Harvard University

the oldest institution of learning in the United States. It is located at Cambridge, Massachusetts, named for the university town of that name in England. It was founded in 1636 by vote of the general court of the colony of Massachusetts Bay. The act carried an appropriation of pound 400, pound 200 to be available at once, and an additional pound 200 when the proposed building should be erected. Two years later, John Harvard, a dissenting clergyman of England, who had been in the colony about a year, died at Charleston. He bequeathed his entire library and half of his property to the trustees. The money part of his bequest turned out to be worth about pound 800. It enabled the board to open the college at once. It was decided to name the new institution in his honor. The college grew apace. The commonwealth has never ceased to give financial aid, but the management is intrusted to a board of overseers entirely apart from politics. In addition to the regular college of arts and sciences, schools of science, divinity, law, medicine, dentistry, agriculture, and theology are maintained. There is also a department of pedagogy and a summer school. The total number of instructors and officers, as reported in the catalog of 1908-09, a volume of 900 pages, is 706. The enrollment of students in all departments, including the summer school, is given at 4,915. The university is open to men only. A separate school for women, known as Radcliffe College, is permitted to enjoy many of the advantages of the university. The same catalogue reports the attendance at 449.

The lands and buildings of the university are rated at $4,000,000. The permanent endowment, consisting largely of gifts made from time to time, is about $8,000,000. The annual income from investments and tuition is about $1,000,000 a year.

Harvard is not a conservative institution. It led Eastern colleges in making Greek an optional subject and English composition a required subject for entrance. The leading denominational influence is Unitarian.

A house in Stratford-on-Avon, built in the sixteenth century by Alderman Thomas Rogers, the father-in-law of John Harvard, has been purchased for the university by Edward Morris of Chicago. Miss Corelli, the novelist, supervised the restoration of this quaint building to its original form. In the fall of 1909, on the same day as that on which Abbot Lawrence Lowell was installed president of the university, appropriate exercises were held in this house, dedicating it as a shrine for American tourists. Miss Corelli presented Ambassador White-law Reid with the key of the house in a metallic casket with an eloquent speech. In accepting the key the ambassador said:

"Standing in the home of Harvard's mother, by the authority of Harvard University, I declare this house henceforth open as a free resort for all visiting sons of Harvard and a general rendezvous for all visiting Americans. May it serve that double purpose as long as our race prizes letters and honors Shakespeare."