The Innovative University

Chapter 2Puritan College

The earliest settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who arrived from England in 1630, spent six years putting roofs over their heads, planting crops, building churches, and establishing a civil government before they could address the cause of higher education. But in the spirit of creating the “city on a hill” described by their leader, John Winthrop, as they crossed the Atlantic on the Arbella, in 1636 the Massachusetts General Court passed an act providing for a “schoale or colledge.” Governor Winthrop and eleven other appointed overseers identified a spot up the Charles River from Boston, in Newetowne, at Cow-yard.¹

Newetowne was renamed Cambridge, and it was to England's University of Cambridge that the new ...