The notion that the only education necessary for a seafaring man was what he picked up aboard ship operated for a long while to prevent the founding of a naval school in this country, but the following are two noteworthy examples of the opposite view. The first is a plan provided for by the will of Sir Isaac Coffin, R. N., and while it amounted to nothing as far as our naval policy was concerned, it is interesting as a proposal for the establishment of three nautical schools made as early as the twenties.
I.
Sir Isaac was born in Boston in 1759. His father was collector of the port, and when trouble broke out in the colonies, proved himself a staunch Tory. In 1773 young Isaac became a midshipman in His Majesty's navy, and throughout the Revolution he fought for the King. He was with Rodney and Hood in the famous "Battle of the Saints" in 1782, and so distinguished himself in the eyes of Hood that he was rapidly promoted. In 18o2 he became vice-admiral, in 1804 a baronet, and in 1814 admiral. Oddly enough, in spite of his Tory views and his brilliant career in the British Navy, he seemed to retain a positive affection for his rebel countrymen. Up to the very end of his long life he was interested in trying to benefit what he always called "my native land." He sent over English race horses to improve the American breeds and stocked American waters with British fish. He experimented with transplanting trees and shrubs that he thought might take kindly to the American climate, and presented maps and marine inventions to various seaport towns in New England.
He also made a will in which he devoted his entire fortune to the establishment of three naval schools in Massachusetts. In fact, when the King named Sir Isaac in his list of new peers to be created for the passage of the Reform Bill in 1832, the Ministry objected on the ground of his too strong attachment to America, and in consequence he never became a lord. The following excerpts are from the will mentioned above:
Holding in grateful remembrance the manifold blessings I have derived from the principles instilled into me While at Boston, in the state of Massachusetts, the place of my nativity, and feeling that my success in this life is mainly to be attributed to the excellent education I received at that place . . . I give and bequeath all the personal property of which I may be possessed . . . for the establishment of three schools for naval education. One at said Boston, one at Nantucket, in state of Massachusetts, and one at said Newburyport. And for the purpose of maintaining and perpetuating such establishment I do appoint five visitors or overseers of said trust, that is to say whoever shall be for the time being successively the governor of said state of Massachusetts, the president of Harvard University at Cambridge of said state, and mayor of said city of Boston, with two others to be chosen by said three.
I will and direct that each of said schools shall be on the following plan and foundation, viz., each to be called "Sir Isaac Coffin's School." One of such schools being the first established to be at Boston in such a situation that the scholars may be near the waterside, and have ready access to the harbor, the school to consist of twenty-four scholars, twelve of them—if so many may be found—are to be the male descendants deriving their descent through males of the said Tristram Coffin, Sir Isaac's father and said Peter Coffin his uncle respectively, or one of them, and to bear, or before entrance to the school to take and assume the name of Coffin. And I direct that three masters be appointed for each school, namely, a master of a ship, a mathematics master, and a drawing master. . . . And I direct that the remaining twelve boys of the school at Boston shall be selected from the sons of industrious and honest inhabitants of Boston who may be desirous of bringing up their sons for a nautical life. And it is further my will that the sons of the poorest citizens be preferred. No boy shall be eligible who shall . . . not be of sound constitution, and no boy shall be admitted until he shall have attained the age of fourteen years, and that each boy shall be able to read and also to write a regular hand and have a competent knowledge of arithmetic and of the Christian persuasion. . . . Each boy shall leave the school at the age of eighteen, and I direct that the ship master, mathematics master, and drawing master should respectively be native citizens of Massachusetts.. . . And I direct that for each of the said schools a sloop of fifty tons, coppered and copper fastened shall be built or provided at the expense of the establishment, combining strength, convenience, fast sailing, and durability . . . and that the scholars of the Boston foundation shall be exercised in cruising in Massachusetts Bay and the neighboring coast, from the tenth of May to the tenth of September of each year, by which means they will become excellent pilots; and they are to survey all harbors from Passamaquoddy to Nantucket, and to trawl and dredge on every part of the coast and on all occasions to try to discover the treasures of the deep, and to keep an accurate journal of their proceedings. . . . And by keeping body and mind in constant activity they will prepare themselves for the arduous career instant to the life of a seaman. And they are not to lose any opportunity of making astronomical and nautical observations; the sloop to be caulked and kept in repair in sails, rigging, and hull, by the personal labor of the master and scholars, and to be called the "Seaman's Hope," carrying a white flag with a pine tree in the center. And I direct that the boys in the two first classes of this establishment shall be exercised two years on the sloop of such establishment prior to leaving school. And I direct that the sloop belonging to the Nantucket school shall cruise from Cape Cod one way to New York, the other way trawling and dredging assiduously as the ground will admit, since I conceive that many oyster beds may be discovered in Long Island Sound and between Montauk Point and Sandy Hook. . . . And I direct that each of the scholars shall learn to swim, and each acquire a knowledge of the following trades or callings, that is to say, ship-building, caulking, rope-making, mast-making, block-making, boat-building, coopering, housecarpenter's and joiner's work, baking, blacksmith's work, cutting out and making clothes, knitting, making nets of all kinds, mixing up paint and painting, the art of cooking in all its branches, the art of slaughtering animals with due economy, also of preserving meat by pickling, salting, or smoking. -I also direct that muskets be provided and kept up to belong to each school that the boys of the first class may be exercised by the ship master . . . in firing at a mark. . . . And I direct that the scholars be taught the use of the back sword, the art of gunnery and of fire-lock exercise, and to be at liberty to amuse themselves at proper times with athletic games, such as cricket, football and wrestling. . . .
