Who is Harvard University named after?
The institution was named Harvard College on March 13, 1639, after its first principal donor, a young clergyman named John Harvard. A graduate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge in England, John Harvard bequeathed about four hundred books in his will to form the basis of the college library collection, along with half his personal wealth worth several hundred pounds. The earliest known official reference to Harvard as a “university” rather than a “college” occurred in the new Massachusetts Constitution of 1780. In his 1869-1909 tenure as Harvard president, Charles William Eliot radically transformed Harvard into the pattern of the modern research university. Eliot’s reforms included elective courses, small classes, and entrance examinations. The Harvard model influenced American education nationally, at both college and secondary levels. In 1999, Radcliffe College, founded in 1894 as an outgrowth of the “Harvard Annex” for women, merged formally with Harvard University, becoming the Radcli
