HARVARD UNIVERSITY, the oldest and the
most amply endowed institution of learning in
the United States, situated in Cambridge, 3 m. W. of Boston, Mass. Six years after the first settlement of this region by the English the following entry appears on their records, under date of Oct. 28, 1636: “The court agreed to give 400l. towards a schoale or colledge, whearof 200l. to bee paid the next yeare, and 200l. when the worke is finished, and the next court to appoint wheare, and what building.” The next year the court ordered that the college should be at “Newetowne,” and designated the governor and deputy governor, with ten others, including the principal laymen and ministers of the colony, among whom were John Cotton and John Winthrop, to have charge of the undertaking. Under date of March 13, 1639, it was “ordered, that the colledge agreed upon formerly to bee built at Cambridg shal bee called Harvard Colledge.” By the change of the name Newtown to Cambridge it was designed to honor the famous English university, of which some of the early settlers were
graduates, and the name Harvard was given to
the institution in recognition of the liberal
endowment of about £700 left by the will of the
Rev. John Harvard in 1638. It is doubtful
whether the original grant of £400 was ever
actually paid. It is certain that the project for
a college lay in abeyance until the bequest of
Harvard at once initiated the necessary
measures. In 1638 a class began a course of study
in the college under Nathaniel Eaton. The first
class graduated, in 1642, consisted of nine
members. Efforts were made to educate a few
of the aborigines as teachers of their own race, but only one Indian was ever graduated. In 1642 the general government of the college and the management of its funds were vested in a board of overseers, consisting of “the governor and deputy governor for the time being, and all the magistrates of this jurisdiction, together with the teaching elders of the six next adjoining towns—viz., Cambridge, Watertown, Charlestown, Boston, Roxbury, and Dorchester—and the president of the said college.” In 1650 the general court granted a charter to the college, under which it became a corporation with the title of the “President and Fellows of Harvard College,” consisting of the president, five fellows, and a treasurer or bursar, to have perpetual succession by the election of members to fill vacancies. In October, 1680, by order of the general court, the ferry between Boston and Charlestown was granted to the college. The town of Cambridge gave several parcels of land, as did other public bodies and private individuals. The legislatures of the colony, province, and state of Massachusetts made grants, in early times regular ones annually, to pay the salary of the president, and to aid in the support of some one or two other officers or teachers in the college, as also occasional gifts for special purposes; while lotteries were chartered to obtain money for building some of the older college halls. The last grant made to the college from the public treasury was in 1814. When a constitution was framed for the commonwealth in 1780 the perpetual enjoyment of all their vested rights and powers was secured to the president and fellows of Harvard college, and the council and senate were made the successors of the magistrates in the board of overseers as constituted in 1642. The organization of the board of overseers, under the direction of the legislature, underwent various changes until 1865, when the connection of the college with the commonwealth was dissolved, and the control of the university was vested in its alumni. Besides the president and treasurer of the university, who are ex officio members, the board consists of 30 members, divided into six classes, of five each, who after a term of six years go out of office in rotation, five overseers being elected by the alumni each year. The first election of overseers by the alumni was held in Cambridge on commencement day in 1866. Only inhabitants of the state are eligible as