Early ethics education at USNA.

The United States has long held to a tradition of following a strict code of conduct when fighting wars. The means of inculcating that code have ranged from implicit mentoring aboard ships or the battlefield, to explicit classes in moral philosophy at the service academies. Consensus, however, has never been achieved on the appropriate means or methods for the moral education of war fighters. Even today, the debate rages over whether the military is being held to a higher moral standard than the civilian society, [1] or whether the means of fighting new global threats should include practices that were formerly forbidden. As each military branch struggles with crafting an appropriate code of conduct for their professions in the twenty-first century, the lessons of history serve as a template for the drafting of that code of conduct

The formative years of the newly established nation gave rise to a struggle concerning the function of a military. On one hand, Thomas Jefferson readily acknowledged the necessity of a military-trained engineering force to build the nation, but the sentiment against a standing military ran strong throughout the colonies. An army, it was argued, could fulfill the needs of an emerging nation but a standing navy was rejected as "being against the democratic principle of the new republic. [2] Jefferson's opponent on the establishment of a naval force, John Adams, wrote to his friend John Paul Jones in 1782, that:

   nothing gives me so much surprise, or so much regret, as the
   inattention of countrymen to their navy; it is a bulwark as
   essential as it is to Great Britain. It is less costly than armies;
   and more easily removed from one end of the United States to the
   other. [3]

Adams' plea fell on deaf ears and only episodic national defense crises kept the rudimentary naval militia in existence after the Revolution, but they lacked the equipment and training to be considered a viable force for purposes beyond a coastal defense. The nation's inability to agree to a standing navy would not be resolved until the latter part of the nineteenth century; prior to that shift in vision the officers who dedicated their lives to the calling of the navy were an isolated group who sought refuge in their insularity. The resulting shipboard ethos was formed by a unique educational process that served the organization and the nation well. The American navy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries did not lack for midshipmen candidates. Indeed, the appeal to service was not merely one of adventure but, for the majority of young men, a service that was linked to divinely ordained leadership. The young men called to naval service believed that they were "placed higher and had a right and a duty to command and lead." [4]

To that end, the midshipman education program of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was fashioned by deeply religious naval officers such as Captain Thomas Truxton, who sought to cultivate the leadership qualities in his young charges whom, he believed, were innate among those chosen for the noble service of officership. Those attributes, culled from a letter Truxton wrote in 1799, included: ethical conduct, internalized discipline, avoidance of indulgence or self- destructive excess, courteous and harmonious relationships with ones peers, manners, personal cleanliness, neatness in one's belongings and surroundings, refined personal interests, and the habits of associating with, and emulating, those who were one's social equals or--better yet-those of superior social standing. [5]

This selective form of recruitment in the late eighteenth century led navy agent Stephen Higginson to urge only "proper characters such as had right habits, principles and feelings to positions of honor and authority in the federal naval service." [6] These young men, notwithstanding noble intentions, were largely without sea experience or technical knowledge of navigation; additionally, they were often as young as ten when they were thrown in to an environment that required immediate skills. The education of these potential young officers fell squarely on the shoulders of the ship's captain, and given the burden of his many tasks, the role of educator was often left behind other more immediate demands. The uneven nature of naval officer training led to repeated calls for a formalized process of instruction. One of the earliest calls for formalized education came in the eighteenth century from the naval hero John Paul Jones. Recognizing the need for technical competency and the difficulty in providing that expertise aboard ship, Jones called for the establishment of shore-based schools. However, Jones had more than mere technical competence as a goal for his educational vision, he sought a program that would develop the full potential of the naval officer. In a letter to the Marine Board at Philadelphia, dated January 14, 1777, Jones described the ultimate requirements of service as ethical in nature:

   None other than gentlemen, as well as seamen both in theory and in
   practice, is qualified to support the character of a commission
   officer in the navy; nor is any man fit to command a ship of war
   who is not also capable of communicating his ideas on paper, in
   language that becomes his rank. [7]

But Jones faced a daunting challenge as he sought to formalize the educational process of midshipmen, both from an internal resistance and from a nation that did not place a value on military education. It was not until the nineteenth century scandal of midshipman Phillip Spencer's mutiny aboard the USS Somers that Congress passed legislation permitting the establishment of a Naval Academy.

