1. Composition

2. History

3. Seals and inscriptions

4. Pranks
    1884 tarring  1890 painting  Other incidents 

5. "Idealization" dispute

6. See also

7. Notes

8. Sources and further reading

9. External links

• Daniel Chester French {{small|(sculptor)}}
• {{hanging indent|text=Henry-Bonnard Bronze Company {{small|(foundry)}} }}

• {{nowrap|Figure: 71 by 38.6 by 65 in}}
  {{nowrap|(180 by 98 by 165 cm)}}
• {{nowrap|Plinth: 61 by 72 by 12 in}}
  {{nowrap|(155 by 183 by 30 cm)}}{{r|smithsonian}}

John Harvard is a sculpture in bronze by Daniel Chester French in Harvard Yard, Cambridge, Massachu{{shy}}setts honoring John Harvard (1607–1638), whose deathbed{{r|HMagJanFeb2000}}

bequest to the

recently undertaken by the Massachu{{shy}}setts Bay Colony was so gratefully received that it was consequently ordered

agreed upon formerly to

built at

called HarvardColledge."}}{{hsp}}{{r|charter}}

There being nothing to indicate what John Harvard had looked like, French used a Harvard student collaterally descended from an early Harvard president as inspiration.

The statue's inscription{{mdashb}}{{small|{{smallcaps|{{nobr|JOHN HARVARD{{nbsp}}{{bullet}}}}{{thinsp}}{{thinsp}}{{nobr|FOUNDER{{nbsp}}{{bullet}}}} 1638}}}}{{mdashb}}is the subject of an arch polemic,{{r|ST}}

traditionally recited for visitors,

questioning whether John Harvard justly merits the honorific founder.

According to a Harvard official, the founding of the college was not the act of one but the work of many, and

John Harvard is therefore considered not the founder, but rather a{{nbsp}}founder, of the school, though the timeliness and generosity of his contribution have made him the most honored of these.

Tourists often rub the toe of John Harvard{{'}}s left shoe for luck, in the mistaken belief that doing so is a Harvard student tradition.

Composition

The New York Times described the statue at its unveiling:

In quoting this passage the word book has been substituted for Bible per the unanimity of other sources,{{ran|M}}{{r|american_art|p=279}}{{r|national}}{{r|magazine|p=522}}{{r|leslie}}{{r|ireland}}

all of which refer to the volume held by the figure as a book or tome, but not specifically a Bible.

In the planning of the costume, "It was understood that Harvard was a clergyman educated at Cambridge, and, following as he did the fortunes of other clergymen who came to Massachu{{shy}}setts in the early period, he would be likely to be a Puritan of their stamp,{{Mdashb}}that is to say, not a Separatist. Pictures represent the Puritan minister of that day as wearing a somewhat closely fitting cloak, covering perhaps a cassock, with a broad linen collar and a skull-cap. The narrow bands and the wig came in later. No mistake could be made in the garment worn over the lower part of the body."{{hsp}}{{r|MassHist}}

That John Harvard is wearing a skullcap is frequently overlooked.

"Edward T. Wilcox, A.M.{{nbsp}}'49{{nbsp}}... had a 38-year tenure at the College, during which he no doubt won many a highball with the following challenge [which he repeated during remarks at a 1974 ceremony honoring long-serving Univer{{shy}}si{{shy}}ty employees]. 'How many of you would be prepared to bet one way or the other{{nbsp}}... if I told you John Harvard is actually wearing a cap?{{' "}}{{hsp}}{{r|toes}}

Other subtle details are a slight mustache, tassels at the collar, and "roselike decorations" on the shoes.{{r|ireland}}

}} }}

John Harvard's gift to the school was £780 and{{mdashb}}perhaps more importantly{{ran|M}}{{r|potter1}}{{mdashb}}his 400-volume scholar's library:{{r|potter2}}

That he had died of tuberculosis, at about age thirty,

was one of the few things known about John Harvard at the time of the statue's composition; as dedication orator George Edward Ellis put it:

{{paragraph break}}

"If I remember aright," French was quoted in 1899 as saying, John Har{{shy}}vard "is described as being 'rever{{shy}}end, godly, and a lover of learn{{shy}}ing,' and it is known that he died at an early age (about thirty) of consumption, which gave a clue to his phy{{shy}}sique."

