1 Watkins, Beverley T., “Boston University May Soon Get the Opportunity It Wants: To Run—and Reform—a City's Schools,” Chronicle of Higher Education, 12 Apr. 1989, A1, A16. Although the issue of educational cooperation is of significant research interest today, most historians have investigated schools and colleges separately, and there is little previous research on the connections between colleges and schools in the colonial or early-republic periods. Lawrence Cremin discusses both schools and colleges in American Education: The Colonial Experience, but beyond the colleges' preparation of grammar school masters and the schools' preparation of college students, he does not discuss the connections between the two institutions. Moreover, there has been little research on the history of the Cambridge Grammar School. George Littlefield examined the role of Elijah Corlet as the school's first schoolmaster, but this research has not been carried into the eighteenth century. The Cambridge school was an important colonial institution that deserves further study. See Cremin, Lawrence, American Education: The Colonial Experience, 1607–1783 (New York, 1970), 610; Littlefield, George, “Elijah Corlet and the ‘Faire Grammar School at Cambridge,’” Colonial Society of Massachusetts (hereafter CSM), Publications 17 (1915): 131–42. Conrad Wright has studied institutionalized philanthropy and charity in postrevolutionary New England and notes its relative absence in the colonial period. Resources were too few in the colony to support large bequests. English funds, however, supported philanthropic efforts for both Indian missions and Harvard College. See Wright, Conrad Edick, The Transformation of Charity in Postrevolutionary New England (Boston, 1992), 29–32; Burton, John, “Crimson Missionaries: Harvard College and the Robert Boyle Trust,” The New England Quarterly 67 (spring 1994): 132–40. Google Scholar

2 Morgan, Edmund, The Puritan Family: Religion and Domestic Relations in Seventeenth-Century New England (New York, 1966), 88 (quotation), 89, 95, 98; Morgan, John, Godly Learning: Puritan Attitudes toward Reason, Learning, and Education, 1560–1640 (New York, 1986), 186; Cremin, , American Education, 31–57; Axtell, James, The School upon a Hill: Education and Society in Colonial New England (New Haven, Conn., 1974), 283; Monaghan, E. Jennifer, “Literacy Instruction and Gender in New England,” American Quarterly 40 (1988): 21. Google Scholar

3 Morgan, , Puritan Family, 100–1; Fischer, David Hackett, Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America (New York, 1989), 130–33; Lockridge, Kenneth, Literacy in New England: An Enquiry into the Social Context of Literacy in the Early Modern West (New York, 1974), 19, 39; Morison, Samuel Eliot, Puritan Pronaos: Studies in the Intellectual Life of New England in the Seventeenth Century (Ithaca, N.Y., 1936), 75. Lockridge's literacy rate was measured in terms of the ability to sign one's name. For a longer discussion of signing as a measure of literacy, see Cressy, David, Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart England (Cambridge, Eng., 1980). Google Scholar

4 Cremin, , American Education, 119, 124–25, 181; Axtell, , School upon a Hill, 23, 156; The Records of the Town of Cambridge (formerly New-towne) Massachusetts, 1630–1703 (Cambridge, Mass., 1901), 44 (hereafter Cambridge Town Records). Google Scholar

5 Cambridge Town Records, 77 (third quotation), 153; Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, ed. Shurtleff, Nathaniel B., 6 vols. (Boston, 1853–1854), 2: 203 (first and second quotations) (hereafter cited as Massachusetts Records); Axtell, , School upon a Hill, 169–70; Littlefield, , “Elijah Corlet,” 131–34. The town also aided Corlet by including him among the town's proprietors. He received land in the 1662, 1664, 1683, and 1689 divisions. His portion (three cow rights) was the same as Harvard's. See The Register Book of the Lands and Houses in the “New Towne” and the Town of Cambridge with the Records of the Proprietors of the Common Lands, Being the Records Generally Called “The Proprietors' Records”, ed. Brandon, Edward (Cambridge, Mass., 1896), 141–43, 145–48, 160–65, 158–99 (cited hereafter as Cambridge Proprietors' Records). Google Scholar

6 Littlefield, , “Elijah Corlet,” 134; New England's First Fruits (London, 1643), 13.Google Scholar

7 Axtell, , School upon a Hill, 170; Morison, Samuel Eliot, Harvard College in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1936), 1: 46; Cambridge Town Records, 47, 53, 71, 91. Morison believed the grammar school may have operated out of Harvard for a time. Google Scholar

8 Cambridge Town Records, 75, 109, 112–13, 132; Paige, Lucius, History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630–1877, with a Genealogical Register (Boston, 1877), 370–72.Google Scholar

