 Larry and Phyllis are put together in chemistry class and given an experiment to run. They are both reasonably intelligent and sufficiently skilled to do the work involved and accept each other as partners in the effort. Phyllis starts by reading off the equipment required from the list, and Larry checks to see that each item is physically in place at their station or available to them. Larry and Phyllis do not start out as friends. They have no reason to personally trust each other, and yet they work together. They divide up the task before them, working together to do what must be done. In a partnership, the relationship is not the focus. The partnership forms when there is something to be accomplished. The partnership only exists when there is a result to be gained that has value to both the partners. In this case, Larry and Phyllis will be a success if the experiment is completed and they will fail if the experiment is not effectively run. As to the purpose for the partnership, they will succeed or fail together. Partnership may provide opportunities for friendship, but it is a very different type of relationship. Partners always have a purpose, a reason for trusting that the other person will be willing to commit their time and attention to the task. And that because they value the same outcome from their joint efforts. Entering into a partnership is a way to double the time and effort available to accomplish something valued by both parties. Partnership always involves some level of agreement on what will have value as an outcome for their efforts of the partners. Larry and Phyllis entered into partnership at the direction of a chemistry teacher, the one who also told them what they had to accomplish. Other partnerships are demanded by situations as in the natural partnership of parents who have taken responsibility for raising a child. They have a single value to resolve to accomplish, bringing up a child to be an effective adult. For a teenager, the lesson to be learned deals with meeting two criteria, a common value to be accomplished by joint effort, and realization that it is a common value. Finding that common value is a major step in maturing, learning to see other people as potential resources for getting things done. It requires recognition of value in other people and how they can effectively do what they have to do as part of it. It requires recognition of something that is valued by both people as an end result of their joint efforts. It requires communication of their potentials to work together in assuring that result. That is a lot of intellectual activity for a young student, and there are only brief help me with this moments as partners with younger ones. It is not until students reach the age where they begin to see themselves as active and independent parts of society that these partnerships become a way for them to accomplish things. Martin and Terry grow up in the same town. Both go away after basic schooling to become lawyers and return home to become partners in a legal practice. They share the purpose of earning a living through what the legal practice accomplishes. They are willing to trust each other in accord with this purpose, and so come to agreement on what they will accomplish through working as partners. Partnership is not just for the young, and learning to engage in partnership has value that can last for an entire career. The challenge is in learning to trust one another, and that is an intellectual matter, one based on what Martin and Terry learned about each other when they were young and what they learned about the practice of law as common knowledge in their higher education. Their trust is reasonable.