The further remaining official legal acts for the establishment of the college were few and simple. Six years, to the very day, after the passing of the vote founding the college, in the year of 1642, was passed an act by the General Court at Boston establishing the Overseers of Harvard College. Full power and authority for instructing, guiding, and furthering of the college and its members in piety, morality, and learning, and in all material concerns, was given to the Overseers of the College, among whom were the teaching elders of the six nearest towns. It was seen that this Board was too large to take up the direction of the college. After eight years, therefore, a charter was granted by the General Court which made the college a Corporation. This Corporation consisted of a president, five fellows, and a treasurer. It was a close corporation, choosing its own members. It was known and is known at the present time as President and Fellows of Harvard College. The granting of the charter did not do away with the existence of the Board of Overseers. From that early time until the present the Corporation and the Board of Overseers have, despite several attempts to change the government of the college, remained as co-working, and, in certain respects, as coördinate bodies. The general relation of the Overseers to the Corporation is expressed in a phrase of the charter of 1650," provided the said orders be allowed by the Over

seers."

The Corporation has the power of initiative; its field of action covers the entire field of collegiate administration, intellectual and material; but its acts are subject to revision by the Board of Overseers. Thus there was introduced into the organization of the American college the double system of control. This system was, with modifications, an adaptation of the Upper and Lower House, which has prevailed in most political governments, either republican, or of the constitutional monarchical type. Into the second college founded in New England was introduced the system of control by a single body.

The method of academic government thus established was somewhat like that in force at Oxford and Cambridge. Harvard College, as established, has a government similar both to the university system and to the college system. It did not, however,

adopt the method of control and government of a college or university by its own immediate teaching force. The control was put outside of what to-day would be called the Faculty. The leading men of the Massachusetts Colony were wise. The history of the government of the two great English universities and their colleges by their own fellows and immediate members has, on the whole, been a history of jealousy, inconsistency, and inefficiency.

The simplicity, however, of the academic government was and is in marked contrast with the elaborateness of the government of the English university. The contrast in the educational field is as great as it is in the ecclesiastical. The independency of the Congregational Church in America is somewhat akin to the simplicity of the organization of the first college. The University of Oxford is governed by at least four bodies. The first is the House of Convocation, which is the supreme governing body making permanent statutes or temporary decrees and controlling expenditures. The second body is the Congregation of the University of Oxford, which is, in a sense, the lower house of the Convocation. Before a statute is introduced into the Convocation it must be passed by the Congregation. The Congregation alone has the right of amending statutes. The third body is the Ancient House of Congregation, which is a power somewhat similar to the Congregation. Its fourth body is the Hebdomadal Council, which may be called a still lower house, having the exclusive right of making all proposals which are finally laid before Convocation. In addition to this quadrilateral method of control the University holds relation to the individual colleges. The colleges are distinct corporations, and over them the University has no legal control. But every student of a college is also a member of the University. The University requires that each of its members shall be a member of a college. James Bryce has compared the relation between the colleges and the University to the relation existing between the separate States of the United States and the General Government; the comparison is, on the whole, fairly exact. But such elaborate and complex methods of academic control the founders of the first college in America swept entirely away.

The first Master of Harvard College was Nathaniel Eaton,

The college was called school as well as college, and its chief officer was known as schoolmaster. Of Eaton little can be said. It is fortunate for his reputation that so little can be said, for the little is bad, and significant of worse. At the time of his coming to America his age was about thirty. He seems to embody all unworthy qualities, and few or none worthy. Passionate, revengeful, cruel, stubborn, ungrateful, vain, he had all the evil characteristics of Keate, of Eton-who reigned for a quarter of a century-without the great qualities which make Keate's administration magnificent. His whippings of students-and whippings continued to be for a century a method of academic discipline-were clubbings. His confessions of too great severity were the wailings of the hypocrite. Under sentence of court and church he escaped to Virginia. For about a score of years in that domain he tried to unite the duties of the clergyman with the habits of the drunkard. On the restoration of Charles II. he returned to England and became a clergyman of the Church. Having the traditional bitterness of the new convert toward former associates, he persecuted dissenters. His end was a fitting crown to his life; he died in prison, where he was sent for debt. Eaton's dismissal from Harvard reminds one of the exclusion of Belsire, the first president of St. John's, Oxford, from his office for cheating the founder.

