fracas, and such Englishmen as had been purposing to find an indulgence of their republican principles here, concluded to stay at home to attempt an establishment of them there. Even our own General Court thought it advisable to send over three of our own men of mark as agents to the Parliament, and "to give advice for the settling the right form of church discipline there." The governor's eldest son accompanied them, and forty others, who, not having any commission, nor any errand but that of the prompting of their own interest in the excitements of a political convulsion, are to be looked upon as simply deserters. The devout governor refers to the same subject again in his Journal, in September, 1642. The depression in the Colony and the exodus from it still continued. Among those who returned to England, he takes especial note of "a magistrate, four ministers, and a schoolmaster, who would needs go against all advice." The governor, evidently with satisfaction, records the special providences, both by sea and land, which visited with protracted perils of shipwreck and starvation these uneasy wanderers. "Three of the ministers, with the schoolmaster, spake reproachfully of the people and of the country" which they had deserted. Winthrop thinks the party was saved from destruction by the prayers of the fourth minister, who, as an exception, " spake well of the people of the country." The writer follows the fortunes of other deserters to various places, to show how Divine judgments pursued them. He says there was "much disputation about liberty of removing for outward advantages, and all ways were sought for an open door to get out at; but it is to be feared many crept out at a broken wall." It is immediately after these dismal relations of facts which seemed to threaten the continuance of the occupancy of this soil by white men, closed with a touching outburst of the governor's own spirit of loyal fidelity, that he takes note of the first Commencement at Harvard, October 9, 1642: "Nine bachelors commenced at Cambridge; they were young men of good hope, and performed their acts so as gave good proof of their proficiency in the tongues and arts." But of these nine "bachelors," the first fruits of the College, seven, as we shall see, left the country for better fortunes or more rewarding work abroad. Again, in 1645, the governor writes: "The scarcity of good ministers in England, and want of employment for our new graduates here, occasioned some of them to look abroad." Among these was Winthrop's nephew, the famous, but not honorable, George Downing. Of him we read: "He went in a ship to the West Indies to instruct the seamen. He went by Newfoundland, and so to Christophers and Barbados and Nevis, and being requested to preach in all these places, he gave such content, as he had large offers made to stay with them. But he continued in the ship to England, and being a very able scholar, and of a ready wit and fluent utterance, he was soon taken notice of, and called to be a preacher in Sir Thomas Fairfax his army, to Colonel Okye his regiment." The governor happily was spared, by his death, the knowledge of the subsequent career of his kinsman, conspicuous for high successes and worldly gains, but recreant to virtue and all nobleness. The propitious occurrence of the first Commencement at Harvard was turned to good use by some friends of the Colony in Old England, with the help of those who went from here thither, immediately after it took place. This was the occasion of the publication in London of one of the most valuable of the little tracts relating to our early history. The title is "New England's First Fruits in Respect to the Progress of Learning in the Colledge at Cambridge, in Massachusetts Bay, &c.; published in London, in the Year 1643, by the instant Request of sundry Friends," &c. The beautiful proem to this precious tract cannot be too often quoted: "After God had carried us safe to New England, and wee had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God's worship, and settled the civil government: one of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity, dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust." It would appear from this tract that though the General Court had, in 1636, purposed to found the College, and had voted £400, a sum equal to one year's rate for all the public expenses, for that object, the undertaking was not really initiated till the death of John Harvard, two years afterwards. His munificent bequest was one half his estate, and his whole library. His estate in this tract is put at £1,700. “After him another gave £300, others after them cast in more, and the public hand of the State added the rest." Here was a bold use of the word State. It would seem unwarranted to question so positive an assertion in this tract, but if any other person gave £300 before the year 1643, we are ignorant of his name. The one building for the College is thus described: "The edifice is very faire and comely within and without, having in it a spacious hall where they daily meet at Commons, Lectures and Exercises; and a large library with some books to it, the gifts of diverse of our friends, their chambers and studies also fitted for, and possessed by the students, and all other roomes of office necessary and convenient, with all needful offices thereto belonging." This must have been a very wonderful building its ground plan, elevation, and internal disposing would be exceedingly interesting, if they had survived only on paper. The famous Captain Edward Johnson, author of "The Wonder Working Providence of Zion's Saviour in N. England," writing in 1651, is even