MEMORIAL

OF

JOHN HARVARD

OCTOBER 15, 1884.

WITH AN ADDRESS

By GEORGE EDWARD ELLIS

____.____

Willison Center Reprints

by Russell Creech

2009

This and other titles are available at:

http://stores.lulu.com/recreech

1
M E M O R I A L OF J O H N H A R V A R D
OCTOBER 15, 1884.
WITH AN ADDRESS
By GEORGE EDWARD ELLIS, LL.D.
1884.

Copyright © 2009 Russell Creech

All rights reserved to this modernized reprint, including the digital PDF
Book version. Reproductions of the book intended for free distribution are
permitted, must be accompanied with original and reprint credits. The
original text is in the public domain.

2
 MEMORIAL

OF

JOHN HARVARD

THE GIFT TO

Harvard University
OF

SAMUEL JAMES BRIDGE.

CEREMONIES AT THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE

OCTOBER 15, 1884.

WITH AN ADDRESS

By GEORGE EDWARD ELLIS

____.____

CAMBRIDGE:
JOHN WILSON AND SON
University Press
PREFACE
3
 Who was John Harvard? Why would he and his wife,
Ann, leave what was to be a privileged life in England to which a
Cambridge graduate was likely destined? This small volume
affords some rather salient insights into his life and personal
philosophy gained in studies at Emmanuel College.
To that end, we have included here a sketch of a
contemporary of Mr. Harvard, both at Cambridge, and in New
England, one Rev. Samuel Stone. Printed in 1899 in a re-issue of
Stone’s Catechism, it gives us understanding into a very
important fact; that Emmanuel College was created to produce a
certain kind of leader, one who held to principles rather than
pander to the throne.
“Rev. Samuel Stone was a native of Hertford, England, the son
of John Stone, a freeholder of that place. Born in 1602 he was
baptized on July 30th of that year in All Saints Church. Samuel
probably received his early education at Hale's Grammar School,
endowed and built in Hertford in 617. He proceeded to Cambridge
as a pensioner of Emmanuel College, matriculating there April 19,
1620.
This college had the not undeserved reputation of being a
"mere nursery" of Puritanism. It had been founded in 1584 by Sir
Walter Mildmay. Upon the founder's appearing at court shortly
after that event, Queen Elizabeth said to him, "Sir Walter, I hear
you have erected a Puritan foundation," to which he replied,
"No madam, far be it from me to countenance anything contrary to
your established laws, But I have set an acorn, which, when it
becomes an oak, God alone knows what will be the fruit thereof.”
Stone took his degrees of B.A. and M.A. in 1623 and 1627
respectively. Leaving the University he studied theology at
Aspen in Essex under Richard Blackerby. Recommended by
Thomas Shepard, Stone went in 1630 to Towchester in
Northhamptonshire, as a Puritan lecturer to the church there, the
pecuniary value of the Lectureship being about £30 per annum.
Here he remained until chosen as assistant to Thomas Hooker,
then preparing to set out for New England.”

4
5
 Transcriber’s Preface

For quite a while, I have heard the call by leading academic figures for
new scholarship efforts in the area of “original intent,” or “original
documents” concerning the founding principles of the Constitution of the
United States. More to the point, in these sources will we find, so to speak,
an owner's manual of sorts for American Government and Society, or did
they leave things open to dangerous innovations, as the present and
erroneous “Living Document” constitutional theory seems to demonstrate?

Harvard, perhaps, may be the place to start, in gaining a true

understanding of what John Harvard himself, his contemporaries, and
then faithful succeeding generations did to secure the blessings of
liberty.

Dr. Ellis, here reveals much about John Harvard…

Transcription Notes:
This reprint was created from a rare original copy which was water
stained, spotted, and discolored. In order to make a readable transcription,
the text was PDF scanned, and re-keyed into a document file, which was
edited and corrected best as possible. There may be some minor key errors,
please accept this publication on such conditions.

Wording that is now out of style, or variant spellings typical of the

1700-1900 era do occur, and I have kept them as found in the original.

Page numbers are also reproduced as found. Original page numbers

are shown in brackets such as: [ 10 ]. Therefore, there are now two sets of
page numbers, the original, and the reprint copy. Please use the bracketed
numbers to reference the pages of the original printing, not the reprint
numbers found at the bottom of the page. This method of reproduction was
done to enable the reader to correlate references as found in the originals,
and to keep the footnotes tied to the page on which it was first published.

6
 Notable Quote…

“The founder of this college was an English Puritan minister.

That fact is a fragment of an historical truth of large import. The
distinctive character and qualities of the New England Colonies---
impressed and effective from the earliest days, entailed and
expanding and radiating over our whole country to this day of its
extant and grandeur—are to be referred to that truth, which may
be thus simply stated.

A hundred scholars from Cambridge and Oxford Universities

were concerned in the first planting of our wilderness settlements,
with their churches, schools, colleges, and printing presses, during
a period in which there was to be found scarcely a single college-
bred man in all the other English Colonies here. More than thirty
years after the first class were pursuing their studies in this college,
Sir William Berkeley, the governor of Virginia, wrote to the
commissioners of foreign plantations in London: “I thank God
there are no free schools, nor printing, and I hope we shall not
have these hundred years: for learning has brought disobedience
into the world, and printing has divulged them and libels against
the best governments. God keep us from both!”

