On Harvard – again
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By the way, why Harvard is called Harvard? Who is it named for? I guess, everybody knows that, but for me – it was a discovery of the day.
It was named for English clergyman John Harvard. Mr. Harvard together with his wife has moved from London to America in 1673. He became a clergyman there and has died of tuberculosis a year later.
Since Mr. Harvard did not have children, he has left 779 pounds and his library (about 400 volumes) to the New College created in 1636 – he and the president of the latter were good friends.
This money allowed to construct the first building for the New College, and the latter was renamed to Harvard College in 1639, which became the full blown University a hundred years later – in 1780.
It is interesting to note that the very first building constructed thanks to Mr. Harvard’s money as well as all Harvard’s original library were destroyed during the fire in 1764. All except one book – called “The Christian Warfare Against the Devil World and Flesh”.
There exists a statue of Mr. Harvard at Harvard University – however, it does not really reflect how the actual Harvard looked like since no images/pictures of him exist.
Via Boris Ivanov.
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I’ve taken dozens of pictures of this guy. This statue is called “The Statue of the Three Lies”. For a quiz supporting this assertion, see
http://www.bu.edu/mfeldman/Harvard/statue.html
And this whole time I thought John Harvard owned a chain of restaurants. I should get out more.
http://www.johnharvards.com/index.shtml
Dear Geoff, the formerly favorite pub of ours was created much later. John Harvard was a clergyman, the minister of a church in Charlestown, greater Boston.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.....clergyman)
Thank you Lubos for clearing up the confusion. I always wondered why the university would have a statue of a bar owner when Boston already had a statue of Samuel Admas who quite clearly should be remembered for his ability to brew delicious beer.