98

Part II:

The End of the Seventeenth Century. 1670-1700.

99

Chapter VI: Education.

WHEN President Charles Chauncy of Harvard died in 1672, the college ceased to be in the control of those who had been educated in England, and was managed thereafter by its own graduates. Leonard Hoar, his successor, had taken his first degree at Harvard in 1650, and his three successors, Urian Oakes, John Rogers, and Increase Mather, had graduated there, the first two in 1649, and the third in 1656.¹ The change seems to have had little effect upon the quality of the work done in the college, partly, perhaps, because even before this Harvard graduates, as tutors, had done much of the teaching.² Another reason for the slight effect of the change may have been that three of the four successors of President Chauncy had either studied or lived in England after finishing their courses at Harvard. Leonard Hoar went to England in 1653 and preached for some time at Wanstead. He later studied medicine at Cambridge, taking the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1671.³ While living in England he married the daughter of Lord Lisle.⁴ Urian Oakes went to England soon after graduating, and there became pastor of a church at Titchfield. Being silenced at the Restoration, he accepted the call of the church at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was soon after chosen Presidents Increase Mather studied at Trinity College, Dublin, gaining the Master’s

100

degree, and being offered a fellowship which he declined. He also preached in the island of Guernsey before returning to New England.⁶

The arrival of Charles Morton in 1686 and his appointment in 1692 as fellow and in 1697 as vice president of Harvard brought to the colony and the college a valuable cultural influence, for Morton had been a fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, and for years a successful teacher in London. When he was appointed vice president it was planned that in time he should succeed to the presidency,⁷ but he died in 1698 while Increase Mather was still president. Upon his arrival he read lectures on philosophy at his own home; but the lectures attracted so many from the college that he was requested to abandon them.⁸

Such contact with England and English scholastic life must have had considerable effect in keeping the college from becoming too provincial. Its standing was still sufficiently good to attract at least one student from England. Nathaniel Mather of Dublin wrote to his brother Increase, then newly chosen president, December 31, 1684:

. . . one Mr. Rich. Lob, merchant in London, who marryed my sister Thompson, desyres me to write in behalf of this gentleman, the bearer, his kinsman Mr. Penhallow of Falmouth in Cornwall, who designs to spend a year or two in New England, in the Colledg, for the perfecting of his learning, hee having lived 3 or 4 years under the instructions of one Mr. Morton . . . who is constreyned to withdraw by reason of Capias’s upon an Excommunicac˜on.⁹

One unfavorable picture of Harvard during this period

101

exists in the account of the visit to it of Jasper Danckaerts, a Dutch scholar, in 1680. In reading this it must be remembered that when the visit occurred Harvard had been four years without a president, and had not recovered from the disturbances and quarrels which led to the resignation and death of President Hoar. Urian Oakes, referred to at the end of the account, had been chosen president, but was not yet installed. The graduates of 1680 were but five, and in 1682 none took degrees.¹⁰

We reached Cambridge about eight o’clock. It is not a large village, and the houses stand very much apart. The college building is the most conspicuous among them. We went to it, expecting to see something unusual, as it is the only college, or would-be academy of the Protestants in all America, but we found ourselves mistaken. In approaching the house we neither heard nor saw anything mentionable; but, going to the other side of the building, we heard noise enough in an upper room to lead my comrade to say, “I believe they are engaged in disputation.” We entered and went upstairs, when a person met us, and requested us to walk in, which we did. We found there eight or ten young fellows, sitting around, smoking tobacco, with the smoke of which the room was so full, that you could hardly see; and the whole house smelt so strong of it that when I was going upstairs I said, “It certainly must be also a tavern.” We excused ourselves, that we could speak English only a little, but understood Dutch or French well, which they did not. However, we spoke as well as we could. We inquired how many professors there were, and they replied not one, that there was not enough money to support one. We asked how many students there were. They said at first, thirty, and then came down to twenty; I afterwards understood there are probably not ten.¹¹ They knew hardly a word of Latin, not one of them, so that my comrade could not converse with them. They took us to the library where there was nothing particular. We looked over it a little. They presented

102

us with a glass of wine. This is all we ascertained there. The minister of the place goes over there morning and evening to make prayer, and has charge over them; besides him, the students are under tutors or masters.¹²

As for the inadequacy of the Harvard Latin so severely criticized by Danckaerts, the fault may have been in Dutch ears, in different methods of pronunciation, or in youthful shyness in the presence of strangers. Cotton Mather, who had taken his first degree at sixteen just two years before this, and at this time was pursuing advanced studies, states that pupils were required to speak true Latin, and to write it in verse as well as prose, before they could enter Harvard; and he boasts that commencement orations were delivered in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and even in verse of all three.¹³ No one familiar with his writings can doubt Mather’s fluency—at least in quoting Latin.