This was seven years after the Bible, translated into the
language of the natives, had been printed and published here.
These statements sum up the whole explanation of the pre-
eminence of New England in thrift, learning, science, and
influence. Seventy of the hundred of those exiled scholars were
from Cambridge, then a special Puritan stronghold. A score of
them, contemporaries and associates of John Harvard, during
some of his terms, might have shared the intimacy of John Milton.
These exiled scholars were peers of those they left behind in
erudition, in strength and grace of character. They brought with
them their books, and the talent to make more books. They
changed their atmosphere and surroundings, but not their spirits
nor their minds.”
[ pp.10-11]
7
8
 THE HARVARD MEMORIAL.

AT the dinner of the Alumni of Harvard University on

Commencement Day, June 27, 1883, Mr. JOSEPH H. CHOATE,
who presided, read the following letter:—

TO THE PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE.

Gentlemen, I have the pleasure of offering you an ideal statue in

bronze, representing your founder, the Rev. John Harvard, to be
designed by Daniel C. French of Concord, and to be placed in the
south end of the enclosure in which Memorial Hall stands. If you
do me the honor to accept this offer, I propose to contract at once
for the work, including an appropriate pedestal; and I am assured
that the same can be in place by June, 1, 1884.

I am, with much respect,

SAMUEL J. BRIDGE.

Mr. CHOATE had referred to the giver as “a pious worshipper at

Harvard’s shrine, turning his face towards Mecca; “and, when the
letter was read, the applause of the company compelled Mr.
BRIDGE to make a silent acknowledgement. Later in the dinner,
Dr. ELLIS, referring to the subject said,—

“It is delightful for me to have heard for the first time this day that
one of my boys (turning to Mr. Bridge), a member of that Harvard
Society in Charlestown (to which Dr. Ellis had referred, and of which he
had been the minister), is to give the college a statue. It must be an
ideal one; but our ideals, we are told, are always perfection, and, if
9
 there ever ought to be a perfect exposition of a good and lovable man, it
must be that of JOHN HARVARD."

There were some necessary delays in the progress of the work;

but the statue was in place in season for the ceremonies of
unveiling, which was fixed for Oct. 15, 1884.

At three o’clock in the afternoon of that day there was a

gathering in Sanders Theatre. CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT, the
President of the University, with EBENEZER ROCKWOOD HOAR,
the chairman of the Board of Overseers, and other officers, were
seated on the platform, and with them were Mr. BRIDGE and Mr.
FRENCH, and those who were to take part in the services. The
main floor, and other seats on the platform, were occupied by the
undergraduates and second graduates. The first gallery held the
invited guests, while the second gallery was thrown open to the
public.

After the Harvard Glee Club had sung, the Rev. EDWARD E.
HALE, D.D., led the audience in prayer, and then all joined in the
Lord’s Prayer. The Rev. GEORGE E. ELLIS, D.D., LLD., then
delivered the principle address.

10
[5]

ADDRESS.

BY THE REV. DR. ELLIS.

MR. PRESIDENT, OFFICERS, STUDENTS, AND ALUMNI OF HARVARD

COLLEGE:

THE first words for this occasion are those of grateful

recognition of the generosity which today presents to the college a
personal memorial of its revered founder. The giver of the statue
is here; but his modesty is the substitute for his speech. It is by his
desire, as well as by official invitation, that I speak for him. It
may well be so, as our acquaintance and friendship date back more
than forty years, in his membership of the Harvard Church Society
in Charlestown. He has been a wide wanderer, a traveller in all
lands, having more than once circled the globe. As a confidential
agent of our government for many years on the Pacific coast, he
faithfully discharged high trusts. He has liberally endowed many
aids to education, and fostered many young men in their school
and college course. Holding in venerating regard his decent from
one of the first English settlers in this place, he has caused a
representative statue of him, as a Pilgrim, to be planted near by us,
on the Common, a gift to the city. And now he has done a similar
loving service to the college. The two statues commemorate two
worthies of our earliest years, who doubtless met on this virgin
soil, and who, we can imagine, may now exchange from their
metal enshroudings some grave recognitions.

[6]
The oldest extant document which in type clearly recognizes
the existence of Harvard College is a precious pamphlet with this
11
 title, “New England’s First-Fruits in respect to the Progress of
Learning in the College at Cambridge, in Massachusetts Bay,” etc.
It is a letter dated “Boston, Sept. 26, 1642.” It was published in
London in 1643, the year following the graduation of our first class
of nine members. The letter gives a graphic and vigorous account
of the first Commencement. This subject has the chief place in the
pamphlet, the larger remainder being devoted to a most cheerful
and hopeful account of the experience and prospects of the band of
English exiles amid the stumps of their clearing in the primeval
wilderness.
The writer says, that as soon as they had builded their houses,
and provided for necessary food, for God’s worship, and for civil
government, “the next thing we longed for and looked after was to
advance learning and to perpetuate it to posterity, dreading to leave
an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers
shall lie in the dust. And, as we were thinking and consulting how
to effect this great work, it pleased God to stir up the heart of one
Mr. Harvard (a godly gentleman and a lover of learning, then
living amongst us) to give the one-half of his estate (it being in all
about £1,700) towards the erecting of a Colledge, and all his
library. After him, another gave £300; others after them cast in
more; and the public hand of the State added the rest. The
Colledge was by common consent appointed to be at Cambridge
(according to the name of the first founder) Harvard College.”
Then follows an account of an edifice, “very fair and comely
within and without,” with its spacious hall, for daily commons, a
large library “with some books to it, the gifts of divers of our
friends,” and close by a grammar-school, under Master Corlet,
“for preparing young

