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Married at the age of sixteen, she was only twenty when she embarked for the new settlement with her husband and father, and she shared with them the hardships of those years. She early showed a genius for poetry; and in 1647, her manu- script poems, all of which had been written before her thirtieth year, were taken to England by her brother-in-law, the Rev. John Woodbridge, who had them published without her knowl- edge. The Bradstreets were then living at Andover, and the verses were said to have been written for the edification of
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WOMEN OF MASSACHUSETTS
her friends and neighbors. The devoted mother of eight chil- dren, and the wife of a magistrate intensely interested in and proud of her accomplishments, she found time amid her house- hold duties to chronicle in verse the varying incidents of her life.
Condemnation of women authors was to be expected, and to forestall criticism, the preface explained that the poems were "the fruits but of some few hours, curtailed from her sleep and other refreshments." Her brother-in-law and others of the clergy gave her encouragement in her work and high praise for her literary ability. The former characterized it as "the work of a woman, honored and esteemed where she lives for her gracious demeanor, her eminent parts, her pious conversations, her exact diligence in her place, and discreet managing of her family occasions."
In the Prologue, Mrs. Bradstreet reflects the antagonism of the times to women writers:
I am obnoxious to each carping tongue
Who says my hand a needle better fits,
A poets pen all scorn I should thus wrong, For such despite they cast on Female wits : If what I do prove well, it wont advance,
They'l say it's stolen, or else it was by chance. Let Greeks be Greeks, and women what they are Men have precedency and still excell,
It is but vain unjustly to wage warre; Men can do best, and women know it well Preheminence in all and each is yours; Yet grant some small acknowledgment of ours.
If 'ere you daigne these lowly lines your eyes Give Thyme or Parsley wreath, I ask no bayes.
Of her poetry it may be said that if it did not show great genius, it is remarkable considering the conditions under which it was written. Her poems are quaint and curious and con- tain many beautiful and original ideas not badly expressed; and they constitute a singular and valuable relic of the earliest literature of the country. No congenial minds were near and no circle of wits to sharpen her faculties, but in her youth she
THE TENTH MUSE
Lately fprung up in AMERICA. OR
Severall Poems, compiled
with great variety of VVit and Learning, full of delight.
Wherein efpecially is contained a com- pleat difcourfe and defcription of
The Four<
Elements, Conflitutiens, )Ages of Man, Seafox's of the Year.
Together with an Exact Epitomie of the Four Monarchies, viz. (ASyrian, The Perfian, )Grecian, Roman.
Alfo a Dialogue between Old England and New,concerning the late troubles. With divers other plealant and ferions Poema
By a Gentlewoman in thofe parte. Printed ar London for Stephen Bowesell ar che figne of the Bible in Popes Head-Alley, Téso.
From the original in the Boston Public Library
ANNE BRADSTREET'S POEMS
From frontispiece to The Works of Anne Bradstreet, edited by John Harvard Ellis ANNE BRADSTREET'S HOME
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LITERARY WOMEN
had stored up much knowledge which found expression amid all the hardships of a pioneer life,- perhaps because of it.
The Divine Weekes of the French poet Du Bartas, as translated by Joshua Sylvester, which at that time was ex- ceedingly popular, was her favorite work. It was to this same author that Milton was said to have been to some extent indebted. Many of Mrs. Bradstreet's poems show that she also was influenced in style and context to a considerable de- gree by Du Bartas. Rev. Nathaniel Ward of Ipswich, author of The Simple Cobbler of Agawam, her former pastor, re- ferred to this in the following lines :
Mercury shew'd Apollo, Bartas Book, Minerva this, and wisht him well to look. . . . They both 'gan laugh, and said it was no mar'l The Auth'ress was a right Du Bartas Girle. Good sooth quoth the old Don, tell ye me so, I muse whither at length these Girls will go; It half revives my chil frost-bitten blood, To see a Woman once, do ought that's good;
And chose by Chaucers Boots, and Homers Furrs, Let Men look to't, least Women wear the Spurrs.
In "Meditations," which are considered by some the best example of her ability, she showed thoughtfulness and a wide cultivation of mind. We have her own word that they were original, although she confesses "There is no new thing under ye sun, there is nothing that can be sayd or done, but either that or something like it hath been done and sayd before." Among her seventy-seven "Apothegms" there is one in which she sounds a prophetic note, "God hath by his prouidence so ordered that no one Country hath all Commoditys within itself, but what it wants, another shall supply, that so there may be a mutual Commerce through the world."
