JOHN WINTHROP. 



1714-1779. 



THE name of Winthrop has always been an honoured one 

 in New England, in the domain of public affairs, and one mem- 

 ber of the family, at least, has placed it high on the rolls of 

 science. Several of the Winthrops of colonial times were 

 cultivators of the sciences, but none employed such high talents 

 so exclusively in this field of activity as did the subject of the 

 present sketch. 



John Winthrop, one of many Johns in that family, was 

 born in Boston, December 8, 1714. His family history is a 

 part of the history of Massachusetts. His father, Judge 

 Adam Winthrop, was a great-grandson of the first Governor of 

 the Massachusetts Bay Colony ; a graduate of Harvard ; chief 

 justice of the Court of Common Pleas; colonel of the Boston 

 regiment; and a lay member of the Provincial Council. John 

 Winthrop was graduated from Harvard College in 1732. Six 

 years later, being then twenty-four years old, he was elected 

 to the Hollis professorship of Mathematics and Natural Philos- 

 ophy by the corporation of the college. The choice being 

 submitted to the overseers of the college, that body appointed 

 a committee " to examine the professor-elect as to his knowl- 

 edge of the mathematics," which soon reported favourably. 

 Certain of the overseers, who were especially anxious to pro- 

 tect the college from any possible contamination of heresy or 

 schism, tried to have a committee appointed " to examine Mr. 

 Winthrop about his principles of religion." This matter was 

 debated at several meetings, but finally voted down, and Win- 

 throp's election was thereupon approved. He was formally in- 

 augurated, as was then the custom, January 2, i738-'39. The 

 ceremonies included two Latin orations, the reading of the 

 rules to govern the professor, prescribed by the founder of the 



