jollier of the two, but somehow death possessed no terrors, for was not his beloved friend by his side? He was buried from the Salter mansion with all the ceremony due to his former state and to a friend of Salter's, and his name was cut on a slatestone slab at Salter's expense.

Salter again took up his abode in the family home, Packer's treasures mingled with his own, and the Packers in oil looked down from the wall in company with the Salters. He was never known to smile again, but would sit for hours twirling the wellworn band of gold which encircled his wasted finger; and he would shake his head and mutter something which no one understood. He put away all his gold buttons and buckles and took to wearing Packer's silver ones, as something nearer and dearer; but it was for a few months only. His last resting place was but a few feet from Packer's in that pleasant sunny graveyard in old Portsmouth, overlooking the blue sea, which never changes though friends be false or friends be

true.

U

NIQUE among men and educators of his day stood Captain Alden Partridge, the founder of Norwich University, who was born in Norwich, in the Green Mountain State, January 12, 1785. His father was a farmer in independent circumstances who had served in the Revolutionary War, had taken part in the capture of Burgoyne and his army at Saratoga, and was thoroughly imbued with the martial spirit of the early days of the Republic, which spirit seems to have been transmitted in no small measure to his son.

Young Partridge was reared in the good old New England fashion, attending the district schools of those times during the winter months, and doing all sorts of work around the house and farm at other seasons of the year, until he was sixteen years old. Then, showing studious tendencies, he was allowed to fit for college, and in August, 1802, entered Dartmouth, which was just across the Connecticut from his home.

After nearly completing his course there, he received the appointment of cadet in the artillerists in the United States service, with orders to repair to West Point, New York, and report to the commanding officer of the National Military Academy, which was then in its infancy. Here he received such instruction as the National Academy was, in those days, able to give, was graduated in July, 1806, and transferred to the United State Corps of Engineers, and commissioned as

French language and drawing, the following professors: one professor of natural and experimental philosophy, one of mathematics, and one of engineering, each professor to have an assistant taken from the most prominent of the officers and cadets. The number of the cadets was increased to three hundred and fifty, and they were to be arranged into companies of noncommissioned officers and privates according to the directions of the commandant of engineers. These com

commission in any corps, according to the duties he might be judged competent to perform.

After placing the academy on this broad and substantial foundation, and enlarging the scope and capabilities to its present degree of usefulness, Captain Partridge, not agreeing with those in authority as to the policy of its development, withdrew from the institution and resigned his commission in the service of the United States. Following his resignation at West Point, he was engaged for some time in giving courses of lectures on fortifications,

fixed, the minimum at and the maximum at twenty-one, and the preliminary knowledge required was to be well versed in reading, writing and arithmetic. It was further provided that every cadet who received a regular degree from the academic staff, after going through all the classes, should be considered among the candidates for a

of the "piping times of peace" of 1818, but have since been found, by our terrible experiences in the wars of 1847, 1861 and 1898, to be eminently sound and practical. He believed that our chief reliance for national defence was in the "military habits of the great body of the American people, organized into suitable (military) departments, correspond

ing in the main to the limits of the several states, officered by men of the right capacity, scientific education and military training."

In the early part of 1819, Captain Partridge was engaged in the exploring survey of the northeastern boundary of the United States. After a year's service in this capacity he resigned his position for the purpose of carrying into practical effect a plan of education which had occupied much of his attention since 1810. This idea in its main feature was doubtless suggested by his experience at Hanover and West Point, and was calculated to supply certain deficiencies which he and others had already noticed in our American colleges and higher seminaries of learning. His views, both of the deficiencies and their remedies, were set forth in a lecture delivered at this time, which was subsequently published throughout the country. After defining "education in its most perfect state to be the preparing of a youth in the best possible manner for the correct discharge of the duties of any station in which he may be placed," he went

on to say:

"I will observe what is doubtless a wellknown fact, that there are many individuals at the present time who believe, I trust conscientiously, that the time is very near when wars and fighting will cease, and that consequently military preparations and the cultivation of military science are unnecessary and ought likewise to cease. That such a time will come I, perhaps, as firmly believe as any individual whatever; but that this period is so near as is by some supposed, does not appear to me to be probable. A comparison of the events predicted in the Prophecies and Revelations with those which have transpired in the world as recorded in history, force upon my mind a conviction that mankind is doomed to suffer the evils of

GENERAL ALONZO JACKMAN.
Instructor of George Dewey in Military Science.

war and bloodshed, and that consequently that state which intends to maintain its independence, free from the encroachments of avarice and ambition, must be prepared to repel force by force.'

Returning to Vermont thoroughly imbued with the idea that a country like ours, with a small standing army, stood much in need of institutions to equip young men with a complete military training, in connection with technical education, he established in

his native town an institution, patterned after the National Academy at West Point, known as the American Literary, Scientific and Military Academy. The influential citizens of Captain Partridge's native town were very liberal in supplying him with land and financial support; and in 1820, commodious buildings having been erected, "peaceful Dartmouth had a rival in warlike Norwich across the placid Connecticut." The town of Norwich in Vermont had become the parent home of a new system of education, a scientific and military education for the masses, a system which was so aptly termed in after years, by General Alonzo Jackman, the "American idea in education."

In the prospectus of the institution it was said that

"Everything in the internal regulations of the academy is calculated to establish the cadet in habits of regularity and order, to inure him to the hardships of active life. and to give him a practical knowledge of the several sciences to which his attention is called. In these things consists its principal superiority over the other literary institutions of our country, in which the students acquire but little practical infor