"Contemplation", in the second edition, which has been designated as one of her best poems, was written in connec- tion with her walks through the woods which skirted the mighty Merrimac and from which she received much inspi- ration.
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WOMEN OF MASSACHUSETTS
Anne Bradstreet lived to her sixtieth year, and lies buried in an unknown grave. No stone marks her last resting place, but the wisest men and women among her contemporaries felt that her fame was secure. We have this thought expressed by Cotton Mather, when, upon her death, he wrote: "America justly admires the Learned Woman of the other Hemisphere But she now prays that there may be a room given unto Madam Ann Bradstreet, whose Poems, divers times Printed, have afforded a grateful Enter- tainment unto the Ingenious, and a Monument for her Mem- ory beyond the Statliest Marbles."
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
[See also the bibliographies following Chapters vii (Winthrop) ; x (Social Life) ; xiii (Literature) ; and the General Bibliography at the end of Volume V.]
BRADFORD, William .- History of Plymouth Plantation (2 Vols., Bos- ton, Wright & Potter 1898) .- Massachusetts Historical Society, 1912. See Vol. II, 308-310, for his explanation of wickedness in the colony.
BRADSTREET, Anne .- The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (1650).
BRADSTREET, Anne .- Several Poems (1678).
EARLE, Alice Morse .- Child-Life in Colonial Days (New York, Mac- millan, 1899) .- The fruit of personal and original investigation into colonial social conditions.
EARLE, Alice Morse .- Customs and Fashions in Old New England (New York, Scribner, 1894).
EARLE, Alice Morse .- Home Life in Colonial Days (New York, Mac- millan, 1898) .- A careful study of domestic life in the earliest days. EARLE, Alice Morse .- Two Centuries of Costume in America (New York, Macmillan, 1903) .- A book of old-time fashions written in a delightful manner.
ELLIS, John Harvard .- Works of Anne Bradstreet (Charlestown, A. E. Cutter, 1867) .- A study of the first American poet, with a reproduction of the first edition of her poems.
FELT, Joseph B .- Ecclesiastical History of New England (Boston, Li- brary Association) .- The authoritative account of early church pro- ceedings by a diligent eighteenth century historian prepossessed in favor of extreme Puritanism.
GOODHUE, Sarah .- Valedictory and Monitory Writings of Sarah Goodhue of Ipswich 1681 (Salem, 1770).
HAIGHT, Theron W .- Sylvester's DuBartas (Waukesha, Wis., H. M. Youmans, 1908) .- A reprint of The Divine Weeks, with annotations. HUBBARD, William .- A General History of New England from the Discovery to MDCLXXX (Cambridge, Little, Brown, 1848) .- A con- temporary account by one of the early ministers.
HUTCHINSON, Thomas .- History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay from 1628 until 1750 (3 vols., Boston, Fleet (1767) Salem, 1795) .- By the learned judge and governor of the eighteenth century.
JACKSON, F. Nevill .- Toys of Other Days (New York, Scribner, 1908) .- A charming story of the playthings of many centuries told in an entertaining manner.
LECHFORD, Thomas .- "Note Book," [1638-1641] (American Antiquar- ian Society Proceedings, Vol. 7, pp. 73, 74) .- An early account writ- ten by a careful observer, very hostile to Massachusetts.
MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES .- Petitions, Vol. 112, p. 175.
323
324
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
MATHER, Cotton .- Magnalia Christi Americana [1620-1698] (2 Vols., Hartford, Andrus, 1820) .- A learned and pedantic work including much authentic history and valuable accounts of colonial worthies.
PALFREY, John Gorham .- History of New England (5 vols., Boston, Shepard (1872) Little Brown, 1858-1890) .- Painstaking; little social history.
RECORDS AND FILES OF THE QUARTERLY COURTS OF ESSEX COUNTY (8 vols., Salem, Essex Institute, 1911-1921) .- Unique ab- stracts of the earliest complete court records extant.
RECORDS OF THE COLONY OF NEW PLYMOUTH IN NEW ENGLAND, 1633-1689 (Boston, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1855-1861) .- Ed. Shurtleff & Pulsifer.
SALEM TOWN RECORDS, 1634-1659 (Salem, Essex Institute, 1868) .- Communicated by W. P. Upham.
ROWLANDSON, Mary .- Narrative of Captivity among the Indians (1652).
RECORDS OF THE GOVERNOR AND COMPANY OF THE MASSACHUSTTS BAY IN NEW ENGLAND, 1628-1686 (Boston, 1850, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1853-1854) .- Ed. by Pulsifer & Felt.
