Harvard was confined in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts/ inlet outpost. It /was at/ originally called/ " /New/ College/ " or " the school at New Towne  ". In 1638 , the school got the opportunity to be home for North America's first known printing press, passed on by the watercraft John /of /London/. In 1639/, the/ school /was/ renamed/ Harvard College after died minister John Harvard, who was an alum of the University of Cambridge. He had left the school £ 779 and his library of in the scope of 400 books. The assent making the Harvard Corporation was permitted in 1650. 

In the early years the College arranged various Puritan ministers. The school offered a praiseworthy academic course in light of the English school show various pioneers in the territory had gone to the University of Cambridge-however one anticipated with the prevailing Puritan rationale. The school was never connected with any particular area, yet a critical number of its soonest graduates proceeded to wind up ministers in Congregational and Unitarian sanctuaries all through New England. An early flyer, dispersed in 1643 , depicted the setting up of the school as a response to the desire " to drive learning and support it to successors, dreading to leave an untalented support of the churches ". 

The principle Boston flawless Increase Mather served as president from 1685 to 1701. In 1708, John Leverett transformed into the first president who was not also a clergyman, which signified a turning of the school to instructed independence from Puritanism. 

nineteenth century 

John Harvard statue, Harvard Yard 

All through the 18 th century, Enlightenment considerations of the power of reason and intemperate decision got the chance to be limitless among Congregationalist pastors, putting those ministers and their social events in strain with more traditionalist, Calvinist parties. Right when the Hollis Professor of Divinity David Tappan went on in 1803 and the president of Harvard Joseph Willard kicked the can following a year, in 1804, a fight broke out over their substitutions. Henry Ware was decided to the seat in 1805, and the liberal Samuel Webber was assigned to the organization of Harvard following two years, which hailed the changing of the tide from the transcendence of standard considerations at Harvard to the quality of liberal, Arminian musings ( described by traditionalists as Unitarian contemplations ). 

In 1846, the regular history locations of Louis Agassiz were acclaimed both in New York and on the grounds at Harvard College. Agassiz's procedure was prominently visionary and situated Americans' " enthusiasm for the Divine Nature " and the probability of appreciation " sharp habitation