9 Cambridge Town Records, 138 (quotation), 296, 302; Sibley, John L. and Shipton, Clifford K., Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University, 17 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1873–1975), 1: 477, 2: 111, 4: 79; Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England , ed. Shurtleff, Nathaniel B., 12 vols. (Boston, 1855–1861), 10: 217; Massachusetts Records, 4: 406; Paige, , History of Cambridge, 366–67. Google Scholar

10 Cambridge Town Records, 112, 182; Sewall, Samuel, Diary of Samuel Sewall, 3 vols., Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, 5th ser. (Boston, 1878–1882), 1: 2.Google Scholar

11 Cambridge Town Records, 293, 296 (fifth quotation), 302 (third quotation); Cambridge Proprietors' Records, 202, 205 (fourth quotation); Record Book, Middlesex County Court of General Sessions, 1686–1723, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston, Massachusetts, 19 July 1692 (first and second quotations); Paige, , History of Cambridge, 368–69, 373.Google Scholar

12 Cambridge Town Records, 229, 331, 334–35; Harvard Records, CSM, Collections 49 (1975): 300.Google Scholar

13 Morison, , Harvard College in the Seventeenth Century, 2:449.Google Scholar

14 Bowditch, Charles, An Account of the Trust Administered by the Trustees of the Charity of Edward Hopkins (n.p., 1889), 3–8. The trustees named by Hopkins were Theophilius Eaton, John Davenport, John Cullock, and William Goodwin. The Hopkins Trust was one of a series of English legacies Harvard procured during this period. Harvard was also the beneficiary of funds from the Robert Boyle estate to train Indian missionaries. See Burton, , “Crimson Missionaries,” 132–40. Google Scholar

15 Morgan, John, Godly Learning: Puritan Attitudes towards Reason, Learning, and Education, 1560–1640 (New York, 1986), 190; Wright, , Charity in New England, 51; Hampton, Ethel, “Schools,” Victoria History of the Counties of England: Cambridgeshire, ed. Pugh, R. B., 8 vols. (London, 1967), 2: 324–25. The Magdalen College School, founded in 1468–1480, provided similar grammar school training for Oxford students. See Hammer, Carl I., “Oxford Town and Oxford University,” in The History of the University of Oxford, ed. McConica, James (Oxford, Eng., 1986), 3: 109. Google Scholar

16 Bowditch, , Charity of Edward Hopkins, 9–12. Receipt of the Hopkins income may have spurred the Cambridge residents to inquire after other grants made to the school. The inhabitants in the town meeting of May 1727 instructed their representative to inquire after a thousand acres granted to the school by the General Court in 1659. The inquiry continued for several years; as late as 1731, a committee was still working to receive the land grant. There is no record that they were successful. See Town Records B, microfilm, Early Massachusetts Records Series, 15 May 1727, 29 Mar. 1731.Google Scholar

17 Bowditch, , Charity of Edward Hopkins, 12–17; Harvard Records, CSM, Collections 50 (1975): 614. For a longer description of how Harvard obtained the legacy, see Simpson, Alan, “Candle in a Corner: How Harvard Got the Hopkins Legacy,” CSM, Collections 43: 305–34. Unfortunately, the records of the Hopkins trustees were destroyed in a fire in 1825. Only Harvard's records as visitors to the grammar school survive. Google Scholar

18 Harvard Records, CSM, Collections 16:482–83; Town Records B, microfilm, Early Massachusetts Records Series, 10 July 1724; Shipton, , Sibley's Harvard Graduates, 6: 81; John Leverett, Diary, Harvard University Archives, 288.Google Scholar

19 Minute Book 1726–1854, Hopkins Classical School Records UA1.15.515, Harvard University Archives, 9 (hereafter Hopkins Minute Book). Because of the destruction of the Hopkins trustee records, it is difficult to determine who was actively serving as trustees at any given date. Active trustees in 1727 probably include Thomas Hutchinson, Josiah Williard, Nathaniel Appleton, Jonathan Belcher, and Paul Dudley. For a partially reconstructed list of trustees, see Bowditch, , Charity of Edward Hopkins, 67.Google Scholar

20 Hopkins Minute Book, 9.Google Scholar

21 Ibid., 60–61; Bowditch, , Charity of Edward Hopkins, 73; Shipton, , Sibley's Harvard Graduates, 11: 50; Town Records B, microfilm, Early Massachusetts Records Series, 18 May 1730. Google Scholar

