EMMANUEL AND HARVARD

John Harvard as a figure is well-known to the twentieth century. His birthday is recorded annually in editorials. He sits in statue form before Memorial Hall and his supposed likeness makes frequent appearances through the cartoons on newspaper sport pages. But of John Harvard the man, of his background and setting undergraduates of today know little. His name is coupled with Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and there information ends.

A glance at Emmanuel of the seventeenth century throws interesting light on the influences acting and reacting upon the contemporary "younger generation." Founded ostensibly to train orthodox ministers, Emmanuel tended more and more to rear Puritans and Calvinists. Chaderton, its first master, while maintaining his connection with the Church of England, was one of the most respected and most powerful supporters of the Puritan ideals. So eloquent and absorbing were his sermons that at the end of one two-hour session, he was greeted by shouts of "For God's sake, sir, go on, go on," from his student audience. As far as is known, this has never occurred at Appleton Chapel.

This strong Puritan tendency at Cambridge, and particularly at Emmanuel College, disregarded by the sensible Elizabeth was a source of much disturbance to King James. The worthy king after paying two visits to his completely loyal and orthodox University at Oxford, finally came to Cambridge, where all the colleges except Emmanuel painted their buildings, and re-gravelled their walks in his honor. In spite of this cordial reception the king issued orders that no one should receive a degree until he had signed the three. Articles of the High Church doctrine. How John Harvard, John Cotton, Thomas Hooker and other stalwart dissenters reconciled themselves to this performance might be an interesting story Probably they had their fingers crossed when they signed.

At any rate, when John Harvard entered Emmanuel, the king's regulations had been in force for some time and many of the colleges were beginning to show perceptible High Church tinge. But Emmanuel, due to the influence mainly of Chaderton, who still lived there though no longer master, was strongly non-conformist; all the decadent wits of the time rail at "pure Emmanuel". It held itself aloof from the rest of the University, and kept its own council and habits. When the other colleges accepted the inevitable and worshipped according to the king's command. Emmanuel alone refused to conform and probably because of the respect for Chaderton, was not severely penalized.

Thus it was that many of the Puritans who founded the Massachusetts colonies had gone, not only to Cambridge, but to Emmanuel College in particular. And having seen the evils of prescribed religious exercises, John Harvard omitted any such prescription in the bequest upon which Harvard College was founded. The alarm which many of the colonists felt at the thought of this "godless university" resulted in the foundation of Yale, intended to pour forth a stream of "untainted Calvinists". Since that time, according to a visiting Englishman of the nineteenth century, Yale men have always been horrified by the irreverence of Cambridge, while Harvard men inevitably regard the pious Elis as praying hypocrites.