(French's daughter wrote{{r|ST}} of the figure's "beautiful, wasted hand{{nbsp}}... the hands were thin and nervous"; Shand-Tucci{{r|ST}} mentions the "scrawny calves.") French continued, "It may possibly be of interest that my regular model for the statue, except the face, was a young Englishman, a graduate of Oxford, who was temporar{{shy}}ily embarrassed financially and took this means of earning his bread."{{hsp}}{{r|HarvIllus1899}}

}} }} he rests for a moment from his converse with wisdom on the printed page, and raises his contemplative eye to the spaces of all wisdom.{{NoteTag|

While Memorial of John Harvard{{hsp}}{{ran|M}} quotes Ellis as saying John Harvard "raises his contemplative eye", the Harvard Crimson{{hsp}}{{r|Crimson1884}} relates that Ellis imagined that the figure "gazes for a moment into the future".

Historian Laurel Ulrich suggests that John Harvard{{'}}s general composition may have been inspired by Hendrik Goltzius' engraving of Clio, and that the figure's collar, buttons, tassel, and mustache may have been taken from a portrait of Plymouth Colony Governor Edward Winslow.{{r|ireland}}

History

On June 27, 1883,

at the Commencement Day dinner of Harvard alumni a letter was read{{ran|M}}

from "a generous benefactor, General Samuel James Bridge, an adopted alumnus of the college":{{r|MassHist}}{{NoteTag|

Joseph Hodges Choate, presiding at the dinner, "referred to the giver as 'a pious worshipper at Harvard's shrine, turning his face towards Mecca;' and, when the letter was read, the applause of the company compelled Mr. Bridge to make a silent acknowledgement".{{ran|M}}

}}

Bridge specified an "ideal" statue because there was then (as now){{r|HMagJanFeb2000}}

nothing to indicate what John Harvard had looked like;

thus when French began work in September he used Harvard student Sherman Hoar as inspiration for the figure's face.

"In looking about for a type of ">the early comers to our shores," he wrote, "I chose a lineal descendant of them for my model in the general structure of the face. He has more of what I want than anybody I know."{{hsp}}{{r|AZ}}

(Through his father Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar{{mdashb}}chairman{{ran|M}} of Harvard's Board of Overseers{{mdashb}}Sherman Hoar was descended from a brother of Harvard's fourth president Leonard Hoar,{{NoteTag|1=

as well as from Roger Sherman, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.{{r|ireland}})

The commission weighed heavily on French even as the figure neared completion. "I am sometimes scared by the importance of this work. It is a subject that one might not have in a lifetime," wrote the sculptor{{mdashb}}who thirty years later would create the statue of Abraham Lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial{{mdashb}}"and a failure would be inexcusable. As a general thing, my model looks pretty well to me, but there are dark days."{{r|richman}}

French's final model was ready the following May and realized in bronze by the Henry-Bonnard Bronze Company over the next several months.

The cost was reportedly more than $20,000.{{r|Crimson1984}}

The statue was installed{{mdashb}}"looking wistfully into the western sky", said Harvard president

Charles W. Eliot{{ran|M}}{{mdashb}}at

the western end of Memorial Hall on the triangular city block then known as the Delta

At its October 15, 1884 unveiling{{ran|M}} Ellis gave

"a singularly felicitous address, telling the story of the life of John Harvard, who passes so mysteriously across the page of our early history."{{hsp}}{{r|bacon}}

In 1920 French wrote{{r|alumni_1924}}{{r|lowell}}

to Harvard president Abbott Lawrence Lowell desiring that the statue be relocated; in 1924{{r|ST}}{{r|Crimson1984}}{{r|move}}

it was moved from Memorial Hall (then the college dining hall{{mdashb}}a

Harvard Lampoon drawing showed John Harvard dismounting his plinth, chair in tow, and holding his nose because he "couldn't stand the smell of 'Mem' any longer"){{citation needed|date=November 2012}}

to its current location on the west side of Harvard Yard's University Hall, facing Harvard Hall, Massachusetts Hall, and the Johnston Gate.{{NoteTag|name=bunting|1=

Later that year the Lampoon imagined the frustrations of the metallic, immobile John Harvard surrounded by Harvard under{{shy}}graduates{{mdash}}{{r|Crimson1984}}

}}

}}

Sometime in the 1990s tour guides began encouraging visitors to emulate a "student tradition"{{mdashb}}nonexistent{{mdashb}}of rubbing the toe of John Harvard{{'}}s left shoe for luck, so that while the statue as a whole is darkly weathered the toe now "gleams almost throbbingly bright, as though from an excruciating inflammation of the bronze."{{hsp}}{{NoteTag|name=rubforluck

Harvard Magazine attributed persistence of the Harvard rub-for-luck faux tradition to the "mythmaking" of tour guides, who "assure their flocks that undergraduates have traditionally rubbed John Harvard's foot for luck (before exams or a mixer). They invite the tourists to do the same, and the tourists, being game and having paid their nickel, rub with gusto."

