[U.S. NAVAL ACADEMY AT ANNAPOLIS.]
[I. HISTORICAL NOTICE.]
The history of the United States Naval Academy, as an institution, opens October, 1845, but its germ and growth in suggestions, for the practical instruction of midshipmen, dates back to the beginning of the century. A school of the Navy constituted one of the departments, or group of schools, in the plan of a Military Academy drawn up by Alexander Hamilton, as Inspector General of the Army, and submitted to Congress, January, 1800, in the Report of the Secretary of War (James McHenry), whose department was at that time charged with the management of naval affairs.
In 1808, General Williams, in a report on the enlargement of the Military Academy at West Point, of which he was Superintendent, recommended “that nautical astronomy, geography, and navigation should be taught by the professor of mathematics,” and that the plan of the institution should “take in the minor offices of the navy; but also any youths from any of the States who might wish for such an education, whether designated for the army or navy, or neither, and to let these be assessed to the value of their education.” This plan was doubtless suggested by the Polytechnic School of France, and if adopted at the time, would have not only have given to the army and navy a much broader and firmer basis of scientific attainments, but would have hastened the construction of roads, bridges, canals, and railroads, and the development of the mineral and other industrial resources of the country, by turning out every year a number of young men, qualified in scientific culture, to enter on the duties of civil, mining and mechanical engineers, and become superintendents of manufacturing and other corporate enterprises. In the absence of any special school of preparation for such civil services, officers of the army were induced to resign their commissions to superintend the construction of canals and railroads under state and corporate auspices.
In the measures which grew out of the war of 1812, was the act of January, 1813, “to increase the Navy of the United States,” in which authority was given to the Secretary of the Department to employ a schoolmaster for each vessel to which 12 midshipmen were assigned. By these, so far as appears in any published document, was given the first formal employment of this class of officers.
In 1814 the Secretary (William Jones) suggested “the establishment of a Naval Academy with suitable professors, for the instruction of the officers of the Navy in those branches of Mathematics and experimental philosophy, and in the service and practice of gunnery, theory of naval architecture, and art of mechanical drawing, which are necessary to the accomplishment of the naval officer.” This suggestion was renewed by his successor, Smith Thompson, of New York, and a distinct proposition to locate it on Governor’s Island, in the harbor of New York, by Secretary S. L. Southard, in 1824. In a special communication to the Senate in 1825, he says:
The younger officers enter at so early an age, that they can not be accomplished, or even moderately accurate scholars. They are constantly employed on ship-board, or in our navy-yards, where much achievement in learning can not be expected. And yet the American naval officer is, in fact, the representative of his country in every port to which he goes, and by him is that country in greater or less degree estimated. “The science and information requisite for a navy officer,” he repeats in his Report for 1827, “is in no respect inferior to that required by the army officers and engineers, and the interest as well as the honor of the country are not less concerned in the correct performance of their duties.”
President Adams (J. Q.) in his Annual Message, Dec. 5, 1825, remarks that “the want of a Naval School of instruction corresponding with the Military Academy at West Point, for the promotion of scientific and accomplished officers, is felt with daily increasing aggravation.” In his message, Dec. 4, 1827, he returns to the subject “as still soliciting the sanction of the legislature,” adding—
Practical seamanship, and the art of navigation, may be acquired upon the cruises of the squadrons, which, from time to time, are dispatched to distant seas; but a competent knowledge, even of the art of ship-building, the higher mathematics and astronomy; the literature which can place our officers on a level of polished education with the officers of other maritime nations; the knowledge of the laws, municipal and national, which in their intercourse with foreign states and their governments, are continually called into operation; and above all, that acquaintance with the principles of honor and justice, with the higher obligations of morals, and of general laws, human and divine, which constitute the great distinction between the warrior patriot and the licensed robber and pirate; these can be systematically taught and eminently acquired only in a permanent school, stationed upon the shore, and provided with the teachers, the instruments, and the books, adapted to the communication of these principles to the youthful and inquiring mind.
In 1841, Secretary Upshur renewed the recommendation of his predecessors, and a bill to establish a naval school at or near Fortress Monroe, passed the Senate, but was not acted upon in the House.