258 History of Universities
The Harvard Charter of 1650 also declared the purpose
of the College to provide “All other necessary provisions
that may conduce to the education of the English and
Indian youth of this Country in knowledge : and godliness.”
Hence it may be said that the entire development of Amer-
ican higher education for three centuries was portended in
1650. President Dunster even sought funds for medical
and legal instruction, but with no other result than a vote
of the General Court that Harvard College might every
four years have a malefactor’s corpse to dissect, “if there
be any such.” Training for the other learned professions
would come in good time, when needed; it was enough in
the seventeenth century to provide a sound course in the
Liberal Arts and Philosophy, which was equally suitable for
a general education or as a background for specialized
training.
The first charter of Yale (1701) declares a purpose to
establish a school “wherein Youth may be instructed in the
Arts and Sciences who thorough the blessing of Almighty
God may be fitted for Publick employment both in Church
and Civil State.” Arts and Sciences—the traditional liberal
education; God’s blessing—without which knowledge would
be vain and useless; “Publick employment”—not private
business or money-getting; in Church and State—not Church
alone. We are yet far, in 1701, from the modern notion
that any citizen with stout lungs is fit to be Governor or
Senator. The colonists wished their rulers to be men of
learning; not deep scholars, but at least acquainted with
history and philosophy. In the middle ages, when the
nobility were illiterate, Kings had to choose their ministers
from the Church. Half the point of Renaissance education
was to fit laymen to be rulers in the civil state, hence the
emphasis on Greek and Roman history and oratory. “His-