}}

It is, however, traditional for seniors, as they process to graduation exercises on Commencement Day ({{crossreference|see History and traditions of Harvard commencements}}), to remove their caps as they pass.{{r|Crimson1984}}{{r|regalia}}

The statue is depicted on the United States Postal Service's 1986 John Harvard stamp (part of its Great Americans series).{{r|stamp}}

Seals and inscriptions

}}

The monument's six-foot{{r|HarvIllus1899}}

granite plinth is by Boston architect C.{{nbsp}}Howard Walker.{{r|Crimson1984}}

On its southern side (the side to the viewer's right), in bronze, is the seal of John Harvard's alma mater, the University of Cambridge's Emmanuel College; on the northern side is what Ellis called "that most felicitously chosen of all like devices, the three open books and the veritas of Harvard. The pupil of the one institution was the founder of the other, transferring learning from its foreign home to this once wilderness scene."{{hsp}}{{r|MassHist}}{{NoteTag

The seal on the plinth, however, is an earlier design (the "Quincy seal", itself based on a long-forgotten 17th-century design rediscovered by president Josiah Quincy in the 1830s){{r|seals}}

in which the third book is opened face down, with the letters {{smallcaps|tas}} over cover, spine, cover.

}}

On the rear are the words

Additionally, on either side of base of the bronze sculpture are {{small|{{smallcaps|THE HENRY-BONNARD BRONZE CO.{{nbsp}}{{bullet}}{{thinsp}} NEW YORK 1884}}}}

and {{small|{{smallcaps|DANIEL C. FRENCH{{nbsp}}{{bullet}}{{thinsp}} 1884}}}}.{{r|smithsonian}}

The face of the plinth is inscribed (in letters originally gilt){{ran|M}}

because (as is ritually related to freshmen and

}}

• the statue is not a likeness of {{small|{{smallcaps|JOHN HARVARD}}}};

• the Court's vote came in 1636, not in the inscription's {{small|{{smallcaps|1638}}}}{{mdashb}}the latter being merely the year of John Harvard's bequest to the school.

However (Shand-Tucci continues) "the idea of the three lies is at best a fourth, and by far the greater falsehood,"{{hsp}}{{r|ST}}

as detailed in a 1934 letter to the Harvard Crimson from the secretary of the Harvard Corporation and director of the school's then-upcoming Tercenten{{shy}}ary Celebration:

The facts as to John Harvard's relation to the founding of the College are not at all in dispute nor can it be said that the statue in front of University Hall does any violence to them.

No likeness of John Harvard having been preserved, the statue

[is an "ideal" representa{{shy}}tion].

If the founding of a university must be dated to a split second of time, then the founding of Harvard should perhaps be fixed by the fall of the president's gavel in announcing the passage of the vote of October 28, 1636

But if the founding is to be regarded as a process rather than as a single event

[then John Harvard, by virtue of his bequest "at the very threshold of the College's existence and going further than any other contribution made up to that time to ensure its permanence"] is clearly entitled to be considered a founder. The General Court{{nbsp}}...

acknowledged the fact by bestowing his name on the College.

These are all familiar facts and it is well that they should be understood by the sons of Harvard. They are entirely compatible with the inscription on John Harvard's statue. There is no myth to be destroyed.{{NoteTag|name=Greene|1=

Excerpted from {{cite news|first=Jerome Davis |last=Greene |authorlink=Jerome Davis Greene |url=http://www.thecrimson.harvard.edu/article/1934/12/11/dont-quibble-sybll-ped-note-the-crimson/ |title=Don't Quibble Sybil {{mdash}} The Mail" (Letter to the editor) |work=Harvard Crimson |date=December 11, 1934}} ("Don't quibble, Sybil" is a line from Noël Coward's 1930 Private Lives.)

Greene's scold to "the sons of Harvard" opens, "The quibble over the question whether John Harvard was entitled to be called the Founder of Harvard College seems to me one of the least profitable.

The destruction of myths is a legitimate sport, but its only justification is the establish{{shy}}ment of truth in place of error."

Greene was responding to a November 26 Crimson item iconoclas{{shy}}tically headlined "Memorial Society Honors Founder of College In the Name and Image of Two Other Men{{nbsp}}{{mdash}} College Founded By Grant of the Massachu{{shy}}setts General Court in the Year 1636" : "When the members of the Memorial Society place a wreath on the statue of John Harvard today, expecting to honor the memory and the image of the founder of Harvard College, they will be honoring the likeness of another man and the name of a man who was not the legal founder of the college."

