A bachelor’s degree is requisite for entrance to the professional schools (except that of dentistry), and the master’s degree (since 1872) is given to students only for graduate work in residence, and rarely to other persons as an honorary degree. In scholarship and in growth of academic freedom Germany has given the quickening impulse. This influence began with George Ticknor and Edward Everett, who were trained in Germany, and was continued by a number of eminent German scholars, some driven into exile for their liberalism, who became professors in the second half of the 19th century, and above all by the many members of the faculty still later trained in German universities. The ideas of recognizing special students and introducing the elective system were suggested in 1824, attaining establishment even for freshmen by 1885, the movement characterizing particularly the years 1865–1885. The basis of the elective system (as in force in 1910) is freedom in choice of studies within liberal limits; and, as regards admission to college[1] (completely established 1891), the idea that the admission is of minds for the quality of their training and not for their knowledge of particular subjects, and that any subject may be acceptable for such training if followed with requisite devotion and under proper methods. Except for one course in English in the Freshman year, and one course in French or German for those who do not on entrance present both of these languages, no study is prescribed, but the student is compelled to select a certain number of courses in some one department or field of learning, and to distribute the remainder among other departments, the object being to secure a systematic education, based on the principle of knowing a little of everything and something well.
The material equipment of Harvard is very rich. In 1909 it included invested funds of $22,716,760 ($2,257,990 in 1869) and lands and buildings valued at $12,000,000 at least. In 1908–1909 an income of more than $130,000 was distributed in scholarships, fellowships, prizes and other aids to students. The yearly income available for immediate use from all sources in 1899–1904 averaged $1,074,229, of which $452,760 yearly represented gifts. The total gifts, for funds and for current use, in the same years aggregated $6,152,988. The income in 1907–1908 was $1,846,976; $241,924 was given for immediate use, and $449,822 was given for capital. The medical school is well endowed and is housed in buildings (1906) on Longwood Avenue, Boston; the gifts for its buildings and endowments made in 1901–1902 aggregate $5,000,000. Among the university buildings are two dining-halls accommodating some 2500 students, a theatre for public ceremonies, a chapel, a home for religious societies, a club-home (the Harvard Union) for graduates and undergraduates, an infirmary, gymnasium, boat houses and large playgrounds, with a concrete stadium capable of seating 27,000 spectators. Massachusetts Hall (1720) is the oldest building. University Hall (1815), the administration building, dignified, of excellent proportions and simple lines, is a good example of the work of Charles Bulfinch. Memorial Hall (1874), an ambitious building of cathedral suggestion, commemorates the Harvard men who fell in the Civil War, and near it is an ideal statue (1884) of John Harvard by Daniel C. French. The medical and dental schools are in Boston, and the Bussey Institution and Arnold Arboretum are at Jamaica Plain.
Radcliffe College, essentially a part of Harvard, dates from the beginning of systematic instruction of women by members of the Harvard faculty in 1879, the Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women being formally organized in 1882. The present name was adopted in 1894 in honour of Ann Radcliffe, Lady Mowlson (ob. c. 1661), widow of Sir Thomas Mowlson, alderman and (1634) lord mayor of London, who in 1643 founded the first scholarship in Harvard College. From 1894 also dates the present official connexion of Radcliffe with Harvard. The requirements for admission and for degrees are the same as in Harvard (whose president countersigns all diplomas), and the president and fellows of Harvard control absolutely the administration of the college, although it has for immediate administration a separate government. Instruction is given by members of the university teaching force, who repeat in Radcliffe many of the Harvard courses. Many advanced courses in Harvard, and to a certain extent laboratory facilities, are directly accessible to Radcliffe students, and they have unrestricted access to the library.
