Erratum

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

The "recent investigations into the early history of Harvard" mentioned in your front-page article on Saturday, are revolutionary, if true. If these "researches" have uncovered the "original plan of John Harvard and his fellow pioneers" to found small colleges on the English model, they have discovered something that all historians of Harvard have hitherto sought in vain.

It is true that our early college buildings were called "colleges" instead of "halls;" but that does not mean they were colleges in the English sense. As late as 1812, the corporation "Voted, that the new College be called Holworthy Hall in honor to the memory of Sir Matthew Holworthy, deceased." There was no plan for a dining hall or common room in Holworthy. Your statement that "each building was a separate unit with its own sleeping quarters, kitchen, dining room and in many cases Library is incorrect. That statement was made about 25 years ago, and conclusively disproved by Albert Matthews, in Dialect; Notes, 11, 91-114. In the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries the so-called "colleges" merely dormitories, with the exception of Harvard Hall, which contained the one college commons, kitchen, buttery, and library. Even the aborigines, in the short-lived "Indian Colledge," ate in the commons, which perhaps explains why all but one died or ran away before graduation. That and all the other "colleges" were in law and fact, simply buildings of Harvard College. Very truly yours,   S. E. Morison '08.