22 Town Records B, microfilm, Early Massachusetts Records Series, 16 May 1737, 20 May 1745, 28 Nov. 1748, 13 Mar. 1766. Cambridge did not ignore education altogether in the outlying areas, however. As early as 1715, the inhabitants voted to increase the town rates to support both an increase in the grammar schoolmaster's salary and “for the encouragem[en]t of school at Menotomy & on the South side of the River.” These schools also depended on student fees, however. See Town Record B, microfilm, Early Massachusetts Records Series, 9 May 1715.Google Scholar

23 Selectmen Records, 1731–79, microfilm, Early Massachusetts Records Series, 25 May 1759; Papers of Stephen Sewall, Wigglesworth Family Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society; Paige, , History of Cambridge, 373; Cremin, , American Education, 185, 277; Monaghan, , “Literacy Instruction in Colonial New England,” 18. Google Scholar

24 Hopkins Minute Book, 57–58; Hill, Frank, “The Public Schools of Cambridge,” The Cambridge of Eighteen-hundred and Ninety Six, ed. Gillman, Arthur (Cambridge, Mass., 1896), 189; Paige, , History of Cambridge, 373; Boston Evening Post, 25 July 1748; Shipton, , Harvard Graduates, 10: 125. Google Scholar

25 Hopkins Minute Book, 49; Seybolt, Robert Francis, The Public Schools of Colonial Boston, 1635–1775 (Cambridge, Mass., 1935), 70–71.Google Scholar

26 Shipton, , Sibley's Harvard Graduates, 7:569–70, 9: 374, 10: 271, 11: 143.Google Scholar

27 Cook, Edward Jr., The Fathers of the Towns: Leadership and Community Structure in Eighteenth-Century New England (Baltimore, Md., 1976), 72–73. The status designations are the same ones used by Patrick Sheehan in his analysis of the Harvard student body; see Sheehan, Patrick, “Harvard Alumni in Colonial America: Demographic, Theological, and Political Perspectives” (Ph.D. diss., Case Western Reserve, 1972). Google Scholar

28 Town Records B, microfilm, Early Massachusetts Records Series, 15 May 1761 (quotation), 7 May 1770. In 1769, Cambridge once again constructed a new schoolhouse, but for the first time, a representative from Harvard did not participate in leading the project. See Town Records B, microfilm, Early Massachusetts Records Series, 13 Mar. 1769.Google Scholar

29 Town Records B, microfilm, Early Massachusetts Records Series, 13 Aug. 1781.Google Scholar

30 Hopkins Minute Book. For a larger discussion of the connections between Boston and Harvard, see Story, Ronald, The Forging of an Aristocracy: Harvard and the Boston Upper Class, 1800–1870 (Middletown, Conn., 1980).Google Scholar

31 Cambridge Selectmen Records, 1783–88, microfilm, Early Massachusetts Records Series, 6 Feb. 1784, 21 Feb. 1785, 5 Feb. 1787. The selectmen continued to vote the salary of the schoolmaster annually before the Revolution, but took little other interest in the school. There was one exception. Although he was a member of the Cambridge church, there was some question about the theological integrity of William Fessenden, who had served as schoolmaster since 1745. In 1751, the town meeting voted that “in case the said Wm Fessenden should not timely obtain the approbation of the Minister of this Town, and the Ministers of the two next adjacent towns, or of some two of them,” the selectmen were empowered to choose a new schoolmaster. Fessenden survived whatever test Dr. Appleton put to him and continued as schoolmaster until 1753. See Town Records B, microfilm, Early Massachusetts Records Series, 20 May 1751; Shipton, , Sibley's Harvard Graduates 10:170.Google Scholar

32 Pearson, Eliphalet, Journal, 1799–1801, Massachusetts Historical Society; Selectmen Records, 1769–1783, microfilm, Early Massachusetts Records Series, 6 Oct. 1783; Selectmen Records, 1788–1805, microfilm, Early Massachusetts Records Series, 7 June 1790, 7 Oct. 1799; Faculty Records, Harvard University Archives, 6: 146. The selectmen only list giving permission to “Whitney” to run the school. There were two Whitneys at Harvard in 1790. Peter was the elder, and therefore more likely to run the school. Harvard students were also active in running schools throughout New England during their winter breaks and, starting in the 1780s, the college regularly gave poorer students permission to be absent for part of the winter term to run schools. As many as forty undergraduates availed themselves of this opportunity during the 1790s. For lists of the students, see Faculty Records, Harvard University Archives, vols. 5–7.Google Scholar

33 Hopkins Minute Book, 101–47. The Classical School was short-lived, however, and when the Cambridge high school was established, the revenues of the trust were used to support a classics instructor and to purchase books for the high school library. Harvard continues to administer the trust and provide support to the Cambridge high school.Google Scholar