The strictures made upon the present authorized seal, or coat of arms, of the Naval Academy a few years ago1 by Lieutenant Ridgely Hunt (Ret'd), to the effect that it represents the unfortunate effort of one man, a graduate in civil life, who, singlehanded, in 1898, conceived the design, and, aided by a classmate, succeeded in having it adopted by the Navy Department, have prompted some further investigations into the history of this subject. The story of the adoption of the present device is familiar to all readers of Park Benjamin's "United States Naval Academy," but a restatement of the facts will serve to freshen our memories on some points.
The seal, or coat of arms, of the Naval Academy has for its crest a hand grasping a trident, below which is a shield bearing an ancient galley coming into action, bows on, and below that an open book, indicative of education, and finally bears the motto, "Ex scientia tridens" (from knowledge, sea power). The whole is the design of the author and was adopted by the Navy Department in i898. Up to that year, the Naval Academy had possessed no authorized device, although it had printed on its Registers an arbitrary symbol. The occasion which led to the adoption of the present design was the building of a new club-house by the University Club of New York, on the exterior of which the coats of arms of the several colleges were placed as an embellishment, and this brought the fact to general notice that the Naval Academy had no badge of the kind. The matter was at once taken up by Mr. Jacob W. Miller, of the class of 1867 and mainly through his endeavors the desired approval of the Navy Department was secured.
Lieutenant Hunt objects to the galley and the book emblazoned on the escutcheon of his Alma Mater. He quotes the suggestion of a certain iconoclast that the galley was selected because it was a vessel manned by slaves chained to oars, and recalls the remark of some cynic that " 2.5 " should be imposed on one page of the open book and a mathematical symbol on the other. Above all does he find fault with the motto, "Ex scientia tridens," not only because it is so difficult to translate, but chiefly because the concept embodied therein can hardly give birth to that greater idea—conducive to the proper esprit de corps—of allegiance to country. By way of substitute, our critic has recommended the words, "Our country, right or wrong," as being more on a par with that of the Military Academy, "Duty, honor, country."
Mr. Benjamin's statement of facts was published in 1900. Prior to that, however, in the pages of the Army and Navy Journal of February 4, 1899, a somewhat more extended, and also more contemporary, account of the origin of the new seal is given. From this account we learn that "the designer's idea in producing the Naval Academy seal was to bring it into harmony with the general character of the emblems of other institutions of learning, thus giving it a classic form, while still emphasizing both its naval and academic features. For this reason it [was] thought better to avoid the ordinary naval designs, such as eagles, anchors, flags, guns, rope, etc., commonly employed on buttons and other official badges. The trident, the ancient symbol of. . . sea power, is made prominent in the crest. The motto . . . is indicative of the purpose of the Naval Academy, which exists in order to educate the men by whom that power is directly wielded. The shield exhibits a Roman war galley coming bows on into action. The scholastic idea is indicated by the open book."
Ignoring the relative weights which ought to be attached to either side of the argument about the appropriateness of the galley, the book, and the motto, we are still to infer from the foregoing accounts that there is one, and only one, authoritative Naval Academy device extant. And such, indeed, was the present writer's belief until he happened to compare the device which is to be found on the official letterheads of the Academy with that which appears on the title page of the equally official Annual Register. Figs. i and 2 will serve to point out the difference. The explanation of this difference, however, is not apparent on the face of things. Why should the device in one case be enclosed in a solid square, and in the other be a piece of openwork? Why should not the motto be displayed alike in both? And why should the torches in one be different from those in the other?
A clue to a plausible explanation is contained in the article in the Army and Navy Journal before mentioned. From this we quote again as follows: "The seals on the [University Club] building are disposed in squares of equal area; and in order to fill out the spaces, and also to ensure a general correspondence in appearance, the architect has provided either scroll work or, in many, instances, the conventional torches indicated. As the latter are supplied as supporters to a number of the college seals, they form no necessary part of the design specifically pertaining either to the Naval Academy or the Military Academy so that the essential features above noted may be used without them or in connection with any other appropriate surroundings which occasion may render desirable." In fine, it would seem that the only definitely fixed portion of the Naval Academy device consists of the hand grasping the trident, the shield with the galley and the open book, and the words of the motto. And it is worthy of note that the device of the Military Academy, as it is found on the official printed matter of the school, omits the supporting torches. However, if due weight is to be given to the letter of the Judge Advocate General of the Navy legally and officially adopting the device of Mr. Benjamin, the choice between the two designs would necessarily lie with that in the square field, as that was evidently the one referred to by the Judge Advocate General as having been passed upon, in blueprint form, by him. The letter of adoption follows:
NAVY DEPARTMENT,
Office of the Judge Advocate General,
Washington, Jan. 25, 1899.
SIR: I have to inform you that the Department has this day adopted as the seal for the Naval Academy the design indicated by the enclosed tracing and blueprint. I will thank you to furnish for its files copies of the Club circular, dated Dec. 23 last, describing this design. The Superintendent of the Naval Academy has been fully informed in the premises.
By direction of the Secretary,
Very respectfully,
S. C. LEMLY, Judge Advocate General.
What is apparently a facsimile of the original tracing submitted to the Navy Department is given by way of illustration to the article in the Army and Navy Journal above cited, and is practically identical with that which graces the official stationery of the Naval Academy.
