Before completing his apprenticeship he felt keenly the want of a better education, and determined to obtain it. His exchequer was very low, but having the confidence of friends he readily obtained a loan, and in the spring of 1855 he entered the Wesleyan Academy at Wilbraham, Mass. The principal, after a casual examination, said: "Well, you don't know much, do you?" Being quick at repartee young Jewell replied: "No, sir; if I did, I would not be here." This brief sip at the fountain of knowledge only increased his thirst for more, and in September of the same year he entered the state normal school at Bridgewater, Mass., under the regime of Marshall Conant, a life-long friend and counselor. Mr. Jewell from the first was a favorite among his classmates,--courteous, genial, pleasant in disposition, something careless withal; physically vigorous, and always the first at athletic sports when relieved from study. Mathematics, of which he was very fond, and natural philosophy were his favorite branches of study, and free-hand drawing his delight, as slates, book-covers, and albums attested. While in school he made rapid advancement in knowledge, and graduated in the spring of 1857, having acquired, as his diploma reads, "a very creditable degree of knowledge of the several branches taught therein. Besides these attainments, Mr. Jewell possesses a tact and skill for rapid sketching and delineation which give life to his blackboard illustrations." To show the forethought possessed by him in a marked degree, before graduating he had secured a school to teach in New Jersey, and the day after the closing exercises were over he started for his new field of labor. He taught with great success in New Jersey and also in New York, some three years. One school of which he was principal numbered three hundred scholars, and employed five assistant teachers, most of whom were his seniors in years. Like his father, he gained an enviable reputation as a teacher, and his credentials speak of him in the highest terms, as a competent, faithful, and pleasing instructor, and a most excellent disciplinarian. One superintendent of schools remarks: "He was the best teacher that has been employed in the town for thirty years." While engaged in teaching, Mr. Jewell pursued a course of study in engineering and surveying, and finally determined to follow engineering as a profession. He gave up school-teaching, left the "foreign shores of Jersey" and entered the office of R. Morris Copeland and C. W. Folsom, of Boston. His first work was the resurvey of Cambridgeport. He afterwards worked in Dorchester and on Narragansett bay. But this new occupation had just been engaged in when "the shot heard round the world" was fired on Sumter, and the tocsin of war sounded the alarm. Surveying, like all other business, came to a stand-still; the compass was changed for a musket, distances measured by the steady tramp of the soldiery, and the weary flagman became the lonely sentinel.