[7]
scholars for Academical learning.” The subjects of study,
disputation, and declamation, are such as would try the wits, not
only of the class just entered here, but of the matured seniors, who
are already looking onward to the glories of class day through the
grim perspective of the grind for final examination.

12
 From that frank, and, so far as I can learn, never challenged
account of 1642, it would appear that John Harvard, and not the
Colony treasury, gave birth and being to this venerable seat of
learning. In will and purpose, however, if not in deed, the Colony
had the start. In the General Court, under date Oct. 28, 1636, it
was “agreed to give £400 towards a schoale or colledge,”—£200
the next year, and £200 when the work was finished; the next
court to designate the place, and to provide for the building. On
Nov. 15, 1637, the Court ordered that the college should be at the
New Towne, up Charles River, and a few days later a committee of
twelve of the most honored among them was appointed to take
order for it. In May, 1638, the name Cambridge was substituted
for New Towne. On the 13th of March, 1639, N.S., after Harvard’s
death, it was ordered “that the colledge agreed upon formerly to
bee built at Cambridge shallbee called Harvard Colledge.” That
name rightfully assigns an enviable and deserved honor to John
Harvard.
And who was John Harvard? Would that we could answer, if
only in such information as is generally given on the gravestones
of the worthy and honored ! His lineage and parentage, his
birthplace and birthday, the dates of his leaving the Old World and
of his arrival in the New, are to this time unknown to us. An
earnest investigator has within this year come upon a clew which
promises to relieve the mystery of his personal history. The few
facts assured to us on record concerning him are the following.
Some of us have seen on the register of Emmanuel College, at
the English Cambridge, his signature for his bachelor’s

[8]
degree in 1631, and for his master’s degree in 1635. His rank as
“pensioner” indicates independent circumstances, as, indeed, does
the largeness of his gifts to the college, which would now represent
a value of nearly thirty thousand dollars. He is described as of
“Middesex.” His contemporaries here gave him the title of
reverend, and he is called “sometimes minister of God’s word.”
Whether he had received ordination in England by a bishop, or by
his Puritan brethren, we don’t not know, as, indeed we know
nothing concerning him, from his receiving his second degree till
13
 his admission as an inhabitant of Charlestown in this Colony,
Aug. 1, 1637. With Ann, his wife, he became a member of the
church, which gave him full rights of citizenship, Nov. 1, 1637.
He received grants of land from the town, and was a member of a
committee on “providing some laws.” He had built a comfortable
dwelling, the site of which is known in Charlestown. It was
occupied by the minister of the town after his death. Chief Justice
Sewall tells us of his enjoying its hospitality on the night of Jan.
26, in 1697, and of the pious and grateful memory of John
Harvard, which came to him in his chamber. “Jan’y 26, 1697, I
lodged at Charlestown, at Mrs. Sheppards, who tells me Mr.
Harvard built that house. I lay in the chamber next to the street.
As I lay awake past midnight, in my Meditation, I was affected to
consider how long agoe God had made provision for my
comfortable Lodging that night; seeing that was Mr. Harvard’s
house. And that led me to think of Heaven, the House not made
with hands, which God for many Thousands of years has been
storing with the richest of furniture (saints that are from time to
time placed there), and that I had some hopes of being entertain'’
in that Magnificent, Convenient Palace, every way fitted and
furnished. These thought were very refreshing to me. “ If the
dwelling was still standing, it was burned in the conflagration of
Charlestown in the battle of June 17.

[9]
We have seen that the project of a college was in earnest
debate at the time of Harvard’s appearance in the country. It
engrossed the anxiety of those, who, as we shall find, were his
nearest associates. He saw the straits of these exiled lovers of
good learning. Everything was then to be done with scant means
for dong it. We can realize the extreme destitution of the college
then; for all its presidents, including its now honored yet supplicant
head, assure us that its destitution has never been surmounted.
The young scholar and minister—hardly could he have been of
thirty years of age—felt the touch of mortal disease. He thought of
the property, considerable in those days, which he had left in
England. By a nuncupative will preceding his death (Sept. 24,
1638, N.S.) he bequeathed the half of his estate to the college.
No probate or administration on his will appears as having been
14
made here. The college records appear to recognize the receipt of
only half the amount of his bequest. The brooding troubles of the
civil war in England may have hindered or impaired its
transmission. We know him to have been beloved and honored, a
well trained and accomplished scholar of the type then esteemed.
There is a tender reverence in every early mention of him. It may
be said of him, in the words of Cotton Mather of another, that “he
left his old English home, and took New England on his way to
heaven.”
His whole library went with his bequest to the college. The list
is on the college records of 302 volumes. They certify to his
scholarly qualities,—classical, philosophical, and theological,—
and to his earnest Puritanism. This solid volume which I hold in
my hand is the only one—then in some private use—that escaped
the conflagration on Jan 24, 1764, which destroyed the college
library edifice and all its contents, when the General Court
occupied it, driven from Boston by the small-pox. This disaster
caused an irreparable loss to the college. Harvard Hall was then
the last remaining

