Cambridge as Village and City 295 



Fisher, by Latimer and Cranmer, by Burghley 

 and Walsingham and the two Bacons, by Edmund 

 Spenser and Ben Jonson, this name of such 

 fame and dignity was adopted in 1638 by an order 

 of the General Court. The map of the United 

 States abounds in town names taken at random 

 from the Old World, often inappropriate and some 

 times ludicrous from the incongruity of associa 

 tions. The name of our city is connected by a 

 legitimate bond of inheritance with that of the 

 beautiful city on the Cam. It was given in the 

 thought that the work for scholarship, for godli 

 ness, and for freedom, which had so long been car 

 ried on in the older city, was to be continued in 

 the younger. The name thus given was a pledge 

 to posterity, and it has been worthily fulfilled. 



Into the history of the town of Cambridge dur 

 ing the two centuries after it received its name I 

 do not propose to enter. But a glimpse of its gen 

 eral appearance during the greater part of that 

 period is needful, in order to give precision and 

 the right sort of emphasis to the contrast which we 

 see before us to-day. The Cambridge of those 

 days was simply the seat of the college, not yet de 

 veloped into a university. Within the memory of 

 persons now living, Old Cambridge was commonly 

 alluded to as &quot; the village.&quot; In the original laying 