I wish the boys to be in every respect as well qualified in mathematical and astronomical knowledge as the scholars at the Naval College at Portsmouth in England are qualified. And I will direct that each mathematical master, in addition to his other qualifications, shall be competent to give lectures on the several heads of natural philosophy; namely, pneumatics, hydraulics, optics, mechanics, electricity, astronomy, geology, geography, with the use of globes, and that a philosophical apparatus be provided at the expense of each establishment.... I direct also that models of a ship, brig, snow, schooner and sloop be provided in each school, and that the boys be practised in rigging and rerigging the same during the winter.
And it is my direction that the ship master of each school shall be thirty years of age before he shall be qualified to conduct the affairs of the establishment, and shall not be eligible after forty-five years; and he may, if he think fit, or be required by the trustees, retired at any time after the age of sixty years . . . with an annuity of £50 for his life, the drawing master . . . with an annuity for his life of £40.
For some reason, Sir Isaac changed his mind and cancelled the will. He gave the original to one of his American friends, and it found its way to print years afterwards in an issue of the Southern Literary Messenger. He did not, however, abandon his plan entirely. In 1826 he gave a thousand pounds to found a "Sir Isaac Coffin School" at Nantucket, largely for the benefit of the descendants of his father, Tristram, who had been one of the ten original purchasers of the island. At that time there was no public school in Nantucket, and a very large proportion of Sir Isaac's relatives were still living there. As a part of this institution he bought and fitted out a schooner to be used in training the boys to follow the sea, so that eventually he did provide a nautical education for the youths of Nantucket. After a varied career this "Sir Isaac Coffin School" is still maintained on the island, and though the nautical end has been dropped long since, it perpetuates the benevolent old Tory's practical ideas by being to-day a manual training school.
II.
Strictly speaking, the schools designed by Sir Isaac Coffin were intended more to develop a skilled Merchant marine than a navy, though he evidently had in mind the Portsmouth Naval College as his standard. The second proposal was aimed directly at the education of officers in the American Navy, and it was the interest aroused in the country by the latter that brought into print the earlier one for comparison.
While a batch of midshipmen were being examined for promotion, late in the twenties, one of the young men was questioned as to the lunar problem. Instead of repeating the Bowditch formulas, after immemorial custom, he had the audacity to step to the blackboard and work out the question as a problem in spherical trigonometry. The "Professor of Mathematics" conducting the examination got lost in trying to follow him, and brazenly declared the demonstration wrong. The midshipman insisted. The officers of the examining board, knowing still less than the schoolmaster, decided after an embarrassed consultation. to support him on general principles. Accordingly, they looked as wise as possible, informed the midshipman that he was all wrong and bade him to go to sea again and learn his business.
Under this decision, Matthew Fontaine Maury lost two years in promotion. And this was the boy who taught himself the theory of navigation, aided only by a Spanish textbook and a dictionary, who used to chalk diagrams of problems in spherical trigonometry on the round shot in the quarter-deck racks to solve while standing watch, and who, at the time of this absurd examination, had ready for publication a set of lunar tables of his own! A few years later, while he was still a passed midshipman, he published his "Navigation," which met with immediate success in England and America, and was adopted as the textbook for the Naval Academy when it was founded in 1845.
The experience which cost the brilliant young mathematician two years in his grade was not likely to imbue him with respect for the system which made it possible. In 1830 he was thrown from the top of a stage coach and seriously injured. During his convalescence he began contributing to the Southern Literary Messenger a series of papers on the navy under the caption "Scraps from a Lucky Bag," signed by "Harry Bluff, U. S. N." Three of these "Scraps" appeared in 1840, and two in the following year. In these articles he exposed the inadequacy, both in materiel and personnel, of the navy in his day, and the paralyzing influence of political corruption.
These "Scraps from a Lucky Bag" produced a sensation. Without knowing who "Harry Bluff" was, the officers of the navy subscribed to having the articles reprinted in pamphlet form and scattering them broadcast in order to educate the country to the needs of the navy. The "Navy Board" was trapped into a disastrous one-sided controversy with Maury; Congress was called upon to investigate and explain, and undoubtedly several reforms were inaugurated as a direct consequence. The most notable achievement resulted from his plea for a naval school, from which the following passages are taken:
Now and then a feeble effort has been made with a view of introducing some system of education in the navy, but every such effort has proved abortive. The plan of furnishing schoolmasters to ships setting out on a three years' cruise was tried, but, no useful result accruing in many years, that plan was condemned by all in the service. Without considering that the defect was in the system not in the name, an attempt was made to improve the education of the young officers by changing the title of the teacher. The title of schoolmaster was exchanged for that of professor of mathematics, but his duties and authority remained the same. To this day there is not a work that has been assigned as textbook for the navy. The teacher has no authority over the pupil, nor can he claim attendance or attention of the latter in the schoolroom or to any particular study. The whole plan is without order.
