The Founding of Harvard College

Just six years after the Puritans founded Massachusetts Bay Colony, they decided to start a “schoale or colledge” near Boston. When John Harvard, a clergyman dying of tuberculosis, wrote a will leaving his books and half his property to the new school, the college was named in his honor. Today that college is Harvard University, the oldest university in America and one of the most famous in the world.

Why were the Puritans so eager to found a college? They believed that education would help foster religious beliefs, hold the community together, and produce the leaders and ministers the colony needed. In England, many Puritans had attended Oxford and Cambridge universities. They wanted their sons to have a similar opportunity in America. Newtowne, the site of this new Massachusetts college, was renamed Cambridge in honor of the English university.

In 1640, Harvard admitted its first freshman class---four students. Henry Dunster, the college president, was also the only teacher. For almost 100 years, the Harvard teaching staff consisted of three or four tutors. Each took charge of an entering class and guided it for four years, teaching all subjects. Religion, ancient languages, mathematics, and science made up the core of the studies.

In Harvard’s early days, students sometimes paid their tuition by donating livestock to the school.

Education, 1640, Colleges and Universities, Massachusetts