Page:Under Dewey at Manila.djvu/236

206 the schoolboy was of rather a quick temper, and if anything went wrong he was for settling the dispute with his fists, and it is further related that he was generally victorious in his battles. Thus was the man's natural fighting nature shown from the start, but lest some of my young readers take this as a justification to "pitch in" at the slightest provocation, let me add that George Dewey was never known to fight unless he was positive in his own mind that he was in the right.

From his home school, the lad was sent, at the age of fifteen, to a Military Academy at Norwich, in his native State. Here he was for the first time brought into contact with things military, and he had not been at the Academy long before he wrote home that he should like to go to either West Point or Annapolis, with a preference for Annapolis. This communication caused his father much worry, for the doctor had hoped that the boy would take up the study of either medicine, the law, or the ministry. But the parent believed in letting his son choose his own future, and so he consented to George's wishes.

To get into either West Point or Annapolis is, as most boys must know, no easy matter,