294 A Century of Science 



and vigilance in exposing heresy were conspicu 

 ously shown ; and, if we may believe Cotton 

 Mather, it was this circumstance that .led to the 

 selection of the New Town as the site for the pro 

 jected college. It was well for students of divinity 

 to sit under the preaching of such a man, and of 

 such as he might train up to succeed him. How 

 vain were all such hopes of keeping this New 

 English Canaan free from heresy was shown when 

 Henry Dunster, first president of the college, was 

 censured by the magistrates and dismissed from 

 office for disapproving of infant baptism ! 



In the great English universities at that time 

 Royalism and Episcopacy prevailed at Oxford, 

 while Puritanism more or less allied with Repub 

 licanism was rife at Cambridge. Ever since the 

 fourteenth century a superior flexibility in opin 

 ion had been observable in the eastern counties, 

 whence came so many ,of the people that founded 

 New England. Not only Hooker and Shepard, 

 but most of our clergy, among whom individualism 

 was so rife, were graduates of Cambridge. When 

 it was decided that the New Town was to be the 

 home of our college, it was natural for people to 

 fall into the habit of calling it Cambridge ; and 

 this name, so long enshrined already in their affec 

 tions, already made illustrious by Erasmus and 