It is worth mention here that two members of the class which was to have degrees conferred upon it in a few days after this visit, William Brattle and John Leverett, later became tutors of Harvard and, during Increase Mather’s three and one-half years’ absence in England, had complete charge of the teaching. Among the men whom they taught in those years were Paul Dudley, later Attorney General of the Colony, Samuel Mather, who became pastor of a church in England, Benjamin Wadsworth, later president of the college, and Benjamin Colman, leader in the religious and literary activities of Boston during the next two generations. The students whom Danckaerts pictured so unfavorably were capable of training men of ability, and Leverett himself was later chosen president of Harvard; both Leverett

103

and Brattle were honored by election as Fellows of the Royal Society.¹⁴

The following criticism of Cambridge University, England, in 1710—forty years later—also by a foreigner, one Uffenbach, a German savant, as given by Mullinger, should be taken into consideration when attempting to judge of conditions at Harvard.

[This] keen-eyed traveller, in visiting the other colleges [besides Trinity, whose hall he found dirty and “smelly”], could not but be struck by the indifference evinced for the higher interests of learning. At Caius College he found the manuscripts placed in “a miserable garret under the roof,” and lying “thick with dust” on the floor. At Magdalene all the books were “entirely overgrown with mould.” At Trinity Hall, the library appeared to him “very mean, consisting only of a few law books.” At Emmanuel, the books, though “respectable in number,” stood “in entire confusion.” At Peterhouse, the manuscripts were “buried in dust” and in the greatest disorder. At the University Library, a rare codex of Josephus being “torn at the end,” the library-keeper obligingly presented him with a leaf!¹⁵

Nathaniel Mather, of Dublin, writing in 1686, seems well satisfied with the scholarship of Harvard, although he criticizes some details:

The method of these, & the last years Theses is in my judgmt better than an[y] I have seen formerly. But the grammar of some of [them] might bee mended, e. g., in Thes. 2, . . . It should have been producant, not producerent; . But I perceive the Cartesian philosophy begins to obteyn in New England, & if I conjecture aright the Copernican System too. There should also in a thing coming out from scholars in an university, have been more care taken of orthography. e. g: Thes. Phys. 28, nitrolis for nitrosis; and Phillipsius should not bee with a double p.¹⁶

There is little evidence in this period of the attitude of

104

the English universities toward Harvard; for after the Restoration few Harvard men were tempted to England either for study or to seek for churches. Cotton Mather and Thomas Brattle, like William Brattle and John Leverett, were honored by being chosen Fellows of the Royal Society;¹⁷ the former was given the degree of Doctor of Divinity by the University of Glasgow in 1710;¹⁸ and Jeremiah Dummer, Harvard 1699, was given the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Utrecht in 1703.¹⁹ Benjamin Colman, Harvard 1692, was also given the degree of Doctor of Divinity by the University of Glasgow in 1731.²⁰ Samuel Myles, Harvard 1684, and William Vesey, Harvard 1693, received the degree of Master of Arts from Oxford in 1693 and 1697.²¹ One other possible evidence of Harvard’s standing in the world of scholarship is found in a statement of Increase Mather writing of the college in 1689:

the Learned Men there have a corresponding communication with other Learned Men in divers parts of the World, where the Reformed Religion is professed, and by them [are] highly reverenced for their Learning and Sobriety.²²

In this period, then, Harvard had come to hold a much less important place in the English speaking world than it had held in the first period, and to that extent had become provincial; but this change had not greatly affected the quality of scholarship, and had, if anything, increased the influence of the college in the colonies. There were few Oxford or

105

Cambridge men to compete with the Harvard men. Cotton Mather, speaking of the influence of Harvard in 1696, states that of 87 ministers in Massachusetts, 76 were Harvard graduates, and of 35 in Connecticut, 31 were from Harvard.²³

As to the quality of the scholarship, one or two more illustrations may be given. Nathaniel Mather, brother of Cotton Mather, graduating from Harvard in 1685 at the age of sixteen, was sufficiently skilled in mathematics and astronomy to figure out the statistics and calculations of almanacs for the years 1685 and 1686, which he published.²⁴ Samuel Sewall, Harvard 1671, seems to have had a sound classical training. Dr. William Everett, in referring to Sewall’s original English and Latin poems, says,

. . . in the latter, at least, the metre is irreproachable, ac-cording to the rules of quantity as recognized by the scholars of his time. An exhaustive examination of the verses in the Diary leaves no doubt on this subject.²⁵

Sewall also shows his scholarship elsewhere. In a letter he writes:

There is mention made of a new Translation of the Bible: If it go forward, I would propound One Word of amendment: John, 10. 16. The Word (Fold) in the latter part of the verse ought to be changed for the word (Flock).²⁶ The new French Translation has it (Un seul tropeau) I have a Latin Testament printed Parisijs ex officina Rob. Stephani typographi Regij M. D. XLV. He seems to be scrupulous in departing from the Vulgar Latin; yet has this Marginal Reading (ut fiat unus grex) Beza in his latter edition, has (grex) Tremellius his Translation of the Syriack, runs thus (fietq[u]e totus grex unus) In reading Austin