The presidents of Harvard have been: Henry Dunster (1640–1654); Charles Chauncy (1654–1672); Leonard Hoar (1672–1675); Urian Oakes (1675–1681); John Rogers (1682–1684); Increase Mather (1685–1701); Charles Morton (vice-president) (1697–1698); Samuel Willard (1700–1707); John Leverett (1708–1724); Benjamin Wadsworth (1725–1737); Edward Holyoke (1737–1769); Samuel Locke (1770–1773); Samuel Langdon (1774–1780); Joseph Willard (1781–1804); Samuel Webber (1806–1810); John Thornton Kirkland (1810–1828); Josiah Quincy (1829–1845); Edward Everett (1846–1849); Jared Sparks (1849–1853); James Walker (1853–1860); Cornelius Conway Felton (1860–1862); Thomas Hill (1862–1868); Charles William Eliot (1869–1909); Abbott Lawrence Lowell (appointed 1909).
Authorities.—Benjamin Peirce, A History of Harvard University 1636–1775 (Boston, 1883); Josiah Quincy, A History of Harvard University (2 vols., Boston, 1840); Samuel A. Eliot, Harvard College and its Benefactors (Boston, 1848); H. C. Shelley, John Harvard and his Times (Boston, 1907); The Harvard Book (2 vols., Cambridge, 1874); G. Birkbeck Hill, Harvard College, by an Oxonian (New York, 1894); William R. Thayer, “History and Customs of Harvard University,” in Universities and their Sons, vol. i. (Boston, 1898); Official Guide to Harvard, and the various other publications of the university; also the Harvard Graduates’ Magazine (1892 sqq.).
HARVEST (A.S. hærfest “autumn,” O.H. Ger. herbist,
possibly through an old Teutonic root representing Lat. carpere,
“to pluck”), the season of the ingathering of crops. Harvest has
been a season of rejoicing from the remotest ages. The ancient
Jews celebrated the Feast of Pentecost as their harvest festival,
the wheat ripening earlier in Palestine. The Romans had their
Cerealia or feasts in honour of Ceres. The Druids celebrated
their harvest on the 1st of November. In pre-reformation
England Lammas Day (Aug. 1st, O.S.) was observed at the beginning
of the harvest festival, every member of the church
presenting a loaf made of new wheat. Throughout the world
harvest has always been the occasion for many queer customs
which all have their origin in the animistic belief in the Corn-Spirit
or Corn-Mother. This personification of the crops has left
its impress upon the harvest customs of modern Europe. In
west Russia, for example, the figure made out of the last sheaf of
corn is called the Bastard, and a boy is wrapped up in it. The
woman who binds this sheaf represents the “Cornmother,” and
an elaborate simulation of childbirth takes place, the boy in the
sheaf squalling like a new-born child, and being, on his liberation,
wrapped in swaddling bands. Even in England vestiges of
sympathetic magic can be detected. In Northumberland, where
the harvest rejoicing takes place at the close of the reaping and
not at the ingathering, as soon as the last sheaf is set on end
the reapers shout that they have “got the kern.” An image
formed of a wheatsheaf, and dressed in a white frock and
coloured ribbons, is hoisted on a pole. This is the “kern-baby”
or harvest-queen, and it is carried back in triumph with music
and shouting and set up in a prominent place during the harvest
supper. In Scotland the last sheaf if cut before Hallowmas is
called the “maiden,” and the youngest girl in the harvest-field
is given the privilege of cutting it. If the reaping finishes after
Hallowmas the last corn cut is called the Cailleach (old woman).
In some parts of Scotland this last sheaf is kept till Christmas
morning and then divided among the cattle “to make them
- ↑ The requirements for admission as changed in 1908 are based on the “unit system”; satisfactory marks must be got in subjects aggregating 26 units, the unit being a measure of preparatory study. Of these 26 units, English (4 units), algebra (2), plane geometry (2), some science or sciences (2), history (2; either Greek and Roman, or American and English), a modern language (2; French and German) are prescribed; prospective candidates for the degree of A.B. are required to take examinations for 4 additional units in Greek or Latin, and for the other 8 points have large range of choice; and candidates for the degree of S.B. must take additional examinations in French or German (2 units) and have a similar freedom of choice in making up the remaining 10 units.