The early attempts at land-based naval education were fraught with problems: incompetent teachers, less than receptive students, and an uncertain location for a naval school. The resulting pedagogy relied heavily on mere inculcation of the 1802 "Rules and Regulations of the Navy." Naval leaders were keenly aware of a shifting attitude among entering midshipmen that was resulting in record numbers of bankruptcies, alcoholism, lewd conduct and technical incompetence. When, finally, Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft established the Navy School at Annapolis in 1845 and appointed Commander Franklin Buchanan as the first Superintendent, the navy achieved the first step in providing professional education to its young officers. The character of Commander Buchanan's administration was foreshadowed in his opening address to the midshipmen: "It is expected that you will improve every leisure moment in the acquirement of a knowledge of your profession; and you will recollect that a good moral character is essential to your promotion and high standing in the navy." [8]

Midshipmen who were selected for an Annapolis education were offered courses designed to encourage enlightened leadership: French, natural philosophy, history, and literature. The importance of these courses was quickly deduced by midshipmen who entered year-end examinations with the knowledge that "only in seamanship and gunnery was failure to pass the examinations fatal." [9] The resulting educational ethos reinforced a naval tradition: educating for the grade. However, Superintendent Buchanan sought to alter that perception, encouraging Naval Academy midshipmen to embrace a more comprehensive education that produced gentlemen officers. One of the building blocks to that goal was the integration of ethics into the curriculum. The ethics education of the early years at the Naval Academy (1845--1850) was administered by Chaplain George Jones, a Yale-trained Naval Officer who earned a reputation as one of the truly outstanding chaplains in a service that seemed to be the employer of last resort for many nineteenth-century academics. The character of seamen was his primary concern, "the sailor's character is a strange compound," he wrote in a letter to a friend from the frigate Constitution in 1828.

   He is kind, because he seldom witnesses distress; generous because
   his pay is competent and sure; fearless because he is familiar with
   danger; thoughtless because he is under no responsibility; changeful
   in his feelings, because there is little occasion for control; a
   drunkard, often from fashion; and dissipated, because under
   constraints from society. [10]

Jones' passionate appeal for the moral education of seamen was rewarded with his appointment as one of the eight members of the first academic board, and the first head of the department of English Studies. Jones took the role to heart, and commenced to integrate the ethics curriculum into a broad sweep of literature studies, history and the establishment of the naval museum in the newly erected lyceum building. The ethics education of land-based midshipmen was an arduous task. The early classes of young men who arrived at Annapolis came directly from sea duty and were not receptive to Buchanan's call for a gentleman's education. Additionally, the young men were frequently called away for military service, leaving the professors in a quandary as they attempted to construct a coherent curriculum.

After a shaky start, the Naval Academy's academic reputation was cemented under the leadership of Superintendent Goldsborough (1853--1857). His educational vision was rooted in his desire to cultivate a sense of professionalism; he achieved that goal with an expanded curriculum, making nine departments. This revision provided a solid transition to a more technically oriented education with a stronger emphasis on discipline and military preparedness. The Board of Visitors accepted Goldsborough's revision, no doubt influenced by the prevailing educational philosophy that encouraged the inclusion of moral philosophy courses as a means to "promote intellectual harmony by introducing into the curriculum a wide-range of new subject matter, and attempting to exhibit for the students its ethical dimensions." [11]

The Department of Ethics was established in 1850 with Professor Joseph Norse serving as the department chairman. The informal ethics curriculum of the Buchanan years had given way to a formalized program of ethics instruction in the senior year, with Francis Wayland's textbook on moral philosophy, Elements of Moral Science (1835), serving as the basis for study. The inclusion of a formal course in ethics was roundly rejected by the midshipmen, leading to the creation of a yearly ritual in which the Wayland textbook was buried in protest. [12] The midshipmen launched yearly complaints against any form of philosophy instruction, reiterating their claim that philosophy was a useless discipline with no application in their professional lives. The effectiveness of the moral philosophy class at the Naval Academy is difficult to discern. Unlike West Point's ethics class, which Thayer considered essential to the overall educational initiative, the Naval Academy program waxed and waned in importance. In the nearly thirty years (1845--1874) that moral science was offered at the Academy, ethics was for the most part integrated into the English curriculum and marginalized as a requirement for officer training. The professors taught philosophy as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself--a foundation for the study of law, history and literature. The midshipmen were consistent in their disdain for the philosophical component of the curriculum, and in 1873 were a force in the dismantling of the program.