[ 10 ]
of the old or earlier buildings. It was erected in 1672. The night
was one of a cold winter’s tempest of wind and snow. It being
vacation, the students absent, only three persons were lodged in
the buildings, all of which—Massachusetts, (the former)
Stoughton, and Hollis Halls, the latter just completed, and Holden
Chapel—were in danger, and actually kindled. The edifice
contained all the relics and treasured gatherings of the college for
more than sixscore years after its foundation. Besides the ibrary
of Harvard, the whole libraries of Drs. Lightfoot, and Theophilus
Gale,—bequeathed or given to the college, rich in Hebrew,
patristic, and classical lore,—donations of learned societies and
corporations, gifts of many generous private benefactors abroad
and at home, medical preparations, and a font of Greek type, etc,
perished in the conflagration. There were about five thousand
volumes. Valuable philosophical apparatus, of the highest quality
of the time, and rich in variety, portraits of eminent men and

15
 benefactors, college records, and much miscellaneous matter,
were included in the ruin.
By this volume alone we stretch a hand across the centuries,
and hold a single relic of Harvard.
The founder of this college was an English Puritan minister.
That fact is a fragment of an historical truth of large import. The
distinctive character and qualities of the New England Colonies---
impressed and effective from the earliest days, entailed and
expanding and radiating over our whole country to this day of its
extant and grandeur---are to be referred to that truth, which may
be thus simply stated. A hundred scholars from Cambridge and
Oxford Universities were concerned in the first planting of our
wilderness settlements, with their churches, schools, colleges, and
printing presses, during a period in which there was to be found
scarcely a single college-bred man in all the other English Colonies
here. More than thirty years after the first class were pursuing
their studies in this college, Sir William Berkeley,

[ 11 ]
the governor of Virginia, wrote to the commissioners of foreign
plantations in London: “I thank God there are no free schools, nor
printing, and I hope we shall not have these hundred years: for
learning has brought disobedience into the world, and printing has
divulged them and libels against the best governments. God keep
us from both!” This was seven years after the Bible, translated
into the language of the natives, had been printed and published
here. These statements sum up the whole explanation of the pre-
eminence of New England in thrift, learning, science, and
influence. Seventy of the hundred of those exiled scholars were
from Cambridge, then a special Puritan stronghold. A score of
them, contemporaries and associates of John Harvard, during some
of his terms, might have shared the intimacy of John Milton.
These exiled scholars were peers of those they left behind in
erudition, in strength and grace of character. They brought with
them their books, and the talent to make more books. They
changed their atmosphere and surroundings, but not their spirits
nor their minds. They had had the sharp discipline of angry
ecclesiastical and polemical controversy, with the arguments of
16
infliction, fines, and prison on the side against them. Their
mastering aim was, that in the transition process then in progress,
of the reformation, restoration, and reconstruction of their beloved
English Church, all that had been incorporated into its doctrine,
discipline, ceremonial, and ritual, from the repudiated Rome,
should, in root and branch, be renounced, for the return to the
simple, scriptural, apostolic model. They found no such dignity
allowed in the country during the more than a century and a half
before the Colonies won their independence; and those baronial
prelates have since found no place here. They attended their flocks
into the wilderness of

[ 12 ]
hill and valley, and held over them a godly discipline, guarding
purity in their households, and industry in the fields, and
preaching strong doctrine in their pulpits. They sought out the
most promising young men in their parishes, guided their studies,
and sent them here for the best education the time would furnish.
They brought with them the aches and scars and bruises of their
conflict. They were intolerant---as all men the world over, in all
time, have ever been and always will be, when they are in solemn
earnest---for the truth or error. Austere, rigid, narrow, in many
things unlovely, they really were; and this was simply because they
put themselves under the same severities which they imposed on
others. The very noblest thing about them was that teasing
restlessness of spirit, that quickening energy of progressive
thinking, which compelled them to outgrow their own limitations;
so that they have relieved us from having such as our
contemporaries, and stand to us only as most worthy ancestors.
They have left us the most eminent heritage on the earth.
To provide a succession of ministers for the multiplying
churches was the chief intent of this college. Ministers were the
chief necessity of our early years. They may be as much needed
now as then; but they do not appear to be so much wanted. A
curious epoch of transition was soon marked here, of the need of
college-bred men for other ranges of service. We find a series of
graduates, who in their studies had the ministry in view, and who
entered upon the preparation for, or even the trial of the work, but

17
 turned aside to the high places of the magistracy. Of such were
Governors Joseph Dudley, William Stoughton, Gurdon Saltonstall,
and Chief Justice Sewall, all contemporaries. But the type of
New England Puritan ministers did not continue to satisfy all
consciences. A Few English Churchmen, clerical and lay, there
were, who believed that the ministry of the Christian religion did
not depend alone upon the truth and power of its doctrine, but to be
valid required also a certain official virtue

