38 MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY 



Navigation", and a knowledge of right-angled plane 

 trigonometry. Maury claimed that a broader training 

 was needed, and suggested the following subjects as 

 requisite for study: drawing and naval architecture, 

 gunnery and pyrotechny, chemistry and natural history, 

 astronomy, mathematics, natural philosophy, naviga- 

 tion, tactics and discipline, gymnastics, international 

 and maritime law, and languages (one of French, Span- 

 ish, or German and "that most difficult, arbitrary, and 

 careful of all languages, the English"). These subjects 

 were to be covered in a four years' course, with a two 

 months' cruise each year, sometimes to foreign waters; 

 while two years at sea after graduation and an examina- 

 tion at the end of that period of service were to be re- 

 quired before a commission in the navy was to be 

 awarded. 



At first, Maury proposed merely a school-ship ; but a 

 little later after his articles had been received with such 

 favor by the public he declared that his advocacy of a 

 school-ship had been made solely on the grounds of 

 expediency and that he would hail with delight the es- 

 tablishment of a school for the navy anywhere, even on 

 the top of the Rocky Mountains. He thereupon sug- 

 gested Memphis, Tennessee as a suitable place for the 

 school, on the grounds that the East had the Military 

 Academy and the West should have the naval school, 

 and besides that this would be a favorable place for 

 experimenting on steam vessels on the Mississippi River. 

 Though Maury was by no means the first to suggest the 

 need for such an institution, yet no other person con- 

 tributed so much as he did towards the education of 

 public opinion and the preparation for the eventual es- 

 tablishment of the Naval Academy. It is with justice, 



