Content preview - You need a premium account to view this content.

Harvard and the Gospel: An Informal History

Alan K. Parrish

Six of the finest and fullest years of my life were spent as director of the LDS Institute of Religion at Harvard. I became acquainted with many LDS students and alumni. I heard them tell some of their experiences and those of others they had associated with. It is a history I am fond of though I am not fully qualified to tell it. This account is only a sampling of some unique Church history.

On a broad scale, Mormonism includes the entire latter-day time period and the events that have prepared the world for the restored gospel. This range includes America' s discoverers, the plymouth planters, and the Founding Fathers. In that view we may consider the founding of Harvard an important accomplishment of those settlers and part of the groundwork of Mormonism.

In September of 1630, just ten years after the pilgrims' arrival at Plymouth, the General Court of Massachusetts opened the way for a college. Interested persons donated modest amounts. A popular minister dying of consumption in Charlestown gave half his estate of 779 British pounds and all of his library to the college. There is no known picture of him, and little is known of his successes, but in honor of his contribution the college was named after John Harvard. On 28 October 1636, the Massachusetts General Court passed legislation which led to the official founding of Harvard College.

The mission of Harvard was proclaimed in its charter:" the advancement of all good literature, arts, and sciences... [and] the education of the English and Indian youth of this country in knowledge and godliness." The early statutes of Harvard (1646) held that "every one shall consider the main end of his life and studies, to know God and Jesus Christ which is Eternal life. John 17:3 .... Seeing the Lord giveth wisdom, every one shall seriously by prayer in secret, seek wisdom of Him. Prov. 2:2, 3." They even required that "if any scholar being in health shall be absent from prayer or lectures, except in case of urgent necessity or by the leave of his tutor, he shall be liable to admonition (or such punishment as the President shall think meet) if he offend above once a week."--> Numerous statutes read very much like an adapted list of the Ten Commandments. The Harvard Charter of 1650 made it the first and oldest corporation in the United States.

The court followed an English pattern by locating the college in the country, designating "Newtowne" as the site of the college. Because many of those most eager to have the college, including John Harvard, had been at Cambridge University in England, the name of Newtowne was soon changed to Cambridge.

Harvard has long been the standard-bearer of American higher education. Essentially every institution in America, including BYU, is a product of the pioneering legacy of Harvard. While it has its weaknesses, our being here in this symposium witnesses that it also has much appeal. Harvard is not a Puritan or even a Massachusetts institution; rather, it has long been the flagship of American higher education.