[ 13 ]
communicated in the succession of these who held, and who only
could impart it. So, just a century ago, our independence having
just been established, qualified men were sent to England and
Scotland to secure the desired gift. The gospel itself was never
heralded with warmer joy in the darkest of Pagan regions than
marked, for some among us, the return from Scotland, after his
consecration, of that excellent and devoted man who signed
himself “Samuel, Bishop of Connecticut,” which he was not. Of
course, this movement caused pain and ill-feeling to those trained
in the New England churches, upon whose Christian standing it
cast a slight. However, it brought under the light the shining fact
that in no quarter, and in no age of Christendom, had more pious
and devoted labors been spent by holy and faithful men for the
Christian religion, than those which had been consecrated here in
patient toil, in lifelong veal and love, for a hundred and fifty years.
What has it been with them and through them? Let the chief grace
of the gospel, charity, estimate their purpose and work, and cover
their error, if they were unwittingly intruders and interlopers on a
field forbidden to them.
It would be a most grateful theme for an able pen to set forth
the services of Harvard’s ministers in their frugal country
parsonages. Their own sons alone, after a training here, furnish a
signal and shining list of the wise and good, the honored and
generous men in this community who came from those rural
ministerial homes. Of such were Chief Justice Shaw and Dr,
Jacob Bigelow, the illustrious heads of their respective professions.
And what a constellation of the scions, sons and grandsons, of our
ministerial stock, have we in the men of letters, who have

18
produced such a considerable portion of our national literature,—
Bancroft and Everett, Emerson and Hedge, Motley and Parkman,
Holmes and Lowell !

[ 14 ]
The books in Harvard’s library warrant the belief that he would
have welcomed the largest expanding of the field of good learning
and fine culture. There is a discernable difference between the
tone and spirit of the first-comers here, and those of their children
of the first and second generation, born in the wilderness, who had
no milk when they were babes, and no memory of the ivy growths,
the sports and fond associations, of Old England. Those first-
comers brought with them fond remembrances. So the young
Harvard was not alone, companionless, friendless, when he came
here. It may have been that more of those with them who he had
heart-intimacies were then on this side of the ocean than the other.
It was but the renewal for him of his college friendships, cemented
by a deep, strong affinity of spirit. John Cotton of Boston, and
Thomas Hooker of Cambridge, the first ministers of these towns,
had been fellows and teachers at Emmanuel. Symmes, the
minister of Charlestown, whom Harvard aided as his strength
permitted, was of the same college. Many, many others, also, held
him in their hearts. Would that they had told us more of him
through their pens !
Reverence, love, gratitude, and honor have combined to enlist
genius in their service, that they be a personal memorial of Harvard
on these grounds, which his living feet, doubtless, often trod.
There is not known to be extant a portrait or any delineation or
description of his personality, his form or features. Is not the
prompting, however, fair and allowable, that there should be some
artistic memorial of him on these grounds ?
Let it be distinctly and frankly avowed, for the record on this
precise day of the unveiling of a statue as a simulacrum of John
Harvard,—so that only willful error, or a fond, mythical invention
can ever mislead or falsify a generous and grateful prompting,—
that this exquisite moulding in bronze serves a purpose for the eye,
the thought and sentiment, through the

19
 [ 14 ]
ideal, not the lack of the real. We have enlisted one of the noblest
of the arts to embody a conception of what Harvard might have
been in body and lineament, from what we know that he was in
mind and soul. It is by no means without allowed and approved
precedent, that, in the lack of authentic portraitures of such we are
to be commemorated, an ideal representation supplies the vacancy
of a reality. It is one of the fair issues between poetry and prose.
The wise, the honored, the fair, the noble, and the saintly, are never
grudged some finer touches of the artist in tint or feature, which
etherealize their beauty, or magnify their elevation, as expressed in
the actual body,---the eye, the brow, the lip, the moulding of the
mortal clay. To flatter is not always to falsify. The Latin
simulacrum and the Greek Ειδωλον alike divide their significance
between a faithful presentation of a real or a conceived likeness,
and the creation of an unsubstantial form. It is but a following of
the principle of adjustment in equity, in the redirection of
antiquated trusts, by approximating to the truth and the right. To
say nothing of the classic paintings and sculptures of deities,
muses, and graces, that never had a fleshly embodiment, nor even
of the medieval saints and worthies, the halls and galleries of
continental Europe, and the corridors of St. Stephen’s,
Westminster, have freely exercised the imagination of artists who
had no certified originals to follow. Were all the busts of
philosophers, poets, and Caesars, in the museums of Rome,
Florence, and Naples, portraitures from life? And even when
verifiable representations of the great and honored dead have been
in the hands of the artists, aided by living memories, we need not
go beyond the neighboring city to be satisfied that art may fail in
skill and truth in dealing with contemporaries as with the long-
vanished dead. The late Wendell Philips did his best to warn
posterity against being beguiled by our Boston Statues. If the two
foremost worthies of our earliest age could come forth to
contemplate their own statues, would not the honored Governor

[ 16 ]
Winthrop be more likely to refuse to enshrine himself in that mass
of metal in Scollay Square, though his own living portrait was put

