HISTORY.

CHAPTER I.

THE first settlers of New England were men who understood and felt the importance of education. While as a body they were well instructed, many individuals among them came stored with the various learning of the English Universities. From those renowned institutions, even if nonconformity to the established church would not have been an exclusion, their distance would, generally speaking, have formed an insuperable bar to the enjoyment of any direct benefit. Scarcely, therefore, had the Pilgrim fathers of New England subdued a few spots in the wilderness, where they had sought shelter from persecution, when their solicitude to transmit to future generations the benefits of learning, impelled them, while yet struggling with many and great difficulties, to enter upon the work of providing here for such an education in the liberal arts and sciences, as was to be obtained in Europe; justly regarding an establishment for that purpose as an essential part of the fabric of civil and religious order, which they were employed in constructing, and which, with some modification, now happily stands so noble a monument of their energy of character, of their love of well-regulated liberty, of their wisdom, virtue, and piety.

To minds less enlightened, less impressed with the value of liberal studies, and less resolved on achieving whatever duty commanded, such a project would have presented itself in vain; but from the fathers of New England it was precisely the measure which was to have been expected; it flowed from their principles and character, as an effect from its legitimate cause; and, while the qualities of a stream are a test of the nature of its source, this venerable institution must be regarded as a memorial of the wisdom and virtue of its pious founders.

Their reliance, however, was not solely on their own resources. With a pious trust in the fostering care of Providence, they looked abroad for assistance; and seem to have confidently expected it from some of the many learned and able individuals in England, who sympathized with them in their religious sentiments, or were desirous of propagating Christianity among the aborigines of America.1

In the autumn of 1636, only six years from the first settlement of Boston, the General Court voted £400, equal to a year's rate of the whole colony,2 towards the erection of a public "school or college "; of which £200 was to be paid the next year, and £200, when the work was finished. An order was passed, the year following, that the college should be at Newtown, "a place very pleasant and accommodate," and "then under the orthodox and soul-flourishing ministery of Mr. Thomas Shepheard";" and a most respectable committee of twelve of the principal magistrates and ministers of the colony, namely, Governor Winthrop,

1 Wonder-Working Providence, p. 164; New England's First Fruits, in Mass. Hist. Coll. Vol. I. p. 246, First Series. See Notes A, B, and H, at the end of this History.

2 Winthrop's Hist. of N. England, by Savage, Vol. II. pp. 87, 88, note. 3 See Notes A and B.

Deputy-Governor Dudley, Mr. Bellingham, Mr. Humphry, Mr. Herlackenden, Mr. Stoughton, Mr. Cotton, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Davenport, Mr. Wells, Mr. Shepherd, Mr. Peters, was appointed to carry it into effect.1 In May, 1639, the name of Newtown was changed for that of Cambridge, from the place in the parent country, where many of the principal men of the colony had received their education; and in March, 1639, it was ordered that the College should be called Harvard College, in honor of its great benefactor, the Rev. John Harvard.

In the year 1638 the regular course of academic studies seems to have commenced. Historians fix on this period as the date of the foundation of the College; and degrees were conferred in four years afterwards.

The Rev. John Harvard "was educated at Emmanuel College, in the University of Cambridge, in England; and, having received the degree of Master of, Arts, was settled as a minister in that country. He came over to America, as is supposed, in 1637, having been admitted a freeman of the colony, on the 2d of November in that year. After his arrival in this country, he preached for a short time at Charlestown, but was laboring under consumption, and died in 1638, on the 14th of September, corresponding in the new style to the 26th of September. By his will, which was probably nuncupative, as it is nowhere recorded,' he left £779. 17s. 2d., being one half of his estate, towards the erection of a College." To this bequest, which was a large sum in that "day of small things," he

1 Court Rec. Book I. p. 213.

2 Everett's Address at the Erection of a Monument to John Harvard, and Appendix, 1828; and Winthrop's Hist. of N. England, by Savage, Vol. II. p. 88, note.

added all his library,' consisting of three hundred and twenty volumes. From some lines in a Latin elegy to the memory of Harvard, written by John Wilson, "it might be inferred as probable, that he left a widow and some other heir, who was not his son. The few facts contained in this brief notice, are all which our histories have preserved to us in relation to this ever honored name."2

The first person who had charge of the institution, was Nathaniel Eaton. He was appointed in 1637; and was intrusted, not only with the education of the students, but with the care of managing the donations and erecting buildings for the College. In 1639, the General Court granted him 500 acres of land, on condition of his continuing his employment for life. He was undoubtedly qualified for the office by his talents and learning; but in other respects he proved himself exceedingly unfit for it. In the same year the grant of land was made to him, he was accused of ill-treating the students, of giving them bad and scanty diet, and exercising inhuman severities towards them; but particularly, of beating his usher, Nathaniel Briscoe, and that, in a most barbarous manner. His conduct, in a word, was so tyrannical and outrageous, that the Court dismissed him from his office, fined him 100 marks (£66. 13s. 4d.), and ordered him to pay £30 to Bris

coe.

He was then excommunicated by the Church at Cambridge. Soon afterwards he escaped from the colony, went to Virginia, and thence to England, where he lived privately till the restoration of Charles the Second. He then conformed to the church of

1 New England's First Fruits, p. 242; Mather's Magnalia.

2 See Notes A and C.

3 Winthrop's Hist. of N. England, by Savage, Vol. I. pp. 309-313; Magnalia, Book IV. pp. 126, 127.

England, obtained a living, and became a violent persecutor of the Nonconformists. He was at length committed to prison for debt, and there ended his days.

During this early period the interest generally taken in the College corresponded to its importance. The hopes of its pious founders, for the maintenance of those institutions and advantages which they had come to this wilderness to enjoy, and which, above all things, they were desirous of transmitting to posterity, were embarked in this enterprise. They, accordingly, prosecuted it with great vigor and perseverance. Various donations, in addition to those already mentioned, were made to it from time to time by different individuals in this and the other New-England colonies;1 and in 1640 the General Court enriched it by a grant of the revenue of the ferry between Charlestown and Boston; thus, probably, laying the first foundation of that species of property, which was in process of time to enable it to defray its expenses from its own

resources.3

A grammar school, in which students were fitted for the College, was established at a very early period

1 Mather's Magnalia.

2 In a letter from President Dunster to Governor Winthrop in 1643, there is this passage: "I desire to know whether the country will allow me any personal interest in any of the said goods [lately arrived for the College], for and in consideration of the abatements that I have suffered, from £60 to £50, from £50 to £45, from £45 to £30, which is now my rent from the ferry."-Mass. Hist. Coll. X. 187, 188, Second Series. "It is now let," says Douglass, "at £600, New-England currency, or £60 sterling, per annum." Summary, Vol. I. p. 543, published in 1749.

3 "Part of the land on which the Colledges and the President's house now stand, containing two acres and two thirds of an acre, were granted by the town of Cambridge." — The University Book of Donations, No. I.