Harvard University.
Byron Satterlee Hurlbut, A. M., Recording Secretary of Harvard University.
In the office of the President of Harvard College, in University Hall, Cambridge, there hangs, framed in a narrow band of oak, a card, perhaps thirty inches long and twelve wide. On this are printed these inscriptions, which in a few words tell the origin, the history, and the purpose of Harvard:— [150]Harvard University is a chartered and endowed institution fostered by the state. The Charter, given to the President and Fellows in 1650, is still in force unaltered. The direct grants of money made by the Legislature of Massachusetts to Harvard College between 1636 and 1785 amounted to $116,000. In 1814, the Legislature granted $10,000 a year for ten years. Between 1638 and 1724 the town of Cambridge repeatedly gave land to the College. In common with other Massachusetts institutions of education, religion, and charity, the University enjoys exemption from taxation on its personal property, and on real estate occupied for its own purposes. Beginning with John Harvard in 1638, private benefactors have given to the University in land, buildings, and money at least $11,000,000. The principal objects of permanent endowment have been as follows— 1. Instruction and research. (a. Professorships. b. Observatories, laboratories, and workshops.) 2. Collections. (Libraries, Museums, Gardens, and Arboretum.) 3. Aid for Students. (Scholarships, Fellowships, and other aids.) 4. Prizes. (For essays, versions, and speaking.) 5. Publications. (Annals, Journals, Memoirs, Monographs, and Bulletins.) 6. Administration. (Salaries in administrative offices, libraries, and collections.)Below these inscriptions are two more, one speaking of John Harvard:—
John Harvard was a Master of Arts of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, England, founded by Sir Walter Mildmay.The second is a quotation from Thomas Fuller's ‘History of the University of Cambridge’ (1655), and speaks thus of Sir Walter Mildmay:—
Coming to Court after he had founded his Colledge, the Queen told him, Sir Walter, I hear you have erected a Puritan Foundation. No, Madam, saith he, farre be it from me to countenance anything contrary to your established Lawes, but I have set an Acorn, which when it becomes an Oake, God alone knows what will be the fruit thereof.[151] From the oak which Sir Walter planted thus, three centuries ago, sprang Harvard College, the oldest institution of learning in America. The university of to-day includes the college of the older days, and eight schools: the Graduate School, the Lawrence Scientific School, the School of Law, of Medicine, of Divinity, of Dentistry, of Veterinary Medicine, and that of Agriculture and Horticulture, in which, during the academic year 1895-96, instruction is given to three thousand six hundred students by three hundred and sixty-six teachers. Moreover, the university is not idle during the long vacation; for six weeks the Summer School is in session. In 1895 the students in this school numbered five hundred and seventy-five. Thus, in a single year, the university has given instruction to more than four thousand students. In matters of administration three of the departments of the university are closely united: Harvard College, the Lawrence Scientific School, and the Graduate School are under the charge of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which, however, delegates to an administrative board, appointed for each, minor questions of government and administration. To the students under its control this Faculty offers four hundred and thirty-seven courses of instruction, divided among the following subjects: Semitic Languages and History; Indo-Iranian Languages; Greek; Latin; English; German; French; Italian; Spanish; Romance Philology; Comparative Literature; Philosophy; History; Government; Economics; Fine Arts; Architecture; Music; Mathematics; Engineering; Physics; Chemistry; Botany; Zoology; Geology; Mineralogy and Petrography; American Archaeology and Ethnology; Anatomy, Physiology, and Physical Training; and Military Science. Harvard College, from which the university has grown, is the oldest and largest of the departments of the institution. Its standard of admission and its requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts are higher than those of any other American college or university. The requirements for admission, however, are not rigid, for a student may be admitted on any one of four plans of study. Within the college still greater freedom awaits him; once a member of the university he may with hardly a single restriction choose his own course, selecting those studies which inclination, his natural aptitude, or his [152] future occupation points out as best fitted to equip him for the world. He is not, however, left to select his courses heedlessly. As a Freshman he must secure for his plan of study for the year the approval of an instructor, who is appointed to act as his adviser, and although as a Sophomore he is free to choose for himself, he nevertheless is encouraged to seek the advice of his instructors, that he may make the best use of his freedom. To secure the degree of Bachelor of Arts he must have passed with at least a certain prescribed rank in eighteen courses of study, two of which are prescribed courses in English, and he must have some knowledge of both German and French, if he had it not when he entered college. Except for these restrictions his course is what he himself determines; he is what he