WATERS, Thomas Franklin .- Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (2 vols., Ipswich Historical Society, 1905) .- An exhaustive history of an important early colonial county seat.
WEEDEN, William B .- Economic and Social History of New England, 1620-1789 (2 vols., Houghton Mifflin, 1890) .- A comprehensive study of two centuries of industry, presented in a readable form.
WINTHROP, John .- History of New England, 1630-1649 (2 vols., edited by Savage, Boston, 1825, later ed. edited by Hasmer) .- A contem- porary account by the first colonial governor.
CHAPTER XII
HARVARD COLLEGE (1636-1660)
BY ARTHUR O. NORTON
Professor of the History and Principles of Education Wellesley College Lecturer in the Harvard Graduate School of Education
ENGLISH ORIGINS OF NEW ENGLAND SCHOOLS
The Puritan founders of New England were "well in- formed men who understood and felt the value of education." Their views on this subject were shaped not only by their religious convictions, but also by their experience in the schools and universities of the England of their times. The best ap- proach to the beginnings of education in the Colony of Mas- sachusetts Bay, and to the early history of Harvard College in particular, is through a study of education in England in the 16th and 17th centuries. There were three main types of schools,-the Dame School, for little "A B C-Darians"; the "English" School, for reading, writing and arithmetic; and the Grammar School, devoted chiefly to the study of Latin and Greek. The Grammar School was preparatory to the universities. The two universities, Oxford and Cambridge, offered four-year courses leading to the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Three years' additional study led to the degree of Master of Arts; two years more prepared the candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Divinity. Similar lengthy terms of study led also to degrees in Law and Medicine.
Free, public, tax-supported schools, of the type now uni- versal, did not then exist; but there were hundreds of en-
325
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HARVARD COLLEGE
dowed schools which gave free instruction to all, or to a fixed number of "pore schollers". Schools which were maintained by tuition fees were still more numerous. In the English counties from which the New England colonists came,-Lin- coln, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Kent, Surrey and others-girls, as well as boys, of middle-class families were commonly taught to read the catechism and the Bible, to write a more or less legible hand, and to do simple problems in addition and subtraction. The education of the great majority ended at this point.
Boys who showed a talent for learning (and some who did not) were often sent to study Latin, Greek, and perhaps He- brew in one of the Grammar Schools which were then to be found in every small town of the kingdom. The Grammar School offered a course of six or seven years in length. Latin was studied during this entire period, and Greek during the last three or four years. The larger schools aspired also to a little study of Hebrew. Latin, Greek, and Hebrew were sometimes called "the holy languages" because they were es- sential to the understanding of the Bible in its original tongues.
Then as now parents of all classes were ambitious for the advancement of their sons; then as now education furnished the common highway to careers for talented youth. The Grammar School registers of the early 1600's show the pres- ence not only of the sons of the landed gentry, the clergy and other professional men, but also of the sons of merchants, yeoman farmers, tanners, grocers, tailors, linen and woolen drapers, ironmongers, goldsmiths, dyers, weavers, druggists and butchers.
A case or two will illustrate this point. Stratford-on-Avon, in the late 1500's, was a town of about 2,000 inhabitants. It possessed a grammar school of the usual type. To this school, in the 1570's, John Shakespeare, yeoman farmer, dealer in grain and timber, and butcher, sent his young son, William Shakespeare and probably also Wiliam's three younger broth- ers. William afterwards mentioned sympathetically in one of his plays
JOHN HARVARD'S PARENTS
327
"The whining school boy with his satchel And his shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school."
Ben Johnson later remarked that William Shakespeare had "small Latin and less Greek". He learned something, how- ever. John Aubrey reported, nearly a hundred years later, "I have been told by some of the neighbors heretofore that when he was a boy he exercised his father's trade, but when he kill'd a calf he would do it in a high style, and make a speech." Whether this be mere gossip or not, William Shakes- peare was one of the great majority of grammar school scholars who had no desire for further training.
