Students' Residence.-There is no academic provision for residential accommodation in any University. In St. Andrew's, the Professors organize a system of lodgings, while in Edinburgh several Halls of Residence under the supervision of a voluntary Committee provide accommodation for a small proportion of students. In Edinburgh a Hall of Residence for Divinity Students was recently opened, also a voluntary undertaking.

PART III.

UNIVERSITIES OF THE UNITED

STATES.

CHAPTER XVII.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

The Early History of Harvard.-In 1636, the General Court* of Massachusetts made a grant of four hundred pounds, to which were added in 1640 the ferry receipts between Boston and Charlestown, towards the founding of a college in that colony. Edward Everett in his speech at the second centenary celebration referred to this as the first instance on record of the people's representatives ever giving their own money to found a place of education.

In the following year the General Court appointed twelve of the most eminent men of the colony "to take order for a college at Newtown, shortly afterwards to be called Cambridge." The work was prosecuted with zeal, yet it is doubtful if it could have been carried to a successful issue without the timely bequest of the Rev. John Harvard, who, at his death in 1638, bequeathed to the enterprise one-half of his property, amounting to four hundred pounds and his library, consisting of 320 volumes.

The Act establishing the overseers of Harvard College was passed at a General Court of 1642. These overseers who were granted exclusive powers of control, were the

* The name still given to the Legislature of Massachusetts.

Of

Governor, Deputy-Governor, and all the magistrates of
the jurisdiction, together with the teaching elders of the
six adjoining towns.* This body proving too unwieldly,
a corporation with perpetual succession was established
by the important charter of 1650, to consist of the
president, five fellows, and a treasurer, and to be styled
the President and Fellows of Harvard College."
this Charter, President Eliot said, "it is in force to-day
in every line, having survived in perfect integrity the
prodigious political, social, and commercial changes of
more than two centuries. This corporation was required
to obtain the consent of the large body of overseers to
any important step, and to relieve them to some extent
of their obligation, an appendix was made to the charter
in 1657, granting greater freedom of action to the cor-
poration. In 1672, a new College charter was created at
the instance of President Hoar, whereby the name of the
corporation was changed to "the President, Fellows and
Treasurer;" but the authority of this charter seems
never to have been recognized, and in the following year
an addition was made to the members of the corporation.

The Colonial Charter.-These modifications were slight compared to the changes introduced in 1692, through the influence of President Mather. In this year a provincial charter was granted to the Colony by William and Mary, and the General Court assembled under that authority granted a new College Charter, whereby a corporation of ten with perpetual succession was granted full powers for the election of officers, and was exempted from all rescorresponds to the Ontario

*The New England "town" 66 'township."