CHAPTER II.
THE YOUNG AMERICA.
With Mr.Lowington, the Academy Ship, which was the name he usually applied to the idea he had matured, and thus far carried into effect, was not a speculation; he did not intend to see how much money could be made by the scheme.

It was an experiment in the education of rich men's sons, for only rich men could pay for scholarships in such an expensive institution.
The Brockway Academy was to be continued, under the management of a board of trustees.

An accomplished teacher had been selected by Mr.
Lowington, and the school, under its present administration, was in a highly prosperous condition.

Only ten of its pupils had been transferred to the Academy Ship, for it required no little nerve on the part of parents to send their sons to school on the broad ocean, to battle with the elements, to endure the storms of the Atlantic, and to undergo the hardships which tender mothers supposed to be inseparably connected with a life on shipboard.
For six months Mr.Lowington had studied upon his plan, and it was hardly matured when the new ship came to anchor in Brockway harbor.
During this period he had visited the principal cities of the Northern States, those of the southern section being closed against his operations by the war of the rebellion then raging at the height of its fury.

He had interested his friends in his bold enterprise, and boys with, whom the experiment was to be inaugurated were gathered from all parts of the country.
The securing of the requisite number of pupils was the first success, and what he had regarded as the most difficult part of the enterprise.
More than half of them had been obtained before it was deemed prudent to lay the keel of the ship.