HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 599, 18 November 1869, Page 4

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

Harvard waa founded early in the seventeenth century at Newtown, one of the earliest pilgrim colonies, the name of which, after the establishment of the college, was changed to Cambridge. Among Jkhe settlers at Newtown were a number of graduates of old Cambridge, England, mostly alumni of that Emmanuel College which had been founded by Sir Walter Mildmay in 1585, and which the maiden queen suspected, with her shrewd wit, to be a " Puritan foundation." These Emmanuel settlers in the new world set up a branch of their alma mater, which was at first Puritan indeed. The young college of New Cambridge received a grant of L4OO from the General Court of Massachusetts, which was then considered an excellent beginning. In 1638, the Rev. John Harvard, a wealthy Puritan minister who had come over from England, bequeathed his valuable library and half his property to the infant institution. The gratitude of colleges usually takes the form of adopting the benefactor's name for some purpose connected with them, bo Cambridge College became Harvard College. Harvard's example set the fashion : endowments multiplied, the magistrates of the colony gave L2OO worth of books, aud poor and rich contributed to help . along an institution of which Massachusetts Bay was already proud. Still it was a hard struggle to keep the college a-going in those troublous times of Indian raids, and a yet unconqnered soil. But Harvard began, nevertheless, to produce men of stamina and learning, and was already supplying the backbone of that energetic and heroic settlement. So it lived on for a century, always contending with poverty, and. often interrupted by the disturbances incident ;to new settlements. In the War of Independence (1775-1783) Harvard took an active part in the patriot cause, both by its distinguished graduates — for James Otis, Hancock, Warren, Josiah Quincy, and the elder Adams were alumni of Harvard — and by the professors and students then engaged in the curriculum. After the batile of Lexington, the patriot arihy occupied the college buildings ; and the students and their instructors took no slight part in the military operations which followed. Stories are told of professors in Greek and " the humanities," spectacled and wrinkled, boldly leading bands of their scholars in the skirmishes which took place in the vicinity.