elects to be. Neither is the period of residence at the college absolutely fixed; the usual term of residence for the degree is four years, but students from other colleges are admitted to advanced standing, and those who in three years complete with distinction the required number of courses are, upon the recommendation of a committee of the Faculty, allowed to graduate at the end of that period. This, then, is the framework, the fleshless skeleton, of a student's career at Harvard College. This is his education in books. Beyond this, equal in value, there is the education that he gains from intercourse with his fellow-students, in exercise, and athletic sports, in social and dining clubs, in societies founded in a common interest in study, or religion, or a desire to help his fellow-men less fortunate than himself, the avocations which make him a well-rounded man, fully developed in body and mind and spirit,—without which his mere study of books might leave him dwarfed and narrow-souled. Side by side the college student and the student of the Scientific School do much of their work. The latter, it is true, is receiving a professional training, but with it he gains, unconsciously, perhaps, more liberal views of life, a more cultured spirit, more of the ‘humanities,’ than does he who is trained in an isolated professional school. The advantage, however, is not his alone; his example of steady aim and fixed purpose helps his college fellow to shape his own life to a definite end. Thus it is that the close union of Harvard College and the Lawrence Scientific School is peculiarly fortunate; each reacts helpfully upon the other. [153] Never in its history has the Scientific School been as prosperous as it is to-day. In a decade the number of its students has swelled from twenty-two to three hundred and forty, an increase brought about largely by the great development of its field of instruction, and the systematic arrangement of its courses. The school offers eleven courses of study,—Civil and Topographical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Mining Engineering, Architecture, Chemistry, Geology, Botany and Zoology, General Science, Science for Teachers, and Anatomy, Physiology, and Physical Training. On the completion of any one of these courses with at least a certain rank, a student is awarded the degree of Bachelor of Science. The usual term of residence and study for the degree is four years, but here, as in the college, students are admitted to advanced standing either upon examination or satisfactory evidence of work done at other schools. The requirements for admission are not so severe as are those for admission to Harvard College; the standard of work, however, is high, and demands most faithful study. In this respect, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences makes no distinction between the college student and the scientific: both are subject to the same laws. So, too, in the undergraduate world itself no lines are drawn; in societies, in athletics, in all the affairs of student life, members of the two departments are on an equal footing. The Graduate School, which numbers two hundred and sixty-nine resident and sixteen non-resident students, offers to graduates of colleges and like institutions of learning opportunities to carry on advanced study in the various departments of instruction under the charge of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The growth of this school has been so gradual and so quiet that some have failed to realize how important a part of the university it has become. It stands to-day for the higher education, for the deepest and broadest learning. To it come serious men who love knowledge and the increase of knowledge, men who have dedicated themselves to learning. The greater part of this body of students go out from the school to teach,—they are scattered in all parts of the country; and in this fact one may see how much the Graduate School does to strengthen the influence of the university, to aid the cause of higher education. Year by year the school grows, its influence ever broadening; every year the number of colleges sending students to it increases. [154] This present year it numbers among its students graduates of a hundred different colleges and higher institutions of learning. For admission to the school a candidate must give satisfactory evidence of scholarship. Once admitted, he is not necessarily a candidate for a degree; this depends upon other considerations. The degrees for which he may become a candidate are those of Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts, Doctor of Philosophy, and Doctor of Science. For admission to the Divinity School a candidate ‘must furnish testimonials of character and scholarship,’ and to be a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Divinity he ‘must have received the degree of Bachelor of Arts, representing a course of study approved by the Faculty.’ If he has not this degree, he must satisfy the Faculty that his ‘education has been equal to that of graduates of the best New England college.’ In this, as in the other schools, men are admitted to advanced standing, and they may also enter the school as special students. To obtain the degree of Bachelor of Divinity a student must be properly qualified, and must have been ‘connected with the school for not less than one year, and have passed satisfactorily examinations’ on a prescribed amount of work. In addition to conferences and general exercises, such as preaching and the conducting of morning and evening prayers, the school requires that a student shall pursue a certain number of courses of study chosen from among the following subjects,—Old Testament, New Testament, Church History, Comparative Religion, Ethics, Sociology, Theology, and Homiletics and Pastoral Care. Instruction in Elocution is also given. The instruction in the school is nonsectarian; the eleven officers and teachers on its staff, representing various denominations, unite in encouraging an unfettered search for truth. In 1882 a generous benefactor gave to the university for its Law School a new hall, which, it was calculated, would accommodate the growth of the school for half a century. In a single decade the school has outgrown this building; in 1896 the students number four hundred and sixty-five. This rapid growth and the great prosperity of the present are in large measure due to the method of instruction pursued in the school, the so-called ‘Case System,’ in which students, instead of committing to memory textbooks, study actual cases, and from [155] these deduce the principles of law; a system, which, adopted first at Harvard, has revolutionized the study of the law. ‘The design of this school,’ the catalogue of the university says, ‘is to afford such a training in the fundamental principles of English and American law as will constitute the best preparation for the practice of the profession in any place where this system prevails.’ To this end, therefore, a student is not drilled in the peculiar law of any one State, but in the general principles of law, a training which best fits him to understand the living law, and thus enables him better to adjust himself to the details of the law in that State in which he may chance to be. The study of details of law in particular States is ancillary to that of general principles. The Faculty of the school offers courses in Contracts, Criminal Law and Procedure, Property, Torts, Civil Procedure at Common Law, Agency, Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes, Carriers, Contracts and Quasi-Contracts, Evidence, Insurance, Jurisdiction and Procedure in Equity, Law of Persons, Interpretation of Statutes, Sales of Personal Property, Trusts, Damages, Constitutional Law, Corporations, Partnership, Suretyship, and Conflict of Laws. Extra courses are also provided, —the Peculiarities of Massachusetts Law and Practice, and Civil Procedure under the New York Code. Furthermore, ‘every student who has been in the school one year or more has an opportunity each year of arguing in a moot court case before one of the professors;’ additional practice may also be gained in the law clubs. Upon graduates of the school is conferred the degree of Bachelor of Laws, for which the usual term of residence is three years. For admission to regular standing in the school a candidate must be the holder of an academic degree in Arts, Literature, Philosophy, or Science, of a reputable college or university, or a person qualified to enter the Senior Class of Harvard College. Such candidates are admitted without examination. The list of colleges, which at present includes one hundred and thirty-five, whose graduates are entitled to admission, is made up from the ‘colleges whose graduates have entered the school in recent years. It is accordingly not intended to be exhaustive, and will doubtless be enlarged from time to time.’ Candidates who do not meet the requirements for regular standing may upon evidence of work done, or upon [156] examination, be admitted as special students, and upon obtaining a certain prescribed rank may receive the degree of Bachelor of Laws. Students are also admitted to advanced standing, and opportunities for advanced study are given to graduates. For admission to the Medical School candidates must pass examinations in certain prescribed subjects, but those who present a ‘degree in Letters, Science, or Medicine are exempt’ from all examinations except that in chemistry. The examinations for admission to this school are not as severe as those for admission to Harvard College; but in medicine, as in law, those who have had a college training have distinct advantages over those not thus equipped. The students in the school number five hundred and thirty-one; the teachers, sixty-five. The following courses of instruction are offered: Anatomy, Histology and Embryology, Bacteriology, Physiology, Chemistry, Hygiene, Therapeutics and Materia Medica, Pathology and Pathological Anatomy, Surgery, Orthopedic Surgery, Clinical Surgery, Dermatology, Theory and Practice of Physic, Clinical Medicine, Neurology, Psychiatry, Pediatrics, Obstetrics, Gynaecology, Ovarian Tumors, Syphilis, Ophthalmology, Otology, Diseases of the Throat and Nose, Diseases of the Genito-Urinary Apparatus, Legal Medicine, Municipal Sanitation, Clinical Microscopy, Cookery, and Orthopedics. Instruction is given not by lectures only, but by an abundance of practical exercises under the supervision of instructors, with the design that a student shall learn to rely upon himself; that his knowledge shall not be merely theoretical. Furthermore, the students secure in the hospitals of Boston those especial advantages for study and observation which are found in large cities only. A student who satisfactorily completes the required course of study is awarded the degree of Doctor of Medicine. The usual term of residence for the degree is four years, but students are, upon satisfactory evidence, admitted to advanced standing. Opportunities for research and