Washington College Seeks Harvard's Title

A news release from Washington College yesterday might have led editors throughout the country to write the following lead:

"A little college in Chestertown, Md., has officially challenged Harvard's reputation as the oldest college in the United States. Washington College (enrollment 513) said yesterday that documentary evidence has proved that it was first founded in 1633, three years before Harvard."

But this publicity attempt by Washington was found to be false last night when Bedford J. Groves, publicity officer at the school, admitted by phone that the release was merely a reprint of a fictitious article published in the Association of American Colleges Bulletin.

According to the article, a tablet had been unearthed at Washington which said, "To ye Glory of Almighty God/Here Estabd ye Kent Schoole. 1633/Wm. Cleburne/Capt. Nicholas Martian/Richd. James." This was supposed to prove conclusively that Washington was three years ahead of Harvard. Actually, Washington was not founded until 1781, and the tablet story was not true.

The author used as a pseudonym a Washington professor's name, writing the article to burlesque the attempts of certain schools to falsify their historical backgrounds. "why are we doing this?" he said in the article. "Our reason is to make the whole battle for historical precedence so foolish that the Association of American Colleges or some similarly comprehensive agency will devise a clear standard for establishing the founding dates of colleges and universities."

Always speaking through a fictitious figure, the author said some colleges "pre-date their founding to that of an antecedent preparatory school, regardless sometimes of any gap in time between the demise of the prep school and the chartering of the college."

A fictitious Harvard President Henry L. Cabot was quoted as defending the University in the following manner: "Harvard University has not sought historical precedence in the past. It will not do so in the future. The strictures on current practices are well and just. We assume that if his censure produces the results he hopes for, his fine old college will resume 1782 as its date of founding. Harvard will again be first."