106

upon the Psalms, I have often met with, (Unus grex, unus pastor) Psal. 71. Col. 780. Psal. 77. Col. 852. Psal. 78. Col. 878. ter legitur. I do not see that the word is any where else translated (Fold). In Act. 20. 28, 29, and 1 Pet. 5. 2, 3, the word is of the same Origination, though of the Neuter Gender, and is still rendred (Flock).²⁷

On one occasion he reports that he and a friend spent the evening reading Latin verse to each other.²⁸ In another letter he discusses the “enetymology” of the word “Lordane, by Corruption, Lurdane;. . . . Though your English Dictionary carrys it another way.”²⁹ The following memorandum in his “Letter-Book” also indicates his interest in study:

To Mr. Stretton, to buy Bellarmine, two volumes, polemical works, fair print. Some Spanish Books; Barthol. de las Casas in Spanish, and in English too; Gram¯ar and Dictionary, if to he had; and what else you shall see convenient for my purpose of getting a Smattering of the Spanish tongue.³⁰

Somewhat later Cotton Mather also became interested in Spanish, as is shown by his own account:

About this Time, understanding that the way for our Communication with the Spanish Indies, opens more and more, I sett myself to learn the Spanish Language. The Lord wonderfully prospered mee in this Undertaking; a few liesure Minutes in the Evening of every Day, in about a Fortnight, or three weeks Time, so accomplished mee, I could write very good Spanish. Accordingly, I composed a little Body of the Protestant Religion, in certain Articles . . . This I turn’d into the Spanish Tongue.³¹

107

In the “Magnalia” he quoted one proverb in Spanish.³² He also wrote at least one tract in French.³³ In a day in which the education of woman was neglected, he taught his daughter Katherine both Latin and Hebrew.³⁴ Evidently the scholarly spirit was not lacking in this period of the colonial life.

Nor was the period without scientific spirit. Nathaniel Mather’s letter, given on page 103, refers to the growing influence of the Cartesian philosophy in the Colonies. Thomas Brattle also refers to this in a letter which he wrote at the time of the witchcraft troubles.

The Salem justices . . . are so well instructed in the Cartesian philosophy, and in the doctrine of effluvia, that they undertake to give a demonstration how this touch does cure the afflicted persons.³⁵

It had become established at Cambridge not long before this.³⁶ The Reverend Deodat Lawson, whose lecture at Salem Village, March 24, 1692, was largely responsible for the beginning of the witchcraft persecutions, had been educated in England, where he had spent six years at the English universities, whence he had brought the current beliefs of English scholars.³⁷ The Copernican theory was accepted with some hesitation, but slowly gained way. It was stated and explained as early as 1659 in Zechariah Brigden’s “Almanack” for that year. Alexander Nowell in his “Almanack” for 1665 defended it. In 1665 Samuel Danforth published “An Astronomical Description of the late Comet, or Blazing

108

Star,” in which he maintained that the orbit of the comet was elliptical, and that its center was not the earth.³⁸ In 1675 John Foster’s “Almanack” advanced strong arguments for the theory. In Nathaniel Mather’s “Almanack” for 1686, already referred to, Robert Hook’s discovery of a sensible parallax of the earth’s orbit among the fixed stars was cited as proof of the truth of the new system.³⁹

The influence of Harvard in this period, then, may have been more provincial; but there seems to be no proof that this change was attended by any appreciable decline in scholarship. Harvard was still training men satisfactorily for the ministry; its graduates were achieving distinction in political life, Samuel Sewall, Paul Dudley, Benjamin Lynde, and Gurdon Saltonstall, for example; and two other graduates of this period, Cotton Mather and Thomas Brattle, received recognition for their scientific writings by the publication of their articles in the Transactions of the Royal Society as well as by election to that Society.⁴⁰

Of common school education during this period there is no detailed information. School books were imported in large numbers,⁴¹ and some were printed in the colony. Marmaduke Johnson testified in 1668 that he had printed a primer;⁴² and before or by 1690 Benjamin Harris had published

109

the famous “New England Primer.”⁴³ That primers such as these and catechisms like Cotton’s “Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes”⁴⁴ sufficed for a primary education equivalent to that obtainable in old England is shown by the statement of John Locke in his “Thoughts Concerning Education,” written in 1690, that the method of teaching children at that time in England “was the ordinary road of Hornbook, Primer, Psalter, Testament, and Bible.”⁴⁵ Mr. Littlefield’s statement seems to sum up the situation accurately: “The writer is very strongly of the opinion that the facilities for instruction in the colonial and provincial periods were greater than is generally supposed.”⁴⁶

◄ Chapter V   Directory of Files   Chapter VII ►