JOHN HARVARD'S PARENTS
John Shakespeare's near neighbor, Thomas Rogers, yeo- man farmer, doubtless sent his three sons to the same school at about the same time. The four Shakespeare boys and the three Rogers boys must have been well acquainted. In 1584, when William Shakespeare, now twenty years old, had gone to London to become an actor and a writer of plays, a daugh- ter named Katherine was born into the Rogers family. Ap- parently she did not go to school, for many years later she signed her will with a mark. In 1605, when she was twenty- one years old, she married Robert Harvard, a butcher, whose shop was in the High Street of Southmark, London, near the southerly end of London Bridge and directly in front of St. Saviour's Church. Mr. Shelley makes the very interesting conjecture-there is no direct evidence-that William Shakes- peare, whose theatre was not far from Robert Harvard's shop, brought him to Stratford to meet his future wife. Ap- parently Robert Harvard was unable to write his name, for (though he was a prosperous man, and a governor of St. Saviour's Grammar School,) he too signed his will with a mark. John Harvard, the second son of Robert and Kath- erine, did not remain illiterate, however. He was sent to a Grammar School-doubtless St. Saviour's-at some period between 1615 and 1620. In 1627 he entered Emmanuel Col- lege, Cambridge, where seven years later he took the degree
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HARVARD COLLEGE
of Master of Arts. This is the John Harvard for whom, in 1638, Harvard College was named. The house in Stratford- on-Avon in which his mother Katherine Rogers lived when she was a girl is now owned by Harvard College. It is often called the Harvard House.
JOHN HARVARD'S SCHOOL LIFE
It will be useful in this history to follow the career of John Harvard through the Grammar School and the Univer- sity, since his experience was fairly typical. No less than thirty-four men who were educated at Emmanuel College came to Massachusetts between 1630 and 1650, together with representatives of every other Cambridge college, and most of the colleges of Oxford.
The records of St. Saviour's, and the general facts now known about English grammar Schools in the early 1600's enable us to reconstruct with reasonable certainty John Har- vard's experience at that institution. Before entering he must have learned to read English well, and to write a legible hand, and be competent to be entered straightway into the Latin con- jugations and declensions, commonly known as "the Latin Accidence".
Mr. H. C. Shelley thus portrays John Harvard's first day at St. Saviour's: "On that occasion he would have to take with him the sum of two shillings and sixpence, the fee which every scholar was required to pay the master on entrance, and the little satchel slung over his shoulder contained that morning in addition to school-books, and pens and ink and paper, a little Bible-most probably the Geneva Bible, the popularity of which remained unaffected even by the publica- tion of the Authorized Version. As our young scholar began his schooling in the winter, his satchel would also contain a supply of good candles, for in the long school hours of those austere times many lessons would have to be conned by can- dle-light, and the pupils themselves were required to furnish the source of that illumination. John Harvard, indeed, would ponder his first lesson in school by candle-light, for even in the winter months the scholars had to be at their desks by seven o'clock in the morning. At eleven o'clock lessons were
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NEW ENGLANDS FIRST FRUITS: 2. In jefpect of the Colledge, and the proceedings of Learning therein.
Fter God had carried us fafe to New England, and wee 7 had builded our houfes, provided neceffaries for our liveli-hood,rear'd convenient places for Gods worfhip, and Ietled the Civill Government : One of the next things we longed for, and looked after was to advance Leafamg, and perpetuate it to Pofterity ; dreading to leave an illiterate Miniftery to the Churches, when our present Minifters fhall liem the Duft. And as wee were thinking and confuiting how to effect this great Work ; it pleafed God to ftir up the heart of one Mr. Harvard (a god- ly Gentleman and a lover of Learning , there living amongft us.) to give the one halfe of his Eftate (it being in all about 1750. 1. ) to- wards theerecting of a Colledge, and all his Library: after him ano- ther gave 300. 1. others after them caft in more, and the publique hand of the State added the reft : the Colledge was, ,by common confent, appointed to be at Cambridge, (a place very pleasant and ac. commodate and is called (according to the name of the firft found der) Harta-d Celledge.
The Edifice is very faire and comely within and without, having in it a fpacious Hall' ; (where they daily meet at Common, Lectures] and Exercises ) and a large Library with fome Bookes to it, the gifts of diverfe
From the Harvard University Library
FIRST PRINTED REFERENCE TO JOHN HARVARD
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INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE
suspended for dinner, to be resumed again at one and con- tinued until five. During the summer months, however, the grammar-school day extended to ten hours, that is, from six to eleven, and then from one to six." The "long vacation" in those days was but a week's holiday in September. "Not an unfitting early discipline, this, for one who had the hard conditions of New England life before him."
