ALDEN PARTRIDGE-EDUCATIONAL PIONEER
Though JROTC began in 1916, the tradition of combining formal education with military training goes back as far as the ancient
Greeks. Centuries before the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC) existed, the Greeks, Romans, feudal Europeans and
Japanese had their own versions. In the United States, JROTC had its beginning in Norwich, Vermont.
In 1819, Captain Alden Prtridge, a former Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, founded the American
Literary, Scientific and Military Academy in Norwich, Vermont. (The academy is now known as Norwich University.)
Military studies were a major part of the academy's course work. Captain Partridge felt that if his cadets were not prepared
to defend their country's rights, their education was incomplete.
In addition to extensive drill practice and physical training (including marches of up to 50 miles per day), the cadets
studied Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, English, 10 types of mathematics, five types of law and military history dating back to
Biblical times.
Captain Partridge's Academy was so successful that the idea of combining military studies with regular classes spread to
other schools.
WHERE ARMY JROTC IS
Junior ROTC is active in more than 850 high schools in the United States, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S.
Virgin Islands. It is also taught in American high schools in the Federal Republic of Germany, the Republic of
Korea (South Korea) and the Republic of Panama.