more tantalizing in his description of this marvellous edifice. He says: "The building, thought by some to be too gorgeous for a wilderness, and yet too mean in others apprehensions for a Colledg, is at present inlarging by purchase of the neighbour houses, it hath the conveniences of a fair Hall, comfortable studies and a good Library." We know, however, that this edifice became prematurely ruinous, leaky, and insufficient. President Dunster addressed both the General Court and the Commissioners of the United Colonies on this subject. Writing to the latter body, in 1647, he says: "Seing from the first euill contrivall of the Colledg buildinge there now ensues yearely decayes of the rooff, walls and foundation, &c." Recourse was had to temporary repairs. The Commissioners, in a letter to the corporation in England, in 1672, after bewailing "our bereavement by death of many aged and worthy Leaders in Church and Commonwealth that layed the foundation of these plantations," and the loss of the late President of the College, refer to their "discurragement alsoe by the decay of theire buildings which were made in our . Infancye, yett are now in a hopefull way to be againe supplyed with an able Presedent, and also with a New building of bricke and stone" &c. This promised building was completed in 1677. It would be an effort, in some part, of the imagination to present to ourselves the College yard under its first occupancy with one or more buildings. The site of the College has now become as convenient for its use as any other spot in the neighborhood of Boston would be, but it has been made thus convenient because of its occupancy for its purpose. At the first it must have been very inconvenient, and we are at a loss to find the reasons for its selection. It being understood that Boston was to be the metropolis, the site of the College certainly was not readily accessible from it. A river, more than double its present width, with reedy and sedgy shores, and great expanses of muddy flats, divided Cambridge from the peninsula. The ferry at Charlestown offered, in propitious weather, the readiest means of communication, though even that required a long detour for a hard road. Little skiffs-anticipating the sculls and shells of the present boat-clubs-plied vigorously for the transport of passengers on the Charles, and cattle and goods were moved on rafts. The causeways through both of what are now known as Cambridgeport and East Cambridge were treacherous and dangerous. As recently as 1729, Governor Burnet, while driving from Cambridge to Boston, over one of them, was overturned and thrown into the water, and died from the effects of it. The drive to Cambridge, over the Boston "Neck," through Roxbury, was long and circuitous, and even then the Charles was to be crossed, though at a narrower point. For a few weeks, in the coldest winters, there was a bridge of ice available for the venturesome. Provision was made for the keeping of a horse at Charlestown, for the President of the College. Edward Johnson, before quoted, says that the settlement in Cambridge was surrounded by a pale "a mile and a half long, palisadoes of small trees driven into the ground and united by birch withes." This was for security against the Indians, and for the protection of cattle. The College plot was, of course, included, which, besides the dwellings clustering on it and around it, was planted as an orchard. There was a slight elevation, called Watch Hill, near the site of the present Dane Hall, and on this stood the second, third, and fourth of the buildings successively erected for the place of worship for the inhabitants and the students. Another elevation in the present College yard, the site of Boylston Hall, was very early occupied by the parsonage. Another edifice which won early fame, because of the excellence of the man, Elijah Corlet, who for more than forty years presided in it, may have been built on these grounds even before the first College hall. It is thus referred to in the tract published in London, in 1643, "N. England's First Fruits": "And by the side of the Colledge a faire Grammar Schoole for the training up of young schollars, and fitting of them for Academical learning, that still as they are judged ripe, they may be received into the Colledge of this schoole. Master Corlet is the Mr. who hath very well approved himself for his abilities, dexterity and painfulness in teaching and education of the youths under him." This "Grammar Schoole" represented what we now call a high school. It would seem, also, that even earlier than this a building, or a room in a building, had been provided for elementary instruction; a "Dame's School," for beginners in the humanities. The first class of graduates had been under a training which is thus described: "Over the Colledge is Master Dunster placed as President, a learned, conscionable and industrious man, who hath so trained up his pupils in the tongues and arts, and so seasoned them with the principles of divinity and christianity, that we have to our great comfort (and in truth) beyond our hopes, beheld their progress in learning and godlinesse also." When we consider the difficulties under which the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew languages were studied at that time, the deficiencies in the apparatus of learning, and the perplexities of the "Grammaticall, Logicall, and Rhetoricall" exercises, and the proficiency which was none the less rigidly exacted in them from the young candidates for a bachelor's degree, we may be justified in saying that the majority of the members of each graduating class, in our own time, would have found their |