So when Harry Vane was
Governor the colonists voted ?400 with which to build a school.
This is the first time known to history that the people themselves
voted their own money to found a school.
It was decided to build the school at "Newtown." But the Cambridge
men did not like the name, so they got it changed to Cambridge,
"to tell their posterity whence they came."
Shortly before this a young Cambridge man named John Harvard had
come out to Massachusetts. Very little is known of him save that he
came of simple folk, and was good and learned. "A godly gentleman
and lover of learning," old writers call him. "A scholar and pious
in his life, and enlarged towards the country and the good of it,
in life and in death."
Soon after he came to Boston this godly gentleman was made minister
of the church at Charlestown. But he was very delicate and in a
few months he died. As a scholar and a Cambridge man he had been
greatly interested in the building of the college at Cambridge. So
when he died he left half his money and all his books to it. The
settlers were very grateful for this bequest, and to show their
gratitude they decided to name the college after John Harvard.
Thus the first University in America was founded. From the beginning
the college was a pleasant place, "more like a bowling green than
a wilderness," said one man.
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