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, 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,

3

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, 1638, 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.