The Long Road to Annapolis: The Founding of the Naval Academy and the Emerging American Republic

CHAPTER 5 The Sword and the Pen

[ CHAPTER 5 ] The Sword and the Pen After basking in the glory of its outstanding performance in the War of 1812, the U.S. Navy experienced a significant decline in popularity in the 1820s. It also suffered from neglect by the federal government despite performing a wide range of important missions in service to the nation. Public indifference led to a loss of morale within the naval officer corps similar to that experienced by army officers. In the midst of this largely negative atmosphere, however, the navy was able to make strides toward greater professionalism in the 1830s and 1840s. No longer receiving the acclaim they had enjoyed after the War of 1812, naval officers increasingly closed ranks and looked within their own community for professional fulfillment. Led by a group of progressive reformers within the officer corps, more and more naval officers made it their goal to transform the naval service into a true profession through intellectual and moral improvement. The establishment of a naval academy became the central component of this quest for greater professionalism, as well as the status and the respect associated with it. To gain support for educational reform, naval officers put their case before the American public and, by doing so, ensured that naval education remained a prominent national issue. In the first half of the nineteenth century, several professions began gradually shifting from apprenticeship to academic studies as the primary method for training individuals entering the field. The main reason for this change was the varied quality of the practitioners produced by the apprenticeship system. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, a young man [ 128 ] The Sword and the Pen wishing to become a physician began his apprenticeship between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five after having already completed a preliminary education that usually included classical studies.The apprentice learned the medical profession under the guidance of a practicing physician who provided instruction , books, and equipment in exchange for a fee and the trainee’s labor. Apprenticeships in medicine usually lasted for three years and combined book learning and clinical experience (assisting the doctor in performing medical procedures). At the end of that period, the new physician received a certificate from his mentor and began his own practice. This system worked well if the mentoring physician was a competent practitioner and dedicated teacher. But not every physician who accepted apprentices was competent or dedicated to teaching, and poor physicians were the result. The apprenticeship in law was even more informal. A young man studied with a practicing attorney and learned his profession by reading law books and statutes. He gained some practical experience by copying legal documents and assisting his mentor in preparing cases. After completing the apprenticeship and receiving a certificate from a practicing attorney, the new lawyer was admitted to the bar. As with physicians, the quality of mentoring attorneys varied greatly.1 By the 1830s and 1840s physicians and, to a lesser degree, lawyers were gradually turning to formal education as a way to elevate their professions. This trend led to a significant increase in the number of colleges and professional schools nationwide. In 1783 there were 13 colleges in the United States. By 1831 there were 46 colleges, 22 theological seminaries, 16 medical schools, and 7 law schools; by 1850 those numbers had soared to 119 colleges, 44 seminaries, 36 medical schools, and 16 law schools.2 Although medical schools had been established at Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania by 1800, most early medical schools were for-profit institutions that were not usually affiliated with a college or hospital. These “proprietary” schools started out as adjuncts to medical apprenticeship, but by the mid-nineteenth century they had largely superseded apprenticeship as the primary method of American medical education. Antebellum medical schools offered a lecture-based curriculum that emphasized subjects such as anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacy, and surgery; the curriculum included very little laboratory work or clinical training. Despite the growing number of medical schools in the United States, apprenticeship continued well into the nineteenth century and offered students the practical experience that medical schools did not provide. The transition to formal education was slower in the legal profession. Although Harvard offered a course of studies in law by the 1840s, law schools remained supplementary The Sword and the Pen [ 129 ] to the office-based apprenticeship until the late nineteenth century. The law...