Harvard History

Monday, May 23, 2011

Statue of three lies

So I watched the "Social Network" movie for the 2nd time and I came across this scene where they're at this fraternity initiation ritual and they're standing next to Harvard's statue of three lies and it came across my mind that it'd be nice to write an article about this old and prestigious college.

New College

New College or Harvard, back in the day

Harvard was founded in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, making it the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Initially called "New College" or "the college at New Towne", the institution was renamed Harvard College on March 13, 1639. It was named after John Harvard, a young English clergyman from Southwark, London, an alumnus of the University of Cambridge, where he recieved his Bachelor of Arts degree, who bequeathed the College his library of four hundred books and £779 pounds sterling, which was half of his estate.
Harvard is one of the nine institutions chartered in the American Colonies called The Colonial Colleges. Seven of the nine colonial colleges are part of the Ivy League athletic conference: Harvard, Yale, Penn, Princeton, Columbia, Brown, and Dartmouth. The two colonial colleges not in the Ivy League are now both public universities—The College of William & Mary and Rutgers University, the state university of New Jersey.  Harvard's history, influence, and wealth have made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world.

Presitge

Harvard Shield

Harvard University has 12 degree granting Schools in addition to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. The University has grown from nine students with a single master to an enrollment of more than 20,000 degree candidates including undergraduate, graduate, and professional students. There are more than 360,000 living alumni in the U.S. and over 190 other countries. Harvard has the largest financial endowment of any academic institution in the world, standing at $27.4 billion as of September 2010. Eight U.S. Presidents have graduated with a degree from Harvard and 75 Nobel Laureates have been affiliated with the university as students, faculty, or staff. Harvard is also the alma mater of sixty-two living billionaires, the most in the country. The Harvard University Library is the largest academic library in the United States, and the second largest library in the country, right after The Library of Congress.

U.S. Presidents and Honorary College Degrees

After George Washington kicked the British in 1776, Harvard confered an honorary degree upon the General. Since then, a few other men who were, or were to become U.S. presidents, have recieved honorary college degrees:

John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Herbert C. Hoover, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy.

Nowadays, you can get your degree online and its way cheaper but the live college experience is much better.
I wanna go to a prestigious college and get a Bachelor of History degree, so I'm gonna put a donate button on the side bar soon so you can colaborate on my quest to going to college (I wanna get a scholarship) and get my degree.

Source: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_University

http://www.news.harvard.edu/guide/content/history-harvard-university/