Harvard University

Harvard University, which is in the town of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and about a mile north-east of Boston, was founded in 1638. Mr. John Harvard, an English clergyman, having come to Charlestown, Massachusetts, a year before his death, left £780 and his library for the foundation of a college for the education of the English and Indian youth of the country. Only one Indian actually graduated. The endowment was supplemented by grants from Massachusetts and by contributions from the churches, and the college continued till the present century to be a theological seminary under state control. Since 1865 it has been governed by a board of thirty overseers elected by the alumni, one-sixth of the body being renewable every year. The appointment to professorships and the control of property is, however, practically in the hands of the "corporation," consisting of the president and five fellows. The number of students is upwards of 2,000, of which some 1,200 are attached to Harvard College, the Medical School having about 300 and the Law School rather less. There are 71 professors, and about 150 assistants and tutors. The total income of the university is estimated at more than £100,000 a year. The age of matriculation is usually about 18. The two main departments of study are the classical and the scientific; but a student following either of these courses has to devote a certain amount of attention to the other. The terms amount to about forty weeks in the year. The education of women is provided for. Ladies may have access to the university library and may obtain, after a four years' course, a certificate equivalent to the Bachelor's Degree. The chief glories of Harvard are the Memorial Hall, a large building erected in honour of the alumni who fell in the Civil War, having a dining hall hung with portraits, where the public "exercises" are given; the Agassiz Zoological Museum, and the Peabody Ethnological and Archaeological Museum. There are also a library containing 250,000 books, a fine observatory, and a botanical garden. Harvard University is the chief seat of learning in the New World.