FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT OF 300TH ANNIVERSARY

The first formal action for Harvard's three hundredth anniversary in 1936 was taken today at the University with announcement of a committee of ten, "to prepare plans for the celebration of the Tercentenary of the founding of Harvard College."

The committee is composed of four members of the Corporation, three members of the Board of Overseers, and three members of the Alumni body. Membership of the committee is as follows: Corporation; President Conant; Henry L. Shattuck, '01, Treasurer of the College; and Charles P. Curtis '83 of Boston, and Grenville Clark '03 of New York, Fellows of the College. The members of the Board of Overseers on the committee are George R. Agassiz '84, of Boston, President; Henry James '99, of New York; and Charles F. Adams '88, of Concord. The representatives of the Alumni are Archibald G. Thacher '97, of New York; Joseph L. Valentine '98, of Chicago; and Alfred M. Tozzer '00, professor of Anthropology, of Cambridge.

The founding of Harvard College is most commonly dated from October 28, 1636, when the General Court of Massachusetts Bay "agreed to give 400 pounds toward a schoale or colledge." This college, the first in the English colonies, was opened in the summer of 1638, and promptly named Harvard College in consequence of John Harvard's bequest of books and money that fall.

In 1836, the two hundredth anniversary of Harvard's founding was celebrated on September 8, probably because the Corporation did not wish to break up the college term with a celebration. The exact date for the Tercentenary in 1936 has not yet been determined, though it will certainly be held in September or October of that year.

Harvard will also commemorate its three hundredth anniversary by the publication of a new History of Harvard University. In 1926, Samuel E. Morison '08, professor of History, was appointed Historian for the three hundredth Anniversary of Harvard College. A volume on the "Development of Harvard University from 1869 to 1929" has already been published under the editorship of Mr. Morison. His "History of Harvard College" in the seventeenth century will come out in 1934, and for the eighteenth century in 1936.

The first volume on the last fifty years of Harvard history was written almost entirely by members of the faculty of the University under the editorship of Mr. Morison.