United States Naval Academy

UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY, an institution for the education of officers of the United States Navy, at Annapolis, hfaryland, occupying about 200 acres on the banks of the Severn. Its principal buildings are the marine engineering building, the academic building (containing the library), the chapel, the gymnasium, the physics and chemistry building, the auditorium, the armoury, the power-house, the administration building, Bancroft Hall (the midshipmen's quarters), officers' mess and club, and Sampson Row, Upshur Row and Rodgers Row, the officers' quarters.' By an Act of Congress passed in 1903 two midshipmen (as the students have been called since 1902; naval cadets " was the term formerly used) were allawed for each senator, representative, and delegate in Congress, two for the District of Columbia, and five each year at large; but after 1913 only one midshipman is to be appointed for each senator, representative and delegate in Congress. Candidates are nominated by their senator, representative, or delegate in Congress, and those from the District of Columbia and those appointed at large are chosen by the President; but to be admitted they must be between sixteen and twenty years of age and must pass an entrance examination. Each midshipman is paid $600 a year, beginning with the date of his admission; and he must bind himself to serve in the United States Navy for eight years (including the years spent in the academy) unless he is discharged sooner. The coulse of instruction is for four years-" final graduation " comes only after six years, the additional years being spent at sea-and is in eleven departments: discipline, seamanship, ordnance an 1 gunnery, navigation, marine engineering and naval construction, mathematics and mechanics, physics and chemistry, electrical engineering, English, modern languages, naval hygiene and physiology. Vessels for practice work of midshipmen in the first, second, and third year classes are attached to the academy during the academic year, and from early in June to September of each year the midshipmen are engaged in practice cruises. The academy is governed by the Bureau of Navigation of the United States Navy Department, and is under the immediate supervision of a superintendent appointed by the secretary ,of the navy, with whom are associated thr Commandant of Midshipmen, a disciplinary officer, and thc Academic Board, which is composed of the superintendent and the head of each of the eleven departments. The institutior was founded as the Naval School in 1845 by the secretaq of the navy, George Bancroft, and was opened in October ol that year. Originally a course of study for five years was pre scribed, but only the first and last were spent at the school the other three being passed at sea. The present name was adopted when the school was reorganized in 1850, being placec under the supervision of the chief of the Bureau of Ordnancc and Hydrography, and under the immediate charge of the super intendent, and the course of study was extended to seven years the first two and the lazt two to be spent at the school, thc intervening three years to be passed at sea. The four year! of study were made consecutive in 1851, and the practicc cruises were substituted for the three consecutive years at sea At the outbreak of the Civil War the three upper classes wen detached and were ordered to sea, and the academy wa! removed to Fort Adams, Newport, Rhode Island (May 1861) but it was brought back to Annapolis in the summer of 1865 The supervision of the academy was transferred from the Burea~ of Ordnance and Hydrography to the Bureau of Navigatiot when that bureau was established in 1862; and, although it wa: placed under the direct care of the Navy Department in 1867 it has been (except in 1869-1889) under the Bureau of Navi g? t ion for administrative routine and financial management The Spanish-American War greatly emphasized its importance and the academy was almost wholly rebuilt and much enlargec ' The old quarters of the superintendent, a colonial house, onc the official residence of the governors of Maryland, was destroye~ m 1900. In 1909 old Fort Severn, a small circular structure wit! thick walls, budt in 1809, was torn down. See J. R. Soley, Historical Sketch of the United States Naval Academy Washington, 1876); Park Benjamin, The Un$ed States Nasal Icademy (New York, 1900) ; Randall Blackshaw, The New Naval kademy," in the Century Magazine for October 1905.

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