Official guide to Harvard University Author:Harvard University Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: The first of these was passed in 1642, and established the Board of Overseers; the second in 1650, and established a board officially styled the President and Fe... more »llows of Harvard College, but always more commonly known as "The Corporation." These two boards now govern the entire University. The Board of Overseers as first constituted was made up of the Governor, the Deputy Governor, and the Magistrates of the Colony, " together with the teaching elders of the six next adjoining towns, ? viz., Cambridge, Watertown, Charlestown, Boston, Roxbury, and Dorchester," and the President of the College. It necessarily included all the most prominent and powerful men of the puritan commonwealth, and the College government was therefore very like the government of Massachusetts Bay. But this body was soon found too large for the immediate direction of the school, and in 1650 the General Court drew up an instrument of great interest, now hanging in the Librarian's room in Gore Hall. This instrument is the Charter of Harvard College. It is " the veritable source of collegiate authority" to-day, and the corporation it established is the oldest in the country. The charter committed the property and the government of the College to seven persons, a President, a Treasurer, and five Fellows, who were empowered to fill vacancies in their number. In them the property of the institution was vested. They were to elect its teaching and other officers, and to make its laws and orders, subject only to confirmation by the Overseers. The records of the President and Fellows, preserved in the archives of the University, are fairly continuous and complete. chapter{Section 4They reveal with what patience and wisdom, for two centuries and a half, the property of the institution has been guarded, its acti...« less