Amherst (ăm' ĕrst), a town of Massachusetts, about 82 miles west of Boston. It is known as the seat of Amherst College, a Congregational institution founded in 1821. The original purpose of the college was to educate young men for the ministry. There are now 50 instructors and 502 students, with an art gallery, a library of 52,000 volumes, memorial chapel, gymnasium, observatory and rare museum of Indian relics, Nineveh antiquities, minerals and tracks in stone. It has a fine collection of casts from famous statuary, a park of twenty-six acres, with ball and tennis grounds. Near the town is the Massachusetts Agricultural College, considered one of the best agricultural schools in America. Population, 5,112.