}} }}

Pranks

The work became the target of pranks soon after its unveiling.

1884 tarring

In 1884 The Harvard Crimson reported that,

"Some ingenious persons covered the John Harvard statue last night with a coat of tar. The same persons presum{{shy}}ably, marked a large '87 on the wall at the entrance of the chapel,"{{hsp}}{{refn|{{cite news

}} }}

and in 1886 the Crimson mentions a further incident: "A graduate contribu{{shy}}tor to the Advocate suggests that the editors of the college papers ferret out the authors of the small disturbances, such as the painting of the John Harvard statue."{{hsp}}{{refn|{{cite newspaper

}} }}

1890 painting

Following a May 31, 1890 Harvard athletic victory, front-page headlines in the Boston Morning Globe declared:

"Vandalism at Harvard; statue of John Harvard and college buildings daubed with red paint by drunken students; seniors and faculty indig{{shy}}nant{{nbsp}}... Riotous Mob Ruled the Campus."{{hsp}}{{refn|{{cite news

}} }}

The next day the Globe further reported that a Harvard student observing graffiti-removal efforts "declared that no Harvard man ever daubed the impious phrase, 'To {{nowrap|h{{mdash}}l}} with Yale.' He was of the opinion that a Harvard man would at least soften the profanity by varnishing it with Latin or Greek{{nbsp}}... Two detectives who were requested to ferret out the perpetrators paid little heed to the discussion on swear words, but kept their eyes on several impressions that had been made on the paint when it was fresh. One thought they were made by a dog's paws, and as several students kept dogs the suspicion was magnified to the importance of a clue. A student, however, told the detectives that according to his view the impressions were made by barefoot boys walking on tip-toe."{{hsp}}{{refn|{{citation

}} }}

Out-of-state newspapers reporting the outrage, and to a greater or lesser degree following the subsequent investigation, included (among many others):

• The World (New York, New York; June{{nbsp}}2, p.{{nbsp}}2): "A Jocular Outrage{{nbsp}}{{mdash}} Harvard Students Exceed Decency in Celebrating."
• Evening Gazette (Sterling, Illinois; June{{nbsp}}2, p.{{nbsp}}4): "Harvard Students on an Outra{{shy}}geous Tear.{{nbsp}}{{mdash}} Slathers of Red Paint Used.{{nbsp}}{{mdash}} The Fine Statue of the College Founder Ruined by the Crazy Scapegraces."
• Fort Wayne Sentinel (Fort Wayne, Indiana; June{{nbsp}}2, p.{{nbsp}}5): "The faculty will expel the criminals and {{sic|nolink=y|persecute}} them if found."
• The Philadelphia Record: "Painted Harvard Red{{nbsp}}{{mdash}} Disgraceful Antics of Rum-Crazed Students.{{nbsp}}{{mdash}} Cambridge is Horri{{shy}}fied.{{nbsp}}{{mdash}} The Faculty Bent on Venge{{shy}}ance{{nbsp}}... Last night the whole college celebrated a wild {{sic|link=no|orgie}}{{nbsp}}... There were suppers, bonfires, fish-horns and a general pandemo{{shy}}ni{{shy}}um; but, save the insane acts of two of the students, who, overcome with enthusi{{shy}}asm, deliber{{shy}}ately threw their dress coats into the bonfire while dancing around the blaze, no great overt act was then commit{{shy}}{{nobreak|ted ...}} It was during the small hours that the vandals were {{nobreak|abroad ...}} [John Harvard{{'}}s] face, hands, books, and shoes were bright crimson, and his clothes striped like a zebra."{{hsp}}{{r|record}}

Despite a mass meeting of outraged Harvard men (who insisted the culprits must be outsid{{shy}}ers or, failing that, freshmen), the hiring of detec{{shy}}tives, and an apparently facetious report that Harvard President Charles W. Eliot was unavaila{{shy}}ble for comment because he had "gone out in the woods to cut switches" (all Globe, June{{nbsp}}3), on June{{nbsp}}22 an anonymous contribu{{shy}}tor (Globe, p.{{nbsp}}20) intimated that while "the faculty claim that they have not found out any of the men who did the 'fine art' work{{nbsp}}... I saw the ringleader on class day showing two very pretty girls around the 'yard'."

Other incidents

In March 1934 Harvard athletes were suspected in the disappearance of Yale's "ugly bulldog mascot", Handsome Dan.{{refn|