[Naval Academy]

REGULATIONS WHICH GOVERN THE ADMISSION OF CANDIDATES INTO THE NAVAL ACADEMY AT ANNAPOLIS, MD [Caption title].

[Washington, DC ? 1850]. Single sheet, folded, 25 cm. [2]pp. of text. Printed regulations, including a "qualifications" paragraph, and fourteen conditions which might cause a candidate to be rejected. Signed in type by Secretary of the Navy Wm. Ballard Preston, and dated "Navy Department, July 1, 1850," at foot of page [1]. With integral address leaf (blank). Two small holes punched in left-hand margin, some minor dust soiling, and chipping to outer corner of lower page margin not affecting text.
Prior to 1850 the U.S. Naval Academy was known as the Naval School. Through the efforts of Pres. James K Polk's Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft, the Naval School was established without Congressional funding, at a 10-acre Army post named Fort Severn in Annapolis, Maryland, on October 10, 1845, with a class of 50 midshipmen and seven professors. The curriculum included mathematics and navigation, gunnery and steam, chemistry, English, natural philosophy, and French. In 1850 the Naval School became the United States Naval Academy. A new curriculum went into effect requiring midshipmen to study at the Academy for four years and to train aboard ships each summer. That format is the basis of a far more advanced and sophisticated curriculum at the Naval Academy today. [see: United States Naval Academy website]. No listings for this date found on OCLC, though there are later versions. Likely this was the first version of the regulations printed for the newly renamed Academy, a document reproduced regularly over subsequent years. Item #64491

Price: $750.00