for advanced study are offered to graduate students. For admission to the Dental School the requirements are akin to those for admission to the Medical School. The methods of instruction, too, in the two schools are similar. To the student of dentistry the following courses are offered: Anatomy, Physiology, Chemistry, Histology and Embryology, Bacteriology, [157] Operative Dentistry, Mechanical Dentistry, Surgery, Operative Surgery, Dental Pathology, Oral Anatomy and Physiology, Surgical Pathology, Materia Medica, Orthodontia, Neurology, and Crown and Bridge Work. The degree conferred upon graduates of the school is that of Doctor of Dental Medicine. The number of students in the school in 1896 is one hundred and two. The Faculty and other instructors number thirty-nine. The School of Veterinary Medicine, which, like the Dental and the Medical schools, is established in Boston, has fifty-five students and a staff of twenty-two teachers and officers. It offers instruction in Anatomy, Physiology, Chemistry, Botany, Materia Medica and Therapeutics, Pathology and Pathological Anatomy, Surgery, Ophthalmology, Parasitic Diseases, Theory and Practice, Obstetrics, Warranty and Evidence, Meat Inspection, and Clinical Veterinary Medicine and Surgery. Here, as in the other schools of medicine, especial attention is given to practical instruction. The degree which is conferred upon students who satisfactorily complete the course of study is that of Doctor of Veterinary Medicine; the usual term of residence and study is three years. Students are admitted to the school upon the presentation of certificates of admission to recognized colleges or scientific schools, or upon examination. The Bussey Institution, a school of Agriculture and Horticulture, is established at Jamaica Plain. It gives ‘systematic instruction in Agriculture, and in Useful and Ornamental Gardening. . . . It is, in general, meant for young men who intend to become farmers, gardeners, florists, or landscape gardeners; as well as for those who will naturally be called upon to manage large estates, or who wish to qualify themselves to be overseers or superintendents of farms, country seats, or public institutions.’ Instruction is given in the Theory and Practice of Farming, Horticulture, Agricultural Chemistry, and Rural Hygiene, by a staff of seven instructors. The students in the school number fifteen. The degree of Bachelor of Agricultural Science is conferred upon graduates. Within late years there has grown up at the university another department, the value of whose far-reaching influence it would be difficult to overestimate. This is the Summer School. The students in this school are chiefly teachers drawn hither from all parts of the country, from Maine to California, from [158] Minnesota to Texas, to enjoy the advantages that the university offers in its libraries and museums, to receive instruction, and to learn Harvard methods of teaching. From the inception of the school the number of its students has steadily grown, until in 1895 five hundred and seventy-five were registered. For the summer of 1896 the school offers at Harvard College and the Lawrence Scientific School courses in English, German, French, Mathematics, Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Geology, General American History, Education and Teaching, Freehand Drawing, Botany, Physiology and Hygiene for Teachers, Physical Training, and Latin, and also courses at the Medical School and the Dental School. To foster the physical and the intellectual development of the students Harvard provides ample foundations which here can only be mentioned: the Gymnasium, the Carey Building, the University Boat House, the Weld Boat Club, Holmes Field, Jarvis Field, and the Soldier's Field; the College Library, and thirty-four school, departmental, laboratory, and class-room libraries, possessing 466,410 volumes, and a collection of pamphlets and maps estimated to be equal in number; the Chemical Laboratory; the Jefferson Physical Laboratory; the University Museum, consisting of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, with its laboratories of Zoology, Palaeontology, Entomology, Geology, Petrography, and Physical Geography; the Botanical Museum, with laboratories of Cryptogamic and Phanerogamic Botany; the Mineralogical Museum and laboratories; and the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology; the Semitic Museum; the Botanic Garden and Herbarium; the Astronomical Observatory; and the Arnold Arboretum. The religious life of the university finds its centre in the services of the Chapel, and its guiding influence in the board of university preachers, each of whom, during his term of residence, not only conducts the public religious services, but also stands ready to aid any student who may seek him. From this centre radiates the religious life of the university, which finds expression in the religious societies and the little bands organized to work among the poor and the unfortunate. To provide for the maintenance of the university, men have given of their store, small or great, for more than two centuries and a half. In the days of poverty and struggle, when money was scarce in the colony, they gave of the produce of [159] their land in proportion to that which God had given them. With the increase of prosperity, they have given not more liberally but more largely, until, to-day, the value of the possessions of the university in land, buildings, and money amounts to fully thirteen millions of dollars. Of this