HARVARD UNIVERSITY. The oldest
institution of higher education in the United States, situated at Cambridge, Mass. It had its
in a desire of the early settlers of the Colony
of Massachusetts Bay to preserve and perpetuate
in their new home the classical and
theological learning acquired by many of them at
the University of Cambridge, and to educate the
“English and Indian youth in knowledge and
godliness.” To this end the General Court of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony voted £400 in 1636, and in the following year appointed twelve eminent men of the Colony, including Governor John Winthrop, “to take order for a college at New-Towne,” which was afterwards renamed Cambridge, in honor of Cambridge University. While the organization of the institution was in progress, Rev. John Harvard, an English non-conforming clergyman, died in 1638, bequeathing to the new school his library, consisting of 200 volumes, together with half of his estate, valued at about £400. In recognition of this gift—munificent in those days—the new school was named Harvard College. The Colonial magistrates and many private persons, emulating Harvard's generosity, also contributed books, funds, and gifts in kind. The first building was erected in 1637 by Nathaniel Eaton, who also taught until 1639, when he was dismissed for misconduct. The Rev. Henry Dunster was elected president in 1640, and in 1642 the first class, consisting of nine students, was graduated. The government of the college was the same year vested in a board of overseers, consisting of the Governor, the Deputy Governor, the magistrates, the teaching elders of the “six next adjoining towns” (Cambridge, Watertown, Charlestown, Boston, Roxbury, and Dorchester), and the president of the college. In 1650 the college was formed into a corporation, consisting of the president, five fellows, and the treasurer, for the immediate administration of the financial and educational affairs of the institution, and in 1657 the charter of the corporation was so amended as to dispense with the positive assent of the overseers in matters relating to the internal management of the college, leaving, however, final jurisdiction to that body if necessary. These two governing bodies acted as checks upon each other throughout the earlier history of Harvard, and though at times their antagonism was productive of some good, restraining the too rapid advances proposed by the liberal corporation on the one hand, and preventing the overseers from using the college for partisan purposes, yet the progress of the college was much retarded by these controversies. The character of the board of overseers has been fundamentally changed by successive legislative acts, concurred in by the corporation and overseers. According to the State Constitution of 1780 it was composed of the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Council and Senate of the Commonwealth, the president of the college, and the ministers of the Congregational churches of the towns mentioned above. In 1810 fifteen laymen and fifteen Congregational ministers, with the president of the Senate and the Speaker of the House, all inhabitants of the State, were substituted in place of the Senate and the ministers of the six towns. In 1814 the members of the Senate were restored to membership; the act of 1834 made clergymen of all denominations eligible for membership on the board; but it was not ratified by the corporation and overseers until 1843; the act of 1851 secularized the board by containing no reference to clergymen; the act of 1865
the election of members of the board from
the State Legislature to persons holding the B.A., M.A., and honorary degrees from the college, who were to vote on commencement day at Cambridge; in 1880 eligibility to election as overseer was extended to non-residents of the State. Nominations are made by postal ballot, while the election is held in Cambridge on commencement day. Thus Harvard was successively freed from Church, State, and sectional control.