The oldest endowed professorship
Little could a wealthy London merchant know that his gift to Harvard in 1721 would transform how students are taught in today’s universities, and lead to a fundamental shift in the School’s founding ethos. The seeds of change took root with creation of the Hollis Professorship of Divinity, the oldest endowed professorship in North America, enabled by Thomas Hollis, a philanthropist with a passion for liberty and religious expression. Though he never visited New England, Hollis was familiar with Harvard by way of his uncle Robert Thorner, who had left the sum of 500 pounds to the College in his will. Hollis was interested in, he wrote, “the liberties the Baptists in New England enjoyed.” “Hollis had come to believe that Harvard was an academic institution that would be broad-minded toward all sects, and he was interested in encouraging the liberal spirit that was gaining strength in Boston and Cambridge,” wrote William Bentinck-Smith...