more than eight millions represent what may be called ‘quick capital;’ five millions are invested in lands, buildings, and collections used for university purposes. The lands owned and occupied by the university, the College Yard and the adjoining fields, the Soldier's Field, the Gardens, the Observatory grounds, the Arboretum, the Bussey lands and other lands in Cambridge, Boston, and neighboring towns, amount to nearly seven hundred acres. The buildings owned by the university and occupied for its purposes are more than sixty: of the principal buildings fifteen are dormitories; thirty-five are variously used as lecture-rooms, offices, observatories, laboratories, museums, libraries, dining-halls, and buildings devoted to athletic purposes. From its invested funds, tuition-fees, rents, and other sources of income, the university received, in 1894-95, one million eighty-four thousand and ninety dollars, of which fully ninety thousand dollars was awarded to meritorious students in the form of scholarships, fellowships, and various other aids. Such is the outward, the physical Harvard. More important, however, than the outward showing of a college is the spirit which animates its students. Unthinking men have long misunderstood the spirit of Harvard, perhaps because at Cambridge men do not talk much of spirit; they know that talk means little in the struggle of life, that action counts. Even graduates of the university fail to realize how strong this spirit is in the college world. From the world outside there comes a cry that Harvard is indifferent,—yet nothing is falser; men do not rightly judge the attitude of the college. From its foundation Harvard has stood for the cultivation of the individual, and those who do not think say this is selfishness. It is its opposite. Harvard individualism means that every man shall develop what is best in him, that thus he may fit himself to serve his fellows. Toward this ideal the university has struggled for two centuries and a half, and in these later years, with the rapid development of the elective system, by which each man has fitted his studies to his needs, the university has come nearer to it. To one who [160] knows Harvard there is something almost ludicrous, were it not for the sorrowful thought that the university is so misunderstood, in the cry of Harvard indifference. Because schoolboy ideals and codes are fast disappearing, because men will not be driven in a body, because a man thinks that above all he should seek to make best use of those powers God has given him, Harvard is indifferent. If this be indifference, the charge is true; but it is indifference of this sort that has moved the world. There is, however, at Harvard, indifference to some things that older men prize. Nowhere is there a more democratic community. Wealth and lineage unsupported by genuine merit lack the power they possess in the world outside: a man counts for what he is, be he student or instructor; and this very state of things has done away with the old relationship between the two: student and instructor are no longer at war,—they are working together toward a common goal. Perhaps, too, the world has talked of indifference because the Harvard man says little of the things he cares for most. He wears neither a ‘society pin’ upon his waistcoat, nor his heart upon his sleeve. He is silent about the good deeds that he does; yet week after week he goes to a ‘Boys' Club’ in some wretched district of Boston; or he gathers about him the little band that centres round a ‘Home Library;’ there is a sailors' mission where Harvard students may be found Sundays, and a ‘Prospect Union,’ where men who have toiled all day meet at night to study, and Harvard students are their teachers. They devote time and strength to these, but they say nothing. Silently the rich have given of their abundance to their classmates, who, in the struggle for an education, have had also to win their bread. Many a man, almost despairing in the struggle, has taken heart at a gift that came he knew not whence. ‘I must do this, at least,’ the giver says, ‘but my name must not be known.’ And many a poor man has helped his fellow poorer than himself. For these things those who know and love Harvard believe in her—for these things that the world knows not of. Nor does it see, perhaps because it does not care to look, the strong current of honest, clean right-living, the search for truth, the endeavor to develop all the powers that God has given, these things that are the true spirit of Harvard. He who pauses before the entrance gate of the college may see above the central portal, wrought in the iron work, the [161] Cross, and upon the right-hand pillar the seal of the college with Veritas inscribed upon the open books. Carved upon the wall at his right hand are words written two centuries ago:— “After god had carried us safe to New England
and wee had builded our houses
provided necessaries for our liveli hood
reard convenient places for gods worship
and setled the civill government
one of the next things we longed for
and looked after was to advance learning
and perpetuate it to posterity
dreading to leave an illiterate ministery
to the churches when our present ministers
shall lie in the dust” Here the colonists founded their college, and across its shield they wrote Veritas. Harvard has been true to her inheritance. Still she teaches her sons to seek for truth as she sends them forth to a ministry wider far than that of which the fathers dreamed, for which they hoped and prayed.