20
to service in it, than would our revered founder to express himself
in this fair counterfeit of him?
And if the contingency which has been imagined should
present itself, of the coming to the light of some authentic
portraiture of John Harvard, the pledge may here and now be
ventured, that some generous friend, such as, to the end of time,
shall never fail our Alma Mater, notwithstanding her chronic
poverty, will provide that this bronze shall be liquefied again, and
made to tell the whole known truth so as by fire.
Let us remember that the ideal can never transcend the real,
though many light sayings assert the contrary. The gifted artist has
wrought for us here an engaging and a beautiful object. Alone, in
his workroom through the dull days of a whole winter, he was
moulding the moistened clay in patient study, imitating the creative
work by which man was fashioned out of the dust of the ground.
And, so far as man’s gifts can complete the process, he has
breathed into it a living soul. It holds the eye and thought gazing
upon it in form, lineament, and feature. It shows us a young
scholar in the academic costume and garb of his time, with the
refinement and gravity of pure high-thinking. Gently touched by
the weakness which was wasting his immature life, he rests for a
moment from his converse with wisdom on the printed page, and
raises his contemplative eye to the spaces of all wisdom. The seal
of his English college is on the left of the pedestal, and that which
was so felicitously seized upon for the college to which he
transferred learning from the Old World to the New, is on the right.
Let this memorial be richly garlanded with summer flowers on
your high class days! Let the pensive beauty of that sweet
countenance be cheer and inspiration to the student passing by it,
under fair, or clouded, or stormy skies, or by the illumination of
the moon !

[ 17 ]
Would that those eyes had vision for the spirit, that they might
look forth upon these clustering halls, the oldest and the newest,
which keep the record and method of enlargement from the old
plain solidity to the fresh ornateness of this year’s taste! Would
that they could behold the results of the transforming process on
21
 the domains of the Indian, the wolf, and the bear, to these crowded
groups of young men in the vigor and promise of a most privileged
life !
These are all before us. The graduates of Harvard now make
the most numerous body of any one continued fellowship on this
continent. And here is the centre of our common debt and love.

“ O relic and Type of our ancestors’ worth,

That hast long kept their memory warm,
First Flower of their wilderness, Star of their night,
Calm rising through change and through storm.”

Singing by the Glee Club followed, when President ELIOT

arose, and accepted the gift in these words—
“It is my pleasant duty to declare that the University gratefully
accepts the interesting and inspiring memorial of John Harvard which
generosity and genius have conspired to produce. The University counts
of inestimable worth the lessons which this pure, gentle, resolute youth
will teach, as he sits in bronze looking wistfully into the western sky.
He will teach that one disinterested deed of hope and faith may crown a
brief and broken life with deathless fame. He will teach that the good
which men do lives after them, fructified and multiplied beyond all
power of measurement or computation. He will teach that from the seed
which he planted in loneliness, weakness, and sorrow, have sprung joy,
strength, and energy ever fresh, blooming year after year in this garden

[ 18 ]
of learning, and flourishing more and more, as time goes on, in all fields
of activity. Let us go and look upon this silent but impressive teacher.”
As the President spoke his closing words, he led the way,
accompanied by Mr. BRIDGE, and followed by the entire audience,
but without formal order, to the area which had been reserved
about the statue. As soon as the crowd had encircled it at a
distance which enabled all to see, the signal was given, and the
cloth which covered the statue was dropped.

22
 The undergraduates were massed on one side, and, in response
to the call of their leader, they greeted the unveiling with nine of
their college cheers. They paid the same tribute to the giver and to
the sculptor, and the ceremonies were over.
On the base of the statue is the name of the company by whom
the casting was done,—THE HENRY-BONNARD BRONZE COMPANY,
NEW YORK, 1884
On the front of the pedestal, which is of fine-hammered
granite, is inscribed in gilt letters,—

JOHN HARVARD

FOUNDER

1638

[ 19 ]
The seal, in bronze, of Emmanuel College,* Cambridge,
England, is let into the stone on the southern face. Corresponding
on the northern face is the seal of Harvard College. On the rear
face are the words,—

GIVEN BY

SAMUEL JAMES BRIDGE

JUNE 17, 1883

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 *The three hundredth anniversary of the foundation of Emmanuel
College was commemorated with appropriate observances at Cambridge,
England, on the 18th and 19th of June, the present year. Abundant honor
was then done to its alumnus, John Harvard, as the founder of Harvard
University. An invitation had been sent by the authorities of Emmanuel,
that Harvard College should be represented on the auspicious occasion.
In answer to the request, Professor Charles Eliot Norton was delegated
as such representative. He attended, and took a prominent part in the
exercises of the commemoration, at which the common interests and
mutual regard of the Universities at the two Cambridges were amply
recognized and confirmed.
The Chapel of Emmanuel, where the religious services of the
Tercentenary were held, has been recently repaired and adorned. The
eight windows—four on either side—are filled with the portraits of
theologians, two in each, beginning with Augustine and Anselm, and
ending with Sanscroft and Law. The third and fourth windows on both
sides are occupied with the portraits of Emmanuel men. In the third
window of the north side is John Harvard,—of course an ideal
representation,—with Laurence Chalderton, first Master of Emmanuel,
as his companion. Harvard holds a scroll bearing the words, Populus
qui creabitur laudabit Dominium.

