Professorships Perpetuate Memory of Founders Two Hundred Years Ago

The following article, appearing in the current Alumni Bulletin, tells of the founding of the first endowed professorship at the University. These efforts to perpetuate chairs of learning in the University met with little approval at first, but their development and their ultimate success are the subjects of the accompanying article.

The professorships in Harvard University are for the greater part established and maintained by endowments. The names of the donors are in most cases perpetuated in the titles of the professorships. Some of the benefactions which were bestowed many years ago, although they were considered ample at that time, now amount to only a small fraction of what the professors receive.

The first endowed professorship for instance, was based on a annual income of about 200 dollars a year. There are many other cases where the salary for an endowed chair is paid largely by the University.

First Endowed Chair in 1721

The College had existed for 85 years before an endowed professorship was established. In 1721, Thomas Hollis gave the foundation fund for the professorship of divinity which still bears his name. He endowed Harvard outright with a sum of money, the interest of which 40 pounds per year, was to be the "honorable stipend" of Professor of Divinity, "to read lectures in the Hall of the College unto the students; the said Professor to be nominated and appointed from time to time by the President and Fellows of Harvard College; and when choice is made of a fitting person, to be recommended to me for my approbation, if I be yet living."

Ropes is Present Incumbent

Before the terms of the endowment were made satisfactory to all concerned, there was a good deal of wrangling and bitterness in Cambridge. However, at the end of 1721, Edward Wigglesworth was chosen the first professor under the amended articles of the endowment and he served long and honorably in that capacity. The present incumbent of the chair is Professor J. H. Ropes'89.

Hollis also established in 1727 a professorship of mathematics and natural philosophy. He had long meditated the subject, and wrote concerning it to his friend, Benjamin Colman, as follows: "Though jeered and sneered at by many I leave the issue to the Lord, for whose sake Isperform these offices and services, and hope I shall be enabled to continue firm and finish this affair, which I call a good work."

He called upon five learned friends to submit plans for the foundation of the professorships and handed these over to the Corporation for their selection and approval of the best. Isaac Greenwood '85 was appointed the first professor of this foundation. The present holder of the chair is Theodore Lyman '97.

Chair of Hebrew Founded

It was not until 1764 that a third endowed professorship was established at Harvard. In that year Thomas Hancock, uncle of the hero of the Revolution, founded by the terms of his will, a professorship of Hebrew and other oriental languages. For this purpose he bequeathed 1,000 pounds sterling, the income from which was to defray the expenses of the professor. Hancock, who was the first native American to lay the foundation of a professorship in any literary institution in this country, was born in Lexington. Stephen Sewall '21 was the first professor under this endowment. The present incumbent is W. R. Arnold.

Boylston Left 1500 Pounds

From this time onward the endowment of professorships at Harvard rapidly increased. Nicholas Boylston of Boston, when he died in 1771, bequeathed to the College 1,500 pounds for the foundation of a "Professorship of Rhetoric and Oratory." The Corporation in rendering its thanks for the donation, asked the executors of the will to permit a full length portrait of Boylston to be drawn, at the expense of the College, and placed in Harvard Hall, with those of Hollis and Hancock. The painting, which was executed by Copley, is considered one of the most successful and finished examples of the work of that distinguished artist. The list of holders of the Boylston Professorships includes such famous names as John Quincy Adams '87, Francis James Child '46, Adams Sherman Hill '53, LeBaron Russell Briggs '16, and the present incumbent, Charles Townsend Copland '82.

Medical Teaching Starts in 1782

In 1782 the Corporation of Harvard College broadened the scope of the institution by establishing medical professorships. The money to finance the project was not in sight, but the officers of the college promised that complete anatomical and chemical apparatus, a proper place for dissections and chemical operations, as well as the requisite books, should be provided "as soon as there shall be sufficient, benefactions for these purposes," and that professors should be appointed "as soon as ways and means can be devised for raising sufficient sums for their encouragement." Meanwhile, the Corporation proposed to elect to the professorships. "Some gentlemen of public spirit and distinguished abilities, who would undertake the business, for the present, for the fees that may be obtained from those who would readily attend their lectures." Thus uncertainly were laid the first foundations of the present Medical School.

Edmund Trowbridge '28, and Richard Cary '63, as executors of the will of John Alford, who had died in 1761, established in Harvard College, according to the desires of Alford, in 1789, the Alford Professorship of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity. Alford's will left $10,000 each to Harvard College; the "College of New Jersey", now Princeton; and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Indians.

The first incumbent of the Alford Professorship was Levi Frisbie '02. He was followed by Levi Hedge '92, James Walker '11, Francis Bowen '33, G. H. Palmer '64, Josiah Royce '11 and W. E. Horking '01.

