Unable to initialize class with my list
<p>I'm not able to get rid of this NullPointerException in the following class.  My controller is extending this class and the problem goes away when I comment out the constructor below... what am I doing wrong?</p>

<pre><code>org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'contentController' defined in file [C:\Users\bkuhl\JavaProjects\cmt\cmt\target\cmt\WEB-INF\classes\com\site\cmt\web\ContentController.class]: Instantiation of bean failed; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.BeanInstantiationException: Could not instantiate bean class [com.fettergroup.cmt.web.ContentController]: Constructor threw exception; nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException
</code></pre>

<hr>

<pre><code>public class Controller {
    private List&lt;String&gt; cssFiles;
    private List&lt;String&gt; jsFiles;

    public Controller () {
        this.addCss("global.css");
        this.addJs("global.js");
    }

    public ModelAndView render (ModelAndView model) {

        //add Js &amp; Css files
        model.addObject("cssFiles", this.cssFiles);
        model.addObject("jsFiles", this.jsFiles);

        return model;
    }

    /*
     * Add a css file to the page
     */
    public final void addCss (String cssPath) {
        cssFiles.add(this.cssFiles.size(), cssPath);
    }

    /*
     * Add a javascript file to the page
     */
    public final void addJs (String jsPath) {
        jsFiles.add(this.jsFiles.size(), jsPath);
    }
}
</code></pre>
