HARVARD UNIVERSITY 



2709 



HARVARD UNIVERSITY 



him have been published, but perhaps the most 

 thorough accounts are found in Rendle's John 



STATUE OP JOHN HARVARD 

 On the grounds of Harvard University. 



Harvard and Thayer's History oj Middlesex 

 County. 



Consult Shelley's John Harvard and His Times. 



HARVARD UNIVERSITY, the oldest insti- 

 tution for higher education in America. It was 

 established in 1636, only six years after the 

 foundation of the colony of Massachusetts Bay 

 and sixteen years after the landing of the Pil- 

 grims. From its earliest days to the present 

 time it has maintained a leadership and prestige 

 among educational institutions second to none 

 in the United States. From it have come many 

 of the impulses which have from time to time 

 profoundly altered the character of higher edu- 

 cation; probably the most important of these 

 changes was the introduction of the elective 

 system (see ELECTIVE STUDIES). . 



Not alone in education have Harvard men 

 been eminent and influential. From the days 

 of Increase Mather to the present, Harvard 

 men have been leaders in all fields, particularly 

 in literature and politics. Three Presidents of 

 the United States John Adams, John Quincy 

 Adams and Theodore Roosevelt were Harvard 

 graduates, and George Washington received an 

 honorary degree from Harvard in 1776. Among 

 other well-known names on the roll of gradu- 



ates are Cotton Mather, Theodore Parker, 

 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry D. Thoreau, 

 James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, 

 George Bancroft, William H. Prescott, John 

 Lothrop Motley, Francis Parkman, Charles 

 Summer, Edward Everett, Wendell Phillips and 

 Louis Agassiz. 



Growth of the University. It was on Octo- 

 ber 28, 1636, that the general court or assembly 

 of the colony of Massachusetts Bay voted 400 

 ($2,000) for a "schoale or colledge" to be estab- 

 lished at Newtowne. Two years later the name 

 of the town was changed to Cambridge, in 

 honor of the English university, at which about 

 sixty of the leading men of the colony had been 

 educated. Among the number was Rev. JOHN 

 HARVARD, a Puritan minister who died in 1638 

 and left his library of 260 volumes and half of 

 his estate to the new college. This bequest, 

 amounting to 400 ($2,000) was a princely one 

 for those times, and it was immediately decided 

 to name the institution in his honor. The first 

 class, of nine students, was graduated in 1642. 



For many years the college grew slowly but 

 steadily, in spite of internal dissensions. Al- 

 most from the beginning there was conflict 

 between the two governing bodies of the 

 university, the corporation and the board of 

 overseers. The corporation, comprising the 

 president, the treasurer and five fellows, was 

 charged with the administration of the college, 

 but many of its acts were subject to the ap- 

 proval of the overseers. The corporation for 

 many years was inclined to be liberal, particu- 

 larly in matters of religion, while the overseers, 

 half of whom were Congregational ministers 

 and the other half state officials or laymen 

 chosen by the legislature, were conservative. 

 For years there was a triangular struggle be- 

 tween the colonial or state officials and the 

 strict and the liberal elements among the Con- 

 gregationalists. During the first half of the 

 nineteenth century the college was the chief 

 stronghold of the Unitarians, and it was not 

 until 1851 that the charter was amended to in- 

 clude no reference to control by any Church. 

 In 1865 the state surrendered its partial control 

 of the university by transferring the election of 

 the overseers from the state legislature to the 

 alumni. 



When Charles William Eliot became presi- 

 dent in 1869, therefore, the time was ripe for 

 great changes, for the university was free from 

 state and denominational influences. It is note- 

 worthy that Eliot was the first president who 

 was not a minister. In 1869 Harvard included 



