Harvard University

Harvard University mainly at Cambridge, Mass., including Harvard College, the oldest American college.

Harvard College

Harvard College, originally for men, was founded in 1636 with a grant from the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1638 it was named for John Harvard , its first benefactor. During the 1640s the college expanded despite inadequate finances, and in 1650 it was incorporated and chartered by the General Court. Intended to be an institution for the education of Puritan ministers, it grew to be an institution of general education, and new and more liberal subjects and policies were introduced.

In the 18th cent., particularly under John Leverett (1708-24), enrollment and campus facilities increased and the religious attachment to Congregationalism declined. Systematic theological instruction was inaugurated in 1721 with the establishment of a professorship of divinity, and by 1827, with the opening of Divinity Hall, Harvard became a nucleus of theological teaching in New England. In its early years the college was largely supported by the colony and the New England community as a whole, but support soon came in the form of gifts, and in 1823 the last state grant was received. Under Charles W. Eliot , the college became a great modern university. Its physical plant and curriculum were expanded, the graduate school was established, and the law and medical schools were reorganized. Eliot is also noted for his introduction of the elective system at Harvard.

Radcliffe, Graduate Schools, and Other Facilities

From two distinct schools, Radcliffe College for women (est. 1879, chartered 1894) and Harvard evolved in the 1970s into coordinate colleges with shared facilities and professors; all degrees were granted by Harvard. In 1999, Radcliffe officially merged with Harvard College, which became a coeducational undergraduate institution. At the same time the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard was established. The university also has graduate schools of divinity (1816), law (1817), arts and sciences (1872), education (1920), business (1908), and design (1936). Harvard also has schools of medicine (1782), public health (1922), and dental medicine (1941). The school of public administration (1936) was reorganized as the John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1966.

Harvard's original library was founded in 1638 with a bequest of 400 books from John Harvard . By the early 21st cent., the university had more than 80 libraries with numerous special divisions. Its main branch is the Harry E. Widener Memorial Library (1915). The largest university collection in the world, the libraries house more than 15 million volumes as well as papers, manuscripts, incunabula , prints, digital resources, and other materials. Among the university's many museums are the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and the Fogg, Sackler, and Busch-Reisinger museums of art. Harvard is closely associated with numerous research facilities, including the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Arnold Arboretum, Harvard Forest, a center for Byzantine studies at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., and a center for Italian renaissance studies at Villa I Tatti in Florence, Italy.

Bibliography

See histories by S. E. Morison (1936) and E. J. Kahn (1969).

Harvard University, first North American institution of higher learning, founded (1636) at Newe Towne (Cambridge) under a grant of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Three years later, the college was named for John Harvard (1607–38), a colonist who bequeathed half his estate (£780) and his library of more than 400 volumes to the new institution. In its early years, the college was closely allied with church and state, but in the mid‐19th century this alliance was completely severed, the clergy no longer being formally represented on the board of overseers, which is elected by the alumni rather than the legislature. Harvard Divinity School (founded 1819) was originally a stronghold of Unitarianism, but has later been a nonsectarian graduate school of theology. Other prominent schools are those of medicine (founded 1782), law (founded 1817), Lawrence Scientific School (1847–1907, now the school of engineering), and business administration (founded 1908). Among the notable institutions within the university are the Agassiz museum of comparative zoology, Peabody museum of archaeology, Fogg art museum, Arnold arboretum, and Widener Memorial Library, the largest university library in the U.S. Famous presidents of Harvard include Increase Mather (1685–1701); Josiah Quincy (1829–45); Edward Everett (1846–49); Jared Sparks (1849–53); C.W. Eliot (1869–1909), under whom Harvard took its place as a leading university of the U.S.; A.L. Lowell (1909–33), who introduced the tutorial system and house plan and made other reforms and innovations; and James B. Conant (1933–53). Radcliffe College for women, once an affiliate, is wholly integrated into the university. Throughout its history, Harvard has played an important role in American cultural life, and its faculty and alumni have included many outstanding men. Among the literary figures on the faculty have been Holmes, Lowell, C.E. Norton, George Bancroft, John Fiske, Parkman, Longfellow, Henry Adams, Santayana, Whitehead, William James, Bliss Perry, Irving Babbitt, G.P. Baker, G.L. Kittredge, Robert Hillyer, MacLeish, William Alfred, and Bernard Bailyn. Graduates noted for their writings include Michael Wigglesworth (1651), Increase Mather (1656), Benjamin Tompson (1662), Samuel Sewall (1671), Cotton Mather (1678), Thomas Prince (1707), Mather Byles (1725), Royall Tyler (1776), Prescott (1814), Edward Everett (1811), Jared Sparks (1815), George Bancroft (1817), Emerson (1821), Holmes (1829), Motley (1831), Theodore Parker (1836), Jones Very (1836), Thoreau (1837), R.H. Dana, Jr. (1837), Lowell (1838), Parkman (1844), C.E. Norton (1846), Henry Adams (1858), John Fiske (1863), William James (M.D., 1869), Wister (1882), Santayana (1886), Herrick (1890), Van Wyck Brooks (1907), S.E. Morison (1908), T.S. Eliot (1909), Conrad Aiken (1911), Benchley (1912), Cummings (1915), Marquand (1915), Dos Passos (1916), Behrman (1916), W.D. Edmonds (1926), Agee (1932), Boorstin (1934), R.W. Anderson (1939), Nemerov (1941), Mailer (1943), K. Koch (1948), John Hawkes (1949), Donald Hall (1951), and Updike (1954).

Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., the oldest institution of higher learning in the USA. The first plays known to have been acted there were Addison's Cato, Whitehead's The Roman Father, and Otway's The Orphan, performed surreptitiously by students. Acting was later encouraged, and the Hasty Pudding Club was formed, its productions now being mainly musicals. The Harvard Dramatic Club was started in 1908 and for many years produced only plays written by students or graduates of Harvard or Radcliffe (the women's college in Cambridge). It later concentrated on foreign plays. In 1905 Professor G. P. Baker inaugurated his influential ‘47 Workshop’ to stimulate the writing and production of new American plays. The Loeb Drama Center, seating 556, was built in 1960, the first fully automated flexible theatre in the United States, offering a proscenium, thrust, or arena stage. There is also an experimental theatre seating 120. The Center is used by the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club and by the American Repertory Theatre, a professional company under the directorship of the distinguished critic Robert Brustein (1927– ) which took up residence in 1980. Its opening seasons included highly praised productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Brecht and Weill's musical Happy End. The Harvard Theatre Collection, begun in 1901, is one of the finest performing arts research libraries in the world.