Under the present arrangement the duties of a schoolroom, when one can be found on board a man of war, are subordinate to every other on the ship. There the midshipman is taught to consider his attendance at school as the matter of the least importance in his routine of duties. He is interrupted in his lessons to go ashore for the captain's pig; or he is called from recitation to count. the duck frocks and trousers contained in the wardrobe of Tom Brown, the sailor. I have known a captain who forbade the midshipmen to "work out longitude" on the ground that it was a secret of the captain and the master, and therefore exceedingly officious and unbecoming the character of gentlemen for midshipmen to be prying into the rate and error of the chronometer, or to have anything to do with longitude. It is considered by no means discreditable for the midshipmen never to be seen in the schoolroom, and many make it a matter of pride never to be seen there. Every officer is so fully convinced of the futility of trying to teach midshipmen under the present arrangements that there is no one to take any interest in the matter. Even the professors themselves, when they come to understand the difficulties in their way, "go through the motions" of their duty for form's sake, conscious that they labor in vain.
Among all the officers of the navy in the line, from the youngest midshipman to the senior post captain, I know of but one who has taken a degree in any college or institution of learning in the United States. . . . While some of the best treatises on the subject to which they relate have for their authors officers of the army, the navy is remarkably barren in professional works. From the first establishment of the navy up to the present time, no scientific or professional work of any kind (if we make exception of one work only [Maury's own Navigation]) has been produced by any officer in it. The reason is obvious, the officers of the army have the benefit of a professional education. . . .
I would set apart one of the idle ships in the navy as a schoolship. . . . On board of that ship the duties of the school should be paramount to all others, that is, she should be first a schoolship and then a man of war. Every officer on board, purser, chaplain, master, surgeon, lieutenant, and commander, every one should have a chair assigned to him and take part in the duties and management of the school. The captain should be tactician and ex-officio the president. Him I would hold responsible . . . for the proper management of the school. . . . The chaplain should instruct in languages, the purser in gymnastics, the master in drawing and naval architecture, the surgeon in chemistry and natural history, and the lieutenant in mathematics, astronomy, natural philosophy, navigation, etc.
I have assigned languages to the chaplain because his clerical character presupposes him learned in the dead languages but I would have none of them; the useful, practical, living languages I advocate. First, that most difficult, arbitrary, and useful of all languages, the English; and after that your French, or German, or Spanish.
If the grade of purser contained no one skilled in fencing or gymnastics, to fill such a chair, let it, with a purser's commission be tendered to some one ably competent in civil life. I would make a similar tender of a master's commission to a naval architect and draftsman.
The $20,000 annually wasted under the present system of professors of mathematics in the navy, if added to the pay as navy officers of the professors of the schoolship, would make the salary of these more than sufficient to command for the faculty the best talents the country can afford. Every professor should be a regularly commissioned officer of the navy, thus placing him under military law . . . identifying him with the service, the more effectually to secure his interest in the school, and the more surely to enable him to impart the proper esprit de corps to his pupils. . . .
It is an important item in the economy of the schoolship arrangement that no branch of science should, ex officio, attach to any particular grade. As professors they should all be equal, one chair should be as important as another.. . . But as officers of the ship each should enjoy his appropriate rank. . . .
If the schoolship were to cruise at sea two months in every year, the scholastic term might be extended to four years; after which a cruise of two years at sea should entitle the graduate to an examination in seamanship alone; on which, if found qualified, he should be passed and promoted. Under such a system you would see the service invigorated with young officers. . . . You would no longer see gray-headed midshipmen, or superannuated grandpapas for young officers.
In this age of discovery, invention, and improvement, it is no longer a matter of choice whether the rising generation of our navy officers shall be properly educated or not. It will not do now for the navigator, when asked to point out the place of his ship at sea, to slap his outstretched hand down upon the chart and say "there." His place on that chart is a point and as such he must designate and mark it. . . .
When the Naval Academy was founded, four years after the publication of these articles, Maury's proposal for a schoolship was abandoned in favor of an institution on shore. Yet several of his ideas came to be incorporated in the new plan, as, for example, the four years' scholastic course, the two months' summer cruise, and the two years' cruise after graduation. And the biographers of Maury, in speaking of the naval reforms accomplished by the "Scraps from a Lucky Bag," make special mention of the Naval Academy as one of them.
Perhaps, in view of the work of Bancroft and others, it might seem unfair to refer to Maury as the "Father of the Naval Academy"; but in the sense of preparing the way by calling the country's attention to the need of a naval school, and creating a sentiment for it in the face of indifference and prejudice, the famous hydrographer deserves that title.