AFTER God had carried us safe to New England, and wee had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, rear’d convenient places for Gods worship, and settled the Civill 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 Ministery to the Churches, when our present Ministers shall lie in the Dust. And as wee were thinking and consulting how to effect this great Work; it pleased God to stir up the heart of one Mr. Harvard (a godly Gentlemen and a lover of Learning, there living amongst us) to give the one halfe of his Estate…towards the erecting of a Colledge, and all his Library…
“Rules, and Precepts that are observed in the Colledge… Let every Student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the maine end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternall life, John 17:3 and therefore to lay Christ in the bottome, as the only foundation of all found knowledge and Learning…”
“Old South Leaflets”, Taken from a letter dated Boston, Sept. 26, 1642
