The name is absent

American Colonial Colleges 257
his keep ; or he studied at home, or obtained private instruc-
tion from a minister; after the lapse of three years he came
up for his M.A., and took the first pulpit that became vacant.
It is abundantly clear from her curriculum that Harvard
was not a divinity school, but a religious College of the Lib-
eral Arts, such as people understood them at that time. Uriah
Oakes, one of the clerical presidents, addressed a graduating
class as Libérales, Iiberaliter educati—“gentlemen, educated
like gentlemen.” The same principle applies to the other
colonial colleges. All (except Philadelphia) were founded
from religious as well as purely educational motives, the
training of ministers was one of their functions, but pro-
fessional training for the ministry began only after taking the
first degree. A liberal education, the education of a liber
homo, free man or gentleman, in the earlier meaning of that
much abused term, was aimed at by our colonial colleges; it
was only after they had been long established, when they
proved too liberal for the more narrow-minded elements in
the community, that we find the claim advanced that they
were primarily divinity colleges. In the corporate charter that
Dunster obtained for Harvard in 1650, creating a corpora-
tion of President, Treasurer, and five Fellows, with perpetual
succession—and this Charter is still in force today—there is
no mention of training parsons, or of divinity ; the purpose of
the College is declared to be : “The advancement of all good
literature, artes, and sciences.” You will observe that the
Rice Institute motto “Literature—Science—Art” is a suc-
cinct paraphrase of this declaration of purpose in the Har-
vard Charter, granted almost three centuries ago. There
was no conscious imitation, of course; but a natural kinship;
for these three departments of human knowledge—Letters,
Arts, and Sciences—have been central to university instruc-
tion and research since the sixteenth century.

<<   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   >>

More intriguing information