With regard to the coat of arms of the Military Academy, the story of its designing and adoption reflects greater credit upon the sister institution. This can be gathered from the following extracts taken from a letter addressed to the Editor of the Army and Navy Journal by Professor Charles W. Lamed:
On May 12, 1896, a committee of the Academic Board of the Military Academy was appointed by the Superintendent to consider and report upon a design for the arms and device of the Academy, and incidentally to devise an appropriate motto to accompany these. After careful deliberation and consultation with leading architects and artists of New York City, and with Dr. E. S. Holden, Herald-at-Arms and author of a recent work on heraldry, the design of Prof. Lamed, of the Military Academy, for the device and arms was adopted by the committee, and the motto, "Duty, honor, country," chosen. Its recommendation was unanimously adopted by the Board and officially approved by the Secretary of War. The device of the Academy, which consists of the helmet of Pallas across a sheathed sword, has figured, in its elements, among the insignia of the Academy almost from the foundation of the institution. . . . The official seal of the Academy, approved by the Secretary of War, consists of the device borne upon an oval shield, around which appears the motto, and upon the body of which appears, "West Point, MDCCCII." ... The whole has been copyrighted.
To render the story of the present Naval Academy seal as nearly complete as possible, and before proceeding to the second part of this investigation, the following anecdotes ought to be recorded:
Secretary Long is reported to have asked whence the motto, "Ex scientia tridens," came. The anonymous writer in the Army and Navy Journal' assured the Secretary that the designer was wholly responsible for it, adding that Mr. Benjamin insisted that the making of Latin epigrams in emergencies was merely one of the numerous things to be expected as a matter of course of Naval Academy graduates. Some one else, of an equally inquiring turn of mind, asked what book was meant by the open volume on the shield. Our worthy contributor remarks that "like Sam Weller's spelling, this depends upon the 'taste and fancy' of the observer, but if any particular book is to be associated hereafter with the representation, it seems to us that it might well be Luce's Seamanship, not so much in memory of the work, which will last as long as naval officers are sailors, as of its author, to whom the Naval Academy is so greatly indebted, and whom so many of its graduates remember with reverence and affection."
Enough has now been said to indicate that our emblem, of which we should be justly proud, has been repeatedly held up to ridicule. It remains but to show that the previous history of the Naval Academy seal has been permitted to fade into almost utter oblivion. If a few relics thereof can possibly be resurrected, at this late hour, a record of them should surely be preserved.
The promoters of the present authorized seal declared that there was no regularly adopted device extant at the time they instituted their inquiries. The only thing in the nature of a seal which they were able to discover was the design, consisting of a field of diagonal stripes, surrounded by stars, and bearing a foul anchor (Fig. 3), which had embellished the title pages of the official registers of the Academy for nearly thirty years, namely from 1874 to 1900. That this design had never been regularly adopted as the official device of the Academy may be true. But surely thirty years of undisputed sway ought to carry with it considerable weight of prescriptive authority. Be that as it may, the fact remains that the design was officially discarded and its place taken by the new one. Notwithstanding this fact, however, it is curious to note that the devices of the Naval Academy Library, the Naval Academy Graduates' Association, and the Naval Institute—all three of them deriving their origin from the parent institution—have adhered to the old design instead of changing over to the new. (Figs. 4, 5, and 6.)
But what is to be held regarding the other thirty years previous to the first appearance of this star-stripe-anchor device? Was there no seal or device used by the Naval Academy in all those years? To judge from the non-appearance of such a device on the Registers and other official publications of the Academy prior to 1874, one might be justified in answering that there was indeed none. Fortunately, however, there exist among the store of books in the Naval Academy Library a few examples of an apparently forgotten device which must once have been the acknowledged—although possibly unofficial—seal of the Academy. The writer has come across only three specimens, of which only one is perfectly clear in its outlines. All of them furthermore appear stamped on book covers, and not one of them on any page of a book; so that there is great danger of these specimens being some day lost when the books in question go to be rebound. The two books which have thus become of added value to the archives of the Naval Academy are Marshall's "History of the United States Naval Academy," published in 1862, and the fifth edition of Simpson's "Treatise on Ordnance and Gunnery," published in 1871. In the first case the design is stamped in gold on the front cover, thus standing out distinctly; but in the other case, although the design appears on both the front and the back cover, the impression was plainly made with a bare die, and the various parts of the design are hard to make out. By referring to the reproduction of this seal (Fig. 7) it will be seen that it contains most of the old conventional naval insignia which the designer of the present coat of arms so ruthlessly rejected in 1898. The list comprises a figure of Liberty (seated), an eagle, a shield, stars and stripes, an anchor, a ship, a globe, a compass, a pair of dividers, a sextant, cannon, and cannonballs. The only element lacking, to make it into a suitable device for the institution which it represented, is a motto.
There may have been other seals of the Naval Academy in use in former times, examples of which may yet be discovered. The only remaining device of the sort of which the present writer has any knowledge is a design (Fig. 8) which is to be found stamped on the cover of Cooke's "Textbook of Naval Ordnance and Gunnery," second edition, 1880, consisting of a circle of rope, inclosing a monogram of the initials U. S. N. A., the whole mounted upon the intersection of two cannon crossed. However, this is to be regarded rather as a device gotten up for the occasion, than as a regular seal of the Academy.
When all is said, the only really good point in favor of the present device is that it is what it purports to be, namely, a coat of arms, whereas all that have gone before cannot possibly lay claim to that appellation in the strictest sense of the term.