In this academic pillory which tradition has erected stands, with Eaton, his wife. Her association with the early college is hardly less evil than her husband's. If his character was bad, the food which she offered the students was worse. The lack of beef, the badness of fish, the sourness of bread, represent conditions against which the men complained, and to which Mrs. Eaton confessed. The revolt against Mrs. Eaton is the first of many bread-and-butter rebellions which help to make the history of education in America picturesque. That the commons were not permanently bad is evidenced by the pleasant fact that in 1646, Mitchel, a tutor, thought so well of the provision that on the occasion of his marriage the supper was served from the college buttery.

The first officer of Harvard College to bear the title of President was Henry Dunster. The title has come, with a few excep

tions, to stand for the chief executive of the American college. Other titles are more common in Oxford and Cambridge. The head of University College, of Balliol and of Pembroke is called Master; of Merton, New, All Souls, Wadham, Keble, Warden; of Exeter and Lincoln, Rector; of Oriel, Queens, Worcester, Provost; of Christ Church, Dean; of Brasenose, Jesus, and Hertford, Principal; and the head of Magdalene, Corpus, Trinity, and St. John is called President. With the exception of provost, as the Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, and of Chancellor, preserved in a few State universities, the title of president has usually been applied to the head of the American college and university. The chief officer of Yale was, however, for almost its first half century known as Rector.

Dunster was chosen president at the beginning of the academic year of 1640 and 1641. He was a graduate of Magdalene, Cambridge a Puritan stronghold, like Sidney and Emmanuel. He came to his office in America at the time when the similar office at the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge was increasing in usefulness and dignity. The Puritan party abroad demanded that the head of a college should be a clergyman. This demand. was opposed by some, who declared that the duties of certain headships could be better performed by a layman. Fuller, in his happy sketch, of happy title, "The Good Master of a College," affirms that ability as an administrator is, in certain conditions, more important than clerical relationships. Fuller holds that the duties of a head of a college consist in being a good example in observing the college laws, in the proper carrying forward of college discipline, in basing elections to fellowships upon merit, and in supervising the financial interests of the foundation. It is apparent that Dunster embodied the Puritan demand and the qualities which Fuller names in a somewhat unusual degree.

Magdalene was distinguished above others of the Cambridge colleges by the power which it intrusted to its president. How far, therefore, the example of this office fitted Dunster to be the first president of America's first college may be asked, but the question cannot be answered. But in ability and in training it is plain that Dunster was well fitted to be the first in a great succession. He is called by his contemporaries" learned, rever

ent, and judicious, . . . abundantly fitted and conscionable, . . . industrious "; his preaching was described as "very powerful to a man's affection," and what is quite as important, in the opinion of some college men, he was able to have a "good inspection in the well ordering of things for the students' maintenance." He seems to have united vigilance, judgment, knowledge, and the power of initiative. Under him the college was formally established; its rules were made, its laws framed, its conditions fixed. For the six years after its founding, the college was rather a personal association than a formal and complete corporation. The legal conditions became more fixed in 1642. In securing them Dunster was probably useful; and for the granting of the charter of 1650 he was a most efficient agent. He was a benefactor as well as an administrator. He contributed of his little property towards its support. With the aid of friends he built the first President's House. He established the first Students' Aid Society. He urged the Commissioners of the United Colonies to recommend that every family contribute a quarter part of a bushel of corn, or its equivalent, for the diet of needy students. He was the first college president to appeal for books for the college library. He especially asked for works in law, philosophy, physics, and mathematics.

Dunster was a man of the modern spirit-alert, aggressive, of high purposes, tireless, human. He had a sternness that at times seemed to approach severity, and a fixedness in aim that gave ground for the charge of stubbornness.

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The service which President Dunster rendered to the college, and through the college to humanity, was not only academic. In the fall of 1638 the Rev. Jesse Glover left England, bearing along in his ship a printing press. The press was in due time set up in Cambridge, but Glover himself had died on the passage. By the direction of the officers of the colony it was made appendage to Harvard College." The press, however, was the property of the widow of Glover. In the year 1641 Dunster married her, and to him as President of the College, and the husband of the widow of the former owner, the press came to hold a special relationship. The residence of the first President of Harvard College became the first printing office in America. It