Mr. Dwight, "whether a more honorable specimen of public spirit can be found in the history of mankind."

Institutions of learning are expected among men of intellect and refinement, but not in poverty; in leisure, but not surrounded by public dangers. "These early settlers," wrote Quincy, "waited not for affluence, for days of peace, or even domestic concord." Neither narrowness of territorial limits, nor fear of savage enemies, nor scanty subsistence, nor meager population; neither religious dispute, nor uncertain abode, nor lack of leisure restrained their unbounded zeal for an education that to them seemed not so much desirable as necessary, that "the light of learning might not go out, nor the study of God's Word perish."

Notwithstanding their own learning, however, and solicitude for their children, they must have failed in their undertaking had it not been for the generous gift of John Harvard.

A citizen of Boston, writing back to friends in 1643, says: "After we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for worship, and settled the civil government, one of the next things wee longed for and looked after was to advance learning and to perpetuate it to posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust. And as wee were thinking and consulting how to effect this great work, it pleased God to stir up the heart of one Mr. Harvard (a godly gentleman and a lover of learning, then living among us) to give the one half of his estate (it being in all about £1,700) towards the erecting of a colledge, and all his library. After him another gave £300; others after them cast in more, and the publique hand of the State added the rest."* The official record is similar.

Of John Harvard little is known. The institution founded is his best monument. This much may perhaps be said: He Was a son of Robert and Katharine (Rogers) Harvard, and was

# "Massachusetts Historical Collections," vol. i, p. 242.

1

born in the parish of Southwark, London, November 29, 1607 His father was a butcher by trade, dying while John was yet a youth. He entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, at the age of twenty-one, his name appearing on the registrar's book as a pensioner. He received the bachelor's degree in 1631, and was made a master four years later. Beyond these meager facts, concerning his life in England, it is only known that he was a dissenting clergyman, and set sail for this country some time in the early part of 1637. Almost immediately upon his arrival in Massachusetts he was admitted a freeman of the village-Charlestown-along with his co-laborer, Mr. John Fisk, and others. He continued his ministry, as appears from the records, and was wealthy beyond his surroundings. His small bequest was almost double what the whole colony besides was able to give. Thirty years old, and a finished scholar, after the severe standards even of that ultra-classical period, his counsel was sought outside the field of theology also; for, almost immediately upon his arrival, he was appointed one of a committee "to consider of some things toward a body of laws for the town." After a year in the colony he died of consumption, September 24, 1638. He has been called "reverend" and "godly." " Henry Barnard says of him, "He was the greatest benefactor of education in America."

"It was given," said Edward Everett, "to the venerated man whom we commemorate this day"* (1828), "first to strike the key-note in the character of this people; first to perceive with a prophet's foresight, and to promote with a princely liberality, considering his means, that connection between private munificence and public education which, well understood and pursued by others, has given to New England no small portion of her name and praise in the land."

His books, which formed the nucleus of the present Harvard Library, were solid and standard. The catalogue is still

*Upon the erection of a monument at Charlestown to his memory.

preserved, showing two hundred and sixty volumes, and is one window into the intellectual habit of the man. As might be expected, they were chiefly theological and polemical. They were also classical, and mark the thoughtful bias along with general culture. There were Aquinas and Chrysostom and Calvin, Duns Scotus, Luther, and Pelagius; but there were, besides, Bacon and Homer, Isocrates and Plutarch, Pliny, Juvenal, and Horace. John Harvard* was a fit benefactor of the first American university.

The colony caught his spirit. Among the magistrates themselves two hundred pounds was subscribed, a part in books. All did something, even the indigent. One subscribed a number of sheep; another, nine shillings' worth of cloth; one, a ten-shilling pewter flagon; others, a fruit-dish, a sugar-spoon, a silver-tipped jug, one great salt, one small trencher salt, etc. From such small beginnings did the institution take its start. No rank, no class of men, is unrepresented. The school was of the people.

