Commencements, from 1642 onward
The date most associated with Harvard is 1636. It was on Oct. 28 of that year that the Massachusetts Bay Colony created the first institution of higher learning in the English New World. The gathering of immigrant Puritans described the school’s nearly imaginary creation in “New Englands First Fruits,” a 1643 publicity tract composed for the colony’s London backers. The new College, a “first flower in their wilderness,” was intended to prevent “an illiterate ministry,” the authors wrote, “when our present ministers shall lie in dust.” So why not call 1639 the most significant date? It was on March 13 of that year that the “Colledg at Newetowne,” 8 months old, was renamed Harvard. Just six months before, John Harvard, a Cambridge-educated minister living in Charlestown, had died at age 30. He bequeathed to the college 320 books and the princely sum of 779 pounds, 17 shillings, and two pence. To put...