Recent research enables us to reconstruct with fair ac- curacy the work of the small boy during these long days. Latin Grammar,-conjugations, declensions and innumerable rules,-memorized without understanding, and driven home by the rod for which he had paid, constituted the beginning. A long series of more or less well graded text-books in Latin ac- companied the study of the grammar. A similar statement applies to the study of Greek during the last three or four years of the course. Translations from Latin and Greek into English and back again, the writing of prose compositions of numerous kinds in Latin and Greek, declamations, dia- logues and plays in Latin and less frequently in Greek, were the order of the day. In schools under the Puritan influence, at this period, Christian authors, at least those not conspicu- ously pagan and immoral, were selected for reading.
INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE
"Even more potent in moulding the character of the youth- ful John Harvard was the influence of the Bible. Try as we may, we cannot fully realize what that sacred volume was to Englishmen of the seventeenth century. Listen to some voices of that actual time: 'Englishmen are so eager for the gospel as to affirm that they would buy a New Testa- ment even if they had to give a hundred thousand pieces of money for it.' Again: 'It is wonderful to see with what joy this book of God was received among all the vulgar and common people; and with what greediness God's Word was read. Everybody that could bought the book, or busily read it, or got others to read it to them, and divers elderly people learned to read on purpose. And even little boys flocked among the rest to hear portions of the holy Scripture read.' "Those who retain a vivid memory of the profound interest
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HARVARD COLLEGE
which was awakened by the publication of the Revised Ver- sion of the New Testament possess slight clue to the intense excitement which swept over England when the Bible at last became an open book for all. Yet even such will fail to take full account of all the circumstances of that unique event. To the seeing eye, the pages of this book were blackened with the smoke, and charred with the flames, and stained with the blood of martyrdoms. It came, too, in an age of profound spiritual tension. The old faith had crumbled to dust, and the eyes of earnest men were straining into the darkness to find a new temple for the soul. Nor should it be forgotten that the advent of the Bible took place at an era when lofty verse and stirring tragedy had created a new hunger in the hearts of men. To all those needs this one book gave a per- fect answer. As it was read aloud in the churches, or in the family circle when the day's work was done, what enviable sensations took possession of those who heard for the first time the legend of the world's creation from the void and darkness of the face of the great deep; who followed with the zest of utter novelty the journeyings of the chosen race towards the promised land; who saw with new vision the labours and triumphs of the kings of Israel; whose ears drank in the stately cadence of Hebrew song and psalms; whose souls thrilled under the stern denunciations of prophets' voices or were enthralled with the untoward beauty of the parables of Christ. Coming as the Bible did to a people practically without books, and yearning for the accents of the voice of God, it is little wonder that the speech of those people became compact of its very words and phrases, or that to them this volume became not only a lamp to their feet in the narrow path that led to heaven, but also a beacon to their wanderings in the world that now is."
CAMBRIDGE : COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITY
From the grammar school we may follow John Harvard to the University of Cambridge. A glance at the organization of this institution at the time of his entrance will throw much light on the early history of Harvard College.
In 1627 the University of Cambridge included sixteen col-
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leges, of which the earliest had been founded in 1284, the last in 1596. Named in the order of their foundation they were Peterhouse, Clare, Pembroke, Gonville and Cains, Trinity Hall, Corpus Christi, King's, Queen's, St. Catherine's, Jesus, Christ's, St. John's, Magadlene, Trinity, Emmanuel and Sid- ney Sussex. Each college was organized as an independent unit, with its own buildings, endowments, statutes, officers and students. Each had been founded by gifts from indi- viduals or societies. Each was more or less endowed with money, or with lands and tenements. The income from the endowment provided for the upkeep of the college buildings, for the support of a certain number of officers (usually called Fellows) and for scholarships for a fixed number of students who were distinguished as "scholars" or "foundationers". Scholarships or "exhibitions" were sometimes established also by later benefactors of the college, just as in American col- leges of to-day. Entrance fees, tuition fees, graduation and other fees, and charges for room, board and "buttery", fur- nished the additional income required.
The colleges were, (and are) more or less scattered about the town. They differed greatly in wealth, in size of build- ings and in number of officers and students. The buildings of each were usually arranged, or planned, in one or more quadrangles, with suitable grounds. These buildings included dormitory rooms and studies for officers and students, a chapel, a library, a dining hall (or "commons") with the necessary kitchens and servant's quarters, and a "buttery". This last had little to do with butter. It was a room in which were kept butts or casks of beer, together with bread, fruit, and other refreshments for students. Beer in those days took the place of tea and coffee,-which were then scarcely even known in England,-and the student's breakfast was often a "sizing" (half pint) of beer and a "sizing" (quarter loaf) of bread. The buttery was open at fixed hours, two or three times a day. The sizings were often given out by a student waiter, known as a "sizar".
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