Summary: Transitioning the training of midshipmen from an on-board apprenticeship to an academic curriculum on shore supplemented by time on training ships was a significant change in thought when it came to the development of the navy's officer corp. The man who guided this transition was Franklin Buchanan. He founded the Navy School at the direction of George Bancroft, Secretary of the Navy in 1845, on the banks of the Severn River in Annapolis, MD. Today, we look at two objects that mark this transition from ship to shore: Buchanan's own training journal when he was a midshipman on board U.S.S. Franklin, and a copy of the first rules and regulations of the new Naval School, signed by Buchanan himself.