24
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 Appendix.
Willison Center Reprints

Available at: http://stores.lulu.com/recreech

New Titles added periodically.
Please note: Prices and availability shown are subject to change without
notice.

Offerings as of April 8, 2008:

History of the College of New Jersey, at Princeton. Vol. 1.

By John Maclean, D.D. ( 1877 )
Reprint of John Maclean's 1877 History of the College of New Jersey ( Princeton
University) Volume 1 of 2.
Maclean was the Tenth President. This highly recommended history of the
founding, purpose, and corporate life of what is now Princeton University. Originally
chartered as the "College of New Jersey".
Drawing on ancient spiritual traditions, Princeton was much more than a school, it
was a substantial "nursery" for the expansion of education into Theology combined
with Science, and for the high drama of the Experiment in Self-Rule" known as the
American Revolution, the blessings of which we still enjoy today.
The lists of all the graduates and the multitude of high government offices they
held makes this a "must read" for anyone studying American government. After all,
the original purpose was, according to Richard Stockton, to "Prepare youth for public
service to Church and State"[ pg 253 ]. Hebrew, Greek, and Latin all taught to this
end
459 pgs. Print: $ 28.98 Download: $15.19

A free PDF download of Quotes and Selected Readings from Maclean’s work, Vol.
1 and 2, with Selected Quotes from Smith’s “Lectures” is also available. Titled
“Thoughts of the American Ivy League. Selected Readings on Education,
Philosophy, and Politics from the Early 19th Century. Volume 1. A Princeton
Education. A great overview of Political and Moral Philosophy.

27
History of the College of New Jersey, at Princeton, Vol.
2.By John Maclean, D.D. ( 1877 )
John Maclean's 1877 History of the College of New Jersey, Volume 2. This has the
original Index for both volumes 1 and 2, quite helpful to do word searches. Both
Volumes are an excellent resource for researching the crucial role the Presbyterian
Church played in the creation of the American Revolution and the early
Constitutional era! See the description of Volume 1 for more information.
491 pgs. Print: $19.18 Download: $4.75

Smith’s Princeton Lectures on Moral and Political

Philosophy, Vol. 1.

Samuel Stanhope Smith's Lectures on Moral and Political Philosophy, in two

Volumes, ca. 1793-94, originally published in 1812. Vol. 1 of 2. Smith served as
President of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) 1795-1812.
Previously, he was a Tutor, then Professor, Moral Philosophy (1779-83), and
Professor, Moral Philosophy and Theology, ( 1783-1812).

His 33 years as Professor and President covered both the American Revolution
period, and early Constitutional eras, therefore giving direction to students who
would the "serve both Church and State" as significant architects of American style
government and society.
Volume 1 sets forth basic first principles of the nature, purpose, and being of
mankind, various physiological studies, and later examines the dominant schools of
Philosophical thought by Locke, Hume, Paley, Reid, Stewart and Edwards &c.
196 pgs. Print: $12.24 Download: $3.75

Smith’s Princeton Lectures on Moral and Political

Philosophy, Vol. 2.
Volume 2, of Samuel Stanhope Smith's "Lectures on Moral and Political
Philosophy". Smith served as President of the College of New Jersey (Princeton),
from 1795 until 1812 and as Vice President (1789-95). Before that, he held several
successive professorial posts there, as Professor, Moral Philosophy and Theology
(1783-1812)and Professor, Moral Philosophy ( 1779-83) which extended his
influence over the late Colonial period, and well into the early Constitutional era. If
you want to know what was taught to those who lead this country to Independence,
in effect to read one of the "Owners Manual" for the Unites States of America, this
book is the place to start.

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 This Reprint features an appendix containing a Biography entitled: “A Sketch of
Smith's Life” by John Maclean, tenth President of Princeton. The extensive list of
government officers who trained under Smith is astounding.
322 pgs. Print: $25.96 Download: $FREE Limited Time.

Sermons, Doctrinal, Experimental, and Practical, Vol.1.

By Nathan Strong, D.D. (1798)
Strong was educated at Yale, A.B. 1769, A.M. 1772, was a Tutor there 1772-3, and
was ordained to the Presbyterian pastorate in 1774. An ardent supporter of the
American Revolution, he served as a chaplain to the 22d Continental Infantry, in
1776. Princeton granted him an honorary Doctorate of Divinity in 1801.
His sermons reproduced here, are a rare and remarkable "window" into the minds
and motivations of the typical citizen, no less the politicians, of the Revolutionary
period. As one reads them, Strong's acute insight into human nature, metaphysics,
and eternity not only bring to light the often ignored spirituality of the era, they seem
to find a significant and transforming relevance to our lives today.
261 pgs. Print: $13.53 Download: $3.75

Sermons, Doctrinal, Experimental, and Practical, Vol. 2.

By Nathan Strong, D.D. (1800)
Sermons, Doctrinal, Experimental, and Practical. Volume 2, 1800. By Nathan
Strong, D.D. This is the continuation of the series, with Volume 1 dated 1798.
258 pgs. Print: $13.49 Download: $3.75

The Genuineness and Authenticity of the New Testament.