The institution was as yet only a modest school; not till later did it aspire to be a college, much less a university. The first principal, during whose administration the Harvard bequest was received, was Nathaniel Eaton. "Of this man," says Josiah Quincy, “nothing has been transmitted worthy of being repeated"; a thought emphasized in the statement of Hubbard, that "he was fitter to have been an officer in the Inquisition than the instructor of Christian youth.”+

Eaton was succeeded (1640) by Mr. Henry Dunster, with the title of "President." A scholarly, painstaking, pious, earnest man, he, of all the early friends of the college, after its founder, deserves most thoughtful notice. Under his direction was formed the first code of laws, regulations were

The remains of John Harvard lie buried on Harvard Hill, in Charlestown, where (1828), almost two centuries after his death, a monument was erected to his memory; it was upon this occasion that Hon. Edward Everatt pronounced his famous oration on the founder of Harvard College. (See "Orations," vol. i, p. 176.)

"History of New England," p. 91.

adopted, and degrees established. Like John Harvard, Mr. Dunster was educated in Emmanuel College, and, like him also, had been a nonconformist clergyman.

From his own early training, he patterned the Harvard course largely after that of the English universities, though variously modified to suit the new conditions. After nineteen years of only informal management the policy began to be more fixed, and the requirements for admission were announced as follows: "When any scholar is able to read Tully or any like classical Latin author, ex tempore, and make and speak true Latin in verse and prose (suo ut aiunt Marte), and decline perfectly the paradigms of nouns and verbs in the Greek tongue, then may he be admitted to the college; nor shall any claim admission before such qualification."

The course covered three years, and, in the nomenclature of the day, was both "liberal" and comprehensive. It must be remembered that for sixty years the institution was little more than a training-school for ministers, managed as a theological seminary, having religion, of a more or less welldefined type, as its basis and chief object. Yet, as Prof. Emerson has put it,* "It is one of the most remarkable things in the history of Harvard, that, in all the constitutions of the college, there is nothing illiberal or sectarian ; nothing to check the freest pursuit of truth in theological opinions, and in everything else; and this, too, while the founders of the college were severely and strictly orthodox; often exclusive in their own opinions, and while their object was unquestionably to provide for the thorough education of ministers of the gospel of like views with themselves."

The course + included two years of logic, and something of physics; two of ethics and politics; two of mathematics (including, however, only arithmetic and geometry), the equivalent of four years of Greek, and one year each of He

"Lowell Lectures," 1869, p. 293.
Richardson's "The College Book," p. 8.

brew, Chalder, and Syriac. Latin was excluded as something that must have been mastered before entrance, its conversational use being obligatory upon all within the limits of the college, in place of the mother-tongue, which was "to be used under no pretext whatever, unless required in public exercises." The Bible was systematically studied for the entive three years, Ezra, Daniel, and the New Testament being specified. A year was given to catechetical divinity. Daily prayers must be attended “at six o'clock in the morning and five o'clock at night all the yeare long"; at which time students were required to "read some portion of the Old Testament out of Hebrew into Greek, and the New Testament out of English into Greek, after which "one of the Bachelors or Sophisters should logically analyze that which was read."

History was taught by lectures a few weeks in the winter, and botany in like manner in the summer. Allowing even for this last, science was practically unknown; all profane literature was excluded; and even "philosophy, such as is worthy of the name," says Richardson, "was untouched."

Not less exacting were the requirements of studentship. President Dunster seems to have been head and body of the whole institution. No possible conduct escaped his eye. Class deportment, plan of studies, personal habits, daily life, private devotions, social intercourse, and civil privileges, were all directed.

Concerning degrees it was ordered that "every scholar that on proof is found able to read the originals of the Old and New Testament into the Latin tongue, and to resolve them logically; withal being of Godly life and conversation; and at any publick act hath the approbation of the overseers and master of the Colledge, is fit to be dignified with his first degree."*

For a second degree, it was required, in addition to the

* See "New England's First Fruits," a quaintly entertaining sketch of Harvard, written 1643, and to be found in "Massachusetts Historical Colections," vol. i, p. 245.