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| William Chauvenet |
Today is Founders’ Day at the Naval Academy - the 174th anniversary of the school’s establishment. Those wishing to learn more about the academy’s early history should browse the “Naval Academy History” section of our digital collections where scans of early plans for the academy can be found. Among them is William Chauvenet’s account of the academy’s origin, which is of supreme importance because Chauvenet was not only an original member of the faculty but had already been instructing the U.S. Navy’s midshipmen for several years when the academy convened its first classes in 1845.
Hired to teach mathematics at the Naval School based at the Naval Asylum in Philadelphia in 1840, Chauvenet was promoted to head the mathematics and navigation instruction in 1842. The school had been created in 1839 to provide midshipmen with the preparation needed to pass the lieutenant's exam. He described his initial facilities as “a small blackboard, not even fastened to the wall but rested on the floor of the dark basement room in which informal and irregular recitations were held.”
Chauvenet was soon able to get a better classroom upstairs and established regular recitations but sought greater improvements. However, because the prevailing belief in the Navy was that “the proper place for a midshipman to prepare himself for his profession was on board a man-of-war in active service,” Chauvenet limited his vision to merely expanding the school's program to a two-year course of study. Even this modest plan was rejected by the Secretary of the Navy late in 1844.
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Chauvenet's proposed two-year course of study at the U.S. Naval School. |
It was only when George Bancroft took over the secretary's office in March 1845 that plans for the academy began to take shape. Apprised of Chauvenet’s plans for expanding the Naval School's program, Bancroft met with its Board of Examination in June 1845 but went farther and “called upon this board for a detailed plan of a school, and especially consulted them upon the propriety of adopting Fort Severn at Annapolis as the site for such a school.”
Several more hurdles needed to be overcome, including the transfer of Fort Severn from the Army to the Navy and obtaining the approval of open-minded naval officers, but a few short months later the first class convened at the Naval School in Annapolis with Commander Franklin Buchanan as superintendent and Chauvenet teaching mathematics, navigation, astronomy, and surveying (and performing librarian duties). The education and development of midshipmen continues 174 years later at the U.S. Naval Academy thanks to the efforts of the academy's founders including William Chauvenet.
Source:
Chauvenet, William. History of the Origin of The United States Naval Academy : A Letter from Prof. William Chauvenet to Mr. T. G. Ford, October 1860. Special Collections & Archives Department, Nimitz Library, U.S. Naval Academy
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