The Erving Professorship of Chemistry and Material Medical was created by the bequest of 1000 pounds by Major William Erving '53 in 1791. Erving was a veteran of the British army, but avoided serving in the American Revolution because he was a native of Boston. After the war he lived in Jamaica Plain and turned his interests toward Harvard.

The Massachusetts Professorship of Natural History was founded in 1805 by a $30,000 gift jointly provided for Harvard by a number of friends of the college W. D. Peck '82 was chosen by the subscribers as the first Professor and he served under this foundation until 1822.

Dexter Interested in Theology

Samuel Dexter on his death in 1810, bequeathed to Harvard University $5,000 to promote "a critical knowledge of the Holy Scriptures." He had been a very well known citizen in this country. He took a leading part in the cause of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay as a member of the Provincial Assembly and later of the Provincial Congress. During the latter part of his long life he devoted himself almost entirely to the study of theology, concerning which subject he held firm and very definite opinions. His funds, the management of which he had inputted to the President and Fellows of Harvard College and five associates, to be elected by them, and of whom "three were to be clergymen, and two not of that order" were used to establish the Dexter Lectureship on Biblical Criticism. Professor J. H. Ropes '89 has held the Dexter Lectureship for the past 23 years.

Gifts Speed Theological School

The Theological School was not formally organized until some years later: funds were lacking for its efficient functioning although in 1813 Samuel Parkman of Boston, a wealthy and public spirited merchant conveyed to the Collage a township of land in Maine "for the support of a Professor in Theology." The benefits of this gift were great in prospect, but it was of he immediate help to the department.

In April, 1814, the Corporation was informed that a gentleman whose name was not to be mentioned had appropriated $20,000 to found in Harvard University a Professorship of Greek Language and Literature; and that the desire of the donor was not to be known or named as its founder Votes of thanks for this, the largest sum that had been bestowed upon the College by a benefactor during his lifetime, were immediately passed by the Corporation, together with an expression of "regret at not being allowed to know or publish the name of the donor," and a prayer "to Him with Whom is the issue of all human counsels and efforts, to bless this design to impart a benefit to successive generations."

Eliot Was Anonymous Donor

In the following year Rev. Edward Everett was elected professor on this foundation. Five years later, in 1820, after the death of Samuel Eliot '60 of Boston, it was announced that he had been the founder of this professorship. The Corporation then voted to call the foundation the "Eliot Professorship of Greek Literature," and further, that "they are apprized of Mr. Eliot's sincere reluctance at the idea of receiving a posthumous distinction of this nature, in consequence of his beneficence to the University; but that they are also satisfied that he would submit his private wishes in this particular to public considerations, and are convinced that this mode of perpetuating his enlarged and generous views is not merely a proper indication of gratitude to a distinguished benefactor but essentially conductive to all those interests of the University, which he had so much at heart; and therefore they feel authorized to adopt this measure."

The present holder of the Eliot Professorship is C. B. Gulick '90.

Royall Makes Bequest of Land

Under the will of Isaac Royall, who died in 1781, Harvard College received a bequest of more than 2,000 acres of land in the towns of Granby and Royalton, in Worcester County, Mass. The donor, who was born in Antigua, was the son of a merchant of great wealth, who, having purchased extensive estates in New England, had emigrated to Massachusetts in 1738. Isaac Royall settled in Charlestown, of which town he was a Representative for nine years. Later, he became a Counsellor, and held that office until 1774. However, says Josiah Quincy '28, "his judgment was not in unison with the patriotic spirit of the times. After the battle of Lexington he sailed for England, where he remained until his death." His former popularity saved his estates from confiscation under the "conspirators act," but the Government took possession of his property under the fact for confiscating the estates of certain persons called absentees," and an agent was appointed for its care and management. Royall complained bitterly of this interference, declaring that he fully intended to return to New England, and he was prevented from doing so only by ill health.

Continued to Contribute

In spite of his natural indignation, however, he continued a liberal contributor to Harvard during the final years of his life, and left to it the bequest above mentioned, "to be appropriated toward the endowing of a profesor of law, or a profesor of physic and anatomy, whichever the Corporation and Overseers of the College shall judge best for its benefit: and they shall have full power to sell said lands and put the money out to interest, the income whereof shall be for the aforesaid purpose." It was not until 1815 that the College authorities deemed it wise to establish the chair, which they named the Royall Professorship of Law. In 1816, Isaac Parker, '86, was chosen the first professor of that foundation. It is interesting to note also that the Royall Professorship was really the beginning of the present Law School, for, a year later, Professor Parker, then Chief Justice of Massachusetts, was the moving spirit in the establishment of the school at Cambridge, under the direction of the Hon. Asahel Stearns, '97, who was elected University Professor of Law.

The present incumbent of the Royall Professorship is J. H. Beale '82.