*An address delivered before The Chauvenet Club, U. S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland.
William Chauvenet, for whom our club is named, was born on the 24th of May 1820 at Milford, Penn. He was the only child of William Marc Chauvenet, a native of Narbonne, France. William Marc Chauvenet was born in 1790, and was in the service of Napoleon at the time of the latter's downfall, as a consequence of which the former emigrated to Boston, where he married Mary B. Kerr. After failure in business in New York he purchased a farm in Milford where our Chauvenet was born, but in the following year he went to Philadelphia where he again engaged in business.
The chief educational influence in the son's early life appears to have been that of Dr. Samuel Jones, who conducted a school that was regarded as the best boys' school in Philadelphia at that time. Impressed by his pupil's marked ability, Dr. Jones persuaded the elder Chauvenet to have his son, whom he had intended for a business career, fitted for Yale College. Though at the age of 15 the boy had no knowledge of Latin or Greek, he finished his preparation in a year, and entering college in 1836, was graduated in 1840 with high honors in the classics as well as in mathematics.
Of his college course, Professor Coffin, in the Biographic Memoir presented to the National Academy, states that Chauvenet had before admission "mastered the whole course in the mathematical department," and that he was the only member of his class of nearly one hundred who took the optional course offered during his last years in college.
Soon after graduation, Chauvenet became an assistant to Alexander Dallas Bache, who as first president of Gerard College was engaged in magnetic observations in Philadelphia. In the next year, 1841, Chauvenet's connection with the Navy commenced with his appointment as one of the professors of mathematics, his first duty being as instructor of midshipmen on board the U. S. Steamship Mississippi. In those early days, midshipmen commenced their life at sea as mere lads. After five years or more at sea with what little schooling might, perchance, be obtained on board the few ships provided with professors or schoolmasters, the only regular preparation previous to examination for promotion was a course of eight months at one of the three navy yards.
Chauvenet's brief experience convincing him of the uselessness of this desultory instruction at sea, he was about to resign his appointment. But in 1839 the three shore schools had been united at the Naval Asylum in Philadelphia under Professor David McClure. His death occurring in 1842, Chauvenet was appointed to succeed him; thus in the words of Professor Coffin "he was retained in the Navy for the valuable services he subsequently rendered, in developing the present Naval Academy from this small beginning."
At the Asylum School, Chauvenet at once set to work to improve the eight months' course, introducing the system of recitations with daily marks as the basis for merit rolls and procuring better apparatus for instruction, particularly in navigation, which was then the principal study. In this he had the sanction of Abel P. Upshur, then Secretary of the Navy, and the warm support of Commodore Biddle, then governor of the Asylum.
Toward the close of 1843, Chauvenet drew up a plan for a two-years course, subsequent to sea service, and preparatory to examination for promotion. This was authorized by Secretary Henshaw. The scheme looked to obtaining other instructors from among the professors then at sea and also such other officers as might be willing to engage in instruction. Of this latter class. Lieutenant J. H. Ward, considered the most studious and accomplished officer in the Navy at the time, was the pioneer. He became instructor in gunnery at the Asylum School, and is listed in the Registers for 1844 and 1845 as on "special duty." (Lieutenant Ward was a member of the original faculty of the school at Annapolis and second in command. In the Register for 1845 his duty is "Naval School.")
The order of Secretary Henshaw establishing the two-years course was revoked by his successor John V. Mason "in deference," says Park Benjamin, "to the representations of naval officers who thought that the midshipmen could not be spared from services at sea to attend a two-years course on shore." It does not appear however that more than a small number of the midshipmen at this time enjoyed even the limited advantages offered by the Asylum School.
It was early in his connection with the Asylum School that Chauvenet was married to Catherine Hemple of Philadelphia. His oldest son, Regis, was born in Philadelphia; two other sons and a daughter were born in Annapolis.
In 1845, George Bancroft became President Polk's first Secretary of. the Navy (though in 1846 John V. Mason returned to office). It is said that, before taking office, Bancroft had much at heart the scheme of establishing for the Navy a school which would do for it what West Point had long done for the Army. Accordingly, when Chauvenet went to him with renewed hope for the approval of his plans, he found a sympathetic coadjutor.
Bancroft wisely decided, not only, to take the initial steps without going to Congress, either for legislation or money, but to obtain the cooperation of the Navy, notwithstanding the fact that a group of the older officers assured him that "you could no more educate sailors in a shore college than you could teach ducks to swim in a garret." This element he seems to have outflanked by constituting the Board of Examiners for the promotion of midshipmen which met at the Asylum School in June 1845 as an advisory council, to consider the question of establishing a naval school, the plan of its organization, and its location. The necessity of including this last question was due to the fact that the buildings of the Asylum were now wholly required for its original purpose, and that Bancroft had already obtained the consent of the President and of the War Department to the transfer to the Navy of Fort Severn with the buildings upon the reservation. Thus the selection of Annapolis avoided the necessity of going to Congress for an appropriation.
