Episcopal Bishop of Tennessee, and William C. Hasbrouck, were the teachers.
In 1825 he obtained, through the Hon. Sam Houston, a midshipman's warrant in the United States Navy. His father, not approving the career to which this pointed, while not forbidding, refused to countenance him in accepting it. Having thirty dollars which he had earned by doing tutor's work in the academy, young Maury went on his own account for the East. There was no naval academy then, and he went on shipboard at once. He soon showed that his mind was set upon mastering the theory and practice of his profession. "It is related by some of his companions of that period" says Mrs. Corbin, "how he would chalk diagrams in spherical trigonometry on the round-shot in the quarter-deck racks, to enable himself to master problems, while pacing to and fro, passing and repassing the shot-racks on his watch." With an old Spanish work on navigation, he pursued the double object of studying the Spanish language and adding to his stock of nautical information. His first voyage was to England, in the Brandywine, which conveyed General Lafayette home to France; his next was in the Vincennes, round the world. On this voyage he constructed a set of lunar tables and prepared himself for examination.
During his next cruise of four years on the Falmouth, Dolphin, and Potomac, beginning in 1831, Maury conceived the idea of his current and wind charts; observed and began to study the curious phenomenon of the low barometer off Cape Horn, concerning which he wrote his first scientific paper—for the American Journal of Science; and began to prepare for the press a work on navigation, for which he had been several years collecting the material. It was published in 1839, was favorably noticed in England, and was used as a text-book in the United States Navy.
Maury next received an appointment as astronomer and hydrographer on the South Sea Exploring Expedition, which was to go out under Commodore Catesby Jones, and, preparatory to it, practiced in the use of the telescope, transit instrument, and theodolite; but, Captain Wilkes succeeding to the command, he resigned, in order to permit the new commander to select his own associates. He was then assigned the duty of making surveys of Southern harbors. While traveling on leave of absence from this work, his leg was broken by the overturning of a stage-coach, whereby he was disabled from active service for several years. The misfortune is regarded by his biographer as having been a "blessing in disguise"; for it caused his mind to turn more intently to the scientific side of his work, and thus contributed indirectly to the fruitfulness of thought by which his after-life was distinguished.
A series of articles on naval reform and kindred subjects, entitled Scraps from the Lucky-Bag, published by Maury under
