The college life of the time was not devoted entirely to literary creativeness or to political discussions. There is published an address by President Witherspoon to the inhabitants of Jamaica (1772), in which he outlined the course of study to which the students were subjected. It indicates, very excellently, the classical training that Brackenridge, Freneau, and Madison had to undergo. In fact, we find, on Commencement Day, Freneau debating on "Does Ancient Poetry excel the Modern?" and throwing all his energy in favour of the affirmative argument. And Brackenridge, selected to deliver the Salutatory, rendered it in Latin, "De societate hominum." (See Pennsylvania _Chronicle_; John Maclean's "History of the College of New Jersey," i, 312; Madison's correspondence while a student; also Philip Vickers Fithian's Journal and Letters: 1764-1774. Student at Princeton College: 1770-1772. Tutor at Nomini Hall in Virginia: 1773-1774. Ed. ... by J. R. Williams. Princeton, 1900.) The Princeton historian points to this class of 1771 as being so patriotic that a unanimous vote was taken to appear at graduation in nothing but things of American manufacture.[3] This much we do know regarding the early life of Brackenridge: that he was always pressed for money, that it was his indefatigableness and thirst for knowledge which carried him through the schools of the time, and through college. His son even confesses that his father was obliged, on one occasion, to write an address which one of the students had to deliver, and to receive in payment therefor a new suit of clothes! It was after his graduation that Brackenridge tutored in the College for a while, meantime taking up a course in theology. After this, he accepted a position as teacher in a school on the eastern shore of Maryland, because the "Academy" offered him a most flattering salary, and he could not reject it, however much he may have been interested in his college work. No sooner was he established there than he wrote to his friend, Freneau, inviting him to take the second position in the Maryland Seminary. This position was accepted by Freneau, who wrote to James Madison on November 22, 1772, mentioning therein that Brackenridge was at the head of Sommerset Academy, to which he himself had come on October 18th of that year, and where he was teaching the young idea and pursuing at the same time his theological studies. As illustration of how much Freneau was at heart in tune with the work, we note that he says, "We have about thirty students in this Academy who prey upon me like leeches." According to Brackenridge's son, whose Memoir of his father is published in the 1846 edition of "Modern Chivalry," there must, however, have been in this part of Maryland a polished social atmosphere, which gave ample opportunity for the wit, the scholarship, and the conversational and social powers of Brackenridge to develop.