By Timothy Dwight, D.D.
Timothy Dwight, Yale President from 1795 to 1817, took on the challenge by
students holding to Enlightenment ( then known as Infidel) philosophy to give proof
that the Bible was indeed what it claims to be, the actual inspired Word of God. This
book features a concise version of his forceful polemic, and is still an excellent faith
building source for high school and college students who feel the modern pressure to
think otherwise. The arguments have yet to be refuted !
Also featured in the 1838 version are two additional works: "Why are you a
Christian?" by John Clarke, graduate, Harvard, and D.D., Edinburgh. and "A Short
and Easy Method with Deists," by Anglican Rev. Charles Leslie, M.A. Dublin.
101 pgs. Print: $9.11 Download: $2.50

29
Advice to a Young Christian
Forward by Archibald Alexander, D.D.
Letters from an un-named Pastor to a young person about to make a public
profession of Faith. The spiritual dimension, and one’s navigating it successfully is
presented in a most unusual and stunning way.
124 Pgs. Print: $8.26 Download: $2.50

Atheism, Infidelity, and the Ivy League. An Anthology of

Thought From the Early 19th Century.
Selected Discourses, Sermons, and Biographies by or about the intellectual elite
who confronted the errors of the so-called "Enlightenment," and the resultant French
and later European revolutions. Yale President Timothy Dwight is a featured author,
(including his biography), along with leading Harvard, Princeton and Dartmouth
colleagues.
288 pgs. Print: $12.99 Download: $2.50

Memoir of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, Patriarch of the

Lutheran Church in America.
This is a delightful Memoir of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, (b.1711, d. 1787).
Patriarch of the American Lutheran Church, and the namesake of Muhlenberg
College. Originally written by M.L. Stoever in 1856, the author covers the American
Revolution period, and brings to light the key parts that the Muhlenbergs, father and
sons played in the name of liberty.
Here we find that people from varied ecclesiastical organizations had a common
and potent spiritual source. They were, for the most part, fellow intimates with
ancient mysteries hidden from the ages and generations as the Apostle Paul alludes
to in Colossians 1:26.
His compatriots include Princeton's luminaries of the period, General Washington
and others.
102 pgs. Print: $10.36 Download: $3.75

30
 Secrecy, Spirituality, and Political Education at
Princeton….The Early 19th Century.
The Secrecy of the American Whig and Cliosophic Societies unveiled by six
leading members in Society Discourses to their Princeton student members. This
anthology also features Discourses by Princeton Presidents James Carnahan, John
Maclean and other speakers in their final instructions to Senior classes. New Jersey
Governor Samuel Southard, and U.S. National Bank President Nicholas Biddle are
two featured authors from high Government offices. The Whig-Clio Society
discourses are extremely rare, making this book particularly useful for quotes.
350 pgs. Print: $ 14.03 Download: $ 3.75

Secrecy, Spirituality, and Political Education at

Princeton….The Early 19th Century. Selected Quotes.
This is a “Note Book” of quotes as seen in the version above.
68 pgs. Print $ 7.77 Download $ 1.25

Political Discourses:
Governor Southard’s Political Discourse at Princeton. (To the
Whig and Cliosophic Societies.) 1837.
By Samuel L. Southard, Governor, New Jersey.
46 pgs. Print: $6.14 Download: $1.25

Human Government and Laws: Based Upon Divine Law and

Government.
By John C. Lord, D.D. 1852.
40 pgs. Print: $ 5.96 Download: $1.25

A Princeton Education. Readings from the Early 19th Century.

Edited by Russell Creech.
Selected readings from John Maclean’s “History of the College of New Jersey,
Vols. 1 and 2, Samuel S. Smith’s “Lectures on Moral and Political Philosophy,”
Vols. 1 and 2, and the 1819 “Laws of the College of New Jersey.” A Princeton
Bible study from 1899 is included in its entirety. Makes a great “snapshot” of the
typical Spiritual, Moral, and Political education that set the direction of the early
American Republic. The Graduate lists are quite impressive.
78 pgs. Print: $ 7.56 Download: $ 2.50

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 Free PDF Download Pamphlets:

Free PDF E-Book Pamphlets also are available, and feature leading Ivy League
Presidents and Alumni in important Political Discourses from the 1800-1850 early
Constitutional era. New titles added periodically.

Currently Available as a FREE PDF download:

Harvard Political Discourse, 1816…….John T. Kirkland, President, Harvard.
Harvard Political Discourse, 1809…….David Osgood, D.D.
Harvard Political Discourse, 1802…….Abiel Abbot, D.D.
Dartmouth Political Discourse, 1818….William Allen, President, Dartmouth.
Princeton Political Discourse, 1833…...John K. Converse
Dartmouth Political Discourse, 1800….Joseph McKeen, President, Bowdoin.
Christianity and Civil Government, 1851..Williams Adams, D.D., LL.D.
Adams was President, Union Theological Seminary, New York, and
Trustee, Princeton.

President Milledoler’s Commencement Address At Rutgers College.

1831.
Rutgers Political Discourse, 1837. Daniel D. Barnard
Address to the Philoclean and Peithessophian Societies.

More titles added occasionally…

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