"In consequence of using his eyes too soon, after his recovery from the measles, when he was about seventeen years old, Shurtleff was almost wholly cut off from the reading of books for two years, and he never afterward perfectly recovered from the injury resulting from this imprudence. He made some proficiency, however, by listening to the reading of others. About two years after this affliction he entered the academy at Chesterfield, N. H., whither his father's family had removed a few years before. He attended first to English studies. The weakness of his eyes continued, and he was considerably embarrassed for a time from the necessity of using the eyes of his friends. At length he commenced the study of Latin, going through Ross' Grammar, the only one then in use, in just two weeks, and then beginning to construe and parse in Corderius. "He met, at the academy, one who had been his school-fellow and playmate, and with whom he was intimately associated from that time till the end of his college course,--the late Hon. Levi Jackson, who died at Chesterfield in 1821. They got out their lessons together, taking turns in looking out new words; and afterward, at college, where they were classmates and room-mates, continued the practice. Dr. Shurtleff felt under great obligations to this friend and helper, and said that 'few friendships among men had been more ardent, confiding and permanent.' "Shurtleff had supposed, at first, that the Greek language was beyond his reach, on account of his infirmity of sight. But some improvement having taken place, he ventured to commence the study. He went through the Westminster Greek Grammar, the book then in use, in one week, and began to read the Gospel of John. Having completed the New Testament, and read several books of Homer's Iliad, he was reputed in the school as tolerably versed in Greek. He and Jackson studied from the love of study, and did not think of college till a year before they applied for admission, at Commencement, in 1797, and entered the Junior class in this institution.