28
October 1636 A.D. A
College Named Harvard
Graves,
Dan. “A College Named for John Harvard.”
Christianity.com. Jul 2007. http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1601-1700/a-college-named-for-john-harvard-11630093.html. Accessed
5 Jun 2014.
Universities sprang up in Medieval Christendom.
Nothing like them had been seen in history, for not only did they concentrate
teachers, they embraced the idea of set coursework whose requirements must be
fulfilled before a specific degree was awarded. Students were periodically
tested before being certified in their chosen subjects. Universities were
modeled on guilds which trained and rated apprentices and journeymen and
gathered members for mutual protection. The Christian ideal often tends to
clump people together for mutual support in a body.
Puritans, many of them
university educated in England, brought the idea of a university to New
England. "After God had carried us safe to New England, and wee had
builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, rear'd convenient
places for Gods worship and setled the Civill Government: One of the next
things we longed for, and looked after was to advance Learning and perpetuate
it to Posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate Ministery to the Churches,
when our present Ministers shall lie in the Dust." These words appeared in
a pamphlet titled New England's First Fruits.
In 1635 Salem magistrates
convinced John Humfrey to relinquish his interest in 300 acres of land so that
they might build a school there. The following year, 1636, the General Court
met in October. On this day,
October 28, 1636, their fourth day of business, the 36 men of the
Court made an important decision. "The court agreed to give 400£ towards a
schoale or colledge, whearof 200£ to bee paid the next yeare, and 200£ when the
work is finished, and the next Court to appoint wheare and what building."
The sum of £400 seems small today, but according to historian Samuel Eliot
Morrison, it represented fully one third of Salem's town revenue the year of
1636. No action was taken that year. The Anne Hutchinson controversy and an
Indian war intervened.
John Harvard was a wealthy
member of the English middle class. The death of most of his family from plague
had left him holding the entire Harvard estate. John came to the new world in
1637, apparently to practice his faith in a simpler and more pure style than he
felt he could enjoy in the established Church of England. The following year he
died of a protracted disease. He willed half his estate and his entire library
for the establishment of a college. The prospective school may have received
£850, a very large sum by New England standards. God concentrates wealth for a
purpose.
In 1639 Salem's leaders met
again. In gratitude for Harvard's bequest, they named the college after him. It
has become one of the greatest universities in the world. Its origin and
purpose were entirely Christian. Fittingly, in light of John Harvard's donation
of books, it boasts one of the largest libraries in the world, with tens of
millions of items.
Bibliography:
2. Morison, Samuel Eliot. The Founding of Harvard College.
Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1935.
3. Morison, Samuel Eliot. Three Centuries of Harvard. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, c1964.
4. Various encyclopedia and internet articles.
Last updated July,
2007.
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