The ethics education program of the late-nineteenth century at the Naval Academy was reflective of the shifts in American higher education, toward specialization. While the changes toward a purely professional education took hold, the Board of Visitors indicated the importance they placed on the liberal arts for a naval officer: "[they] cannot be over rated ... they impart dignity, precision and grace to their literary work, and they fit them for the sound decision of those complicated questions upon which may depend issues of war and peace." [13] The Board of

Visitors was not persuasive, and the formal Ethics Education program was dismantled. Ethics Education at the nineteenth-century Naval Academy had its roots in the vision of Stephen Decatur, John Paul Jones and George Bancroft: subordination to the core values of the navy, adherence to roles and regulations and gentlemanly conduct. That vision was uniquely shaped by a succession of leaders who were attempting to meet the needs of the fleet and--by extension--the society at large. What, in the end, are the lessons to be learned from a study of by-gone programs? Perhaps the most significant lesson for the moral education of midshipmen of the twenty-first century is the knowledge of developmental needs for idealism. The ship-board ethics education program of the eighteenth century was successful because it fed the spirit of patriotism and provided role-models for young men to aspire toward.

The recent re-introduction of a formal ethics program at the Naval Academy suffers from problems addressed in the nineteenth century: irrelevance. Superintendent Charles Larson's program of formal ethics education in the 1990s sought to integrate theory with practice in a required sophomore ethics course. The Academy hired civilian ethicists to craft a program that would address the needs of young military professionals but, once again, the military education was developed without significant military leadership. As one of those USNA civilian ethicists, and a target for critical commentary by students and alumni, I have concluded that the criticism is justified. The infusion of ethical theory into the curriculum does little for the character education of midshipmen; in fact, it inspires a sense of moral failure for the profession. The case studies chosen for the 1998 required ethics textbook, Ethics for Military Leaders, 2nd Edition [14] includes a variety of cases that highlight the variety of ways that the naval profession fails in its moral duty, rather than providing examples for moral uplift. This approach works well in many ethics courses but not in the unique setting of a military academy. Young men and women who are embarking upon a career in the military do so out of extreme idealism and patriotism, their ethics education needs to reinforce those ideals rather than taint them with examples of wrongdoing. The Naval Academy leadership has a built-in advantage over civilian counterparts when constructing an ethics education program: many officers who exemplify the core values of honor, courage, and commitment. A successful program for developing the standards associated with professionalism must focus on mentoring, role-models and the fostering of tradition. To that end, history's lessons provide an important point basis for the cultivation of professional virtue.

Endnotes

[1] J. Carl Ficcarota, Are the Military held to a higher moral standard? Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 24, No. 1, Fall 1997

[2] Richard Preston, Perspectives in the history of military education and professionalism., Colorado Springs: U.S. Air Force Academy, 1980, 22.

[3] John Paul Jones, Life and correspondence, New York: A. Chandler, 1830, 334.

[4] Christopher McKee, A Gentlemanly and Honorable Profession, the Creation of the U.S. Naval Officer Corps, 1794-1815. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1991, 28.

[5] McKee, 169.

[6] Peter Karsten, Naval Aristocracy, New York: Free Press, 1972, 4.

[7] John Paul Jones, Life and Corresopondence, New York: A. Chandler, 1830, 62.

[8] James Soley, Historical Sketch of the Naval Academy p.64

[9] William Simons, Liberal Education in the Service Academies (New York: Institute for Higher Education, Bureau of Publications, Teachers College Columbia University Press, 1965) p. 48.

[10] George Jones, Sketches of a Naval Life (New Haven: Hezekiah House, 1829) p. 236.

[11] Douglas Sloan, "The Teaching of Ethics in the American Undergraduate Curriculum, 1876-1976", in Ethics Teaching in Higher Education, Ed., Daniel Callahan (New York: Plenum Press, 1980) p. 2.

[12] Peter Karsten, Naval Aristocracy (New York: Free press, 1972) p. 36.

[13] Board of Visitors notes, 1879 (Annapolis, MD: Nimitz Library Archives)

[14] Donovan, Aine (Ed., et al.) Ethics for Military Leaders, 2nd Edition, (Needham, MA: Pearson Custom Publishing, 1998)

Aine Donovan, Dartmouth College, NH

Dr. Danovan's research was funded, in large part, through a grant from the Center for the Study of Professional Military Ethics at the United States Naval Academy. Associate Professor Lori Bogle was instrumental in my historical understanding of the nineteenth century and the role of the military during that time.