Commodore Franklin Buchanan was selected by Bancroft for the first commanding officer. Chauvenet and his colleagues at the Asylum School were ordered to Annapolis. For other instructors there were available the professors. At that time there were 22 of these and three instructors in languages, mostly employed at sea. The most desirable of these were ordered to Annapolis and the rest placed on waiting orders. At that time the professors received $1200 per annum, but this pay ceased when they were placed on waiting orders. Their pay was appropriated for in a lump sum which was at the disposal of the Secretary "for purposes of instruction." Hence by this process not only was the ungracious task of dismissing professors avoided, but the secretary was provided with a small fund for working expenses.
In the school as first organized, Chauvenet's title was Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy. The position of professors was soon after improved as the result of a fracas in the school, amusingly recorded by Professor Henry H. Lockwood, its victim, in a letter read at one of the early meetings of the Graduates Association. They were given commissions and an increase of $400 in their annual salaries when, with other professors at the Observatory, they were constituted a corps in the Navy.
Lieutenant Ward was, in the order of Superintendent Buchanan instituting the Academic Board, appointed by him as its president. But after his return to sea-duty, the next Superintendent—George P. Upshur—in an order convening the Board directed it to choose its own president. Chauvenet was elected to this office. By successive reelections he held this office until the reorganization of the school in 1850.
Chauvenet was the leading spirit in this reorganization which practically constituted the Academy as it is now. The scheme required Congressional action, as it involved a radical change in the method of selecting midshipmen, who between 1845 and 1850 might be appointed at any time and sent to Annapolis for examination for entrance. Objections to this first appear in the records of the Academic Board in 1848 when the Board recommended that Chauvenet and Chaplin Geo. Jones (Head of the Department of English and Secretary of the Board) be sent to Washington to interview the two Naval Committees of Congress. The final report to Superintendent Upshur was made in January 1849 and the resulting bill took effect on July 1, 1850. According to its terms the Superintendent, then C. K. Stribling, became President of the Board "ex-officio," and the Board itself elected Chauvenet as its Secretary.
Chauvenet's list of text-books in his report as Head of the Department of Mathematics at this time may be of interest to members of the Club. It is as follows:
Davies: University Arithmetic.
Davies: Bourdon's Algebra.
Davies: Legendre's Geometry.
Davies: Descriptive Geometry.
Davies: Analytical Geometry.
Chauvenet: Plane and Spherical Trigonometry.
Church: Calculus: •
Bowditch: Navigation.
But he adds that it is not expected that evey member will study the whole of each of these books, "the more difficult portions will be given only to the most prepared. Lower sections will not study the Calculus at all and perhaps will not find time for even Analytical Geometry and Descriptive Geometry."
During his connection with the Academy, which lasted till 1859, Chauvenet was twice offered a professorship at his Alma Mater, Yale College; the second time coincidently with his election to the chair of Mathematics at the new Washington University at St. Louis; this last he accepted, becoming later its Chancellor. Coffin says that "he left with regret the field to which he had devoted the best part of his life" but was compelled to do so by regard for the educational welfare of his family. Coffin also states that he was solicited to rejoin the Academy after its return from Newport at the close of the Civil War.
Chauvenet's first publication was a small volume of 92 pages on the "Binomial Theorem and Logarithms for the use of the midshipmen at the Naval School, Philadelphia 1843." This was followed by numerous papers mostly connected with navigation. His treatise on "Plane and Spherical Trigonometry" was published in 1850, and was a great advance on any that had previously appeared in this country, and I think that it is safe to say, in the English language.
But his greatest work is, of course, his "Manual of Practical and Spherical Astronomy" in two large octavo volumes of some 700 pages each. The preparation of this work was mostly made at the Naval Academy, and it is a matter of regret to the Academy's friends that it should not have appeared under its auspices instead of those of Washington University. It has indeed been said that one of the reasons for Chauvenet's preferring the latter's offer to Yale's was the offer of assistance from friends of the University in guaranteeing the risk of publication of this work. The second volume contains an appendix on the "Method of Least Squares," giving an excellent exposition, following the methods of Gauss's "Theoria Motus."
His final work was a treatise on "Elementary Geometry with an Introduction to Modern Geometry" which was published in 1870, the year of his death.
He had been in poor health since 1864, and had resigned his position as Chancellor in 1869. After vainly seeking relief in change of climate, he died at St. Paul on December 13, 1870.
Considering the amount of work which Chauvenet accomplished, it is surprising to note that he died after a long illness at only 50 years of age. The portrait of him in Benjamin's History of the Naval Academy with its flowing white hair and patriarchal beard gives the impression of a much older man. The medallion recently placed by his family in Mahon Hall represents him, no doubt faithfully, as he appeared in the years of his vigorous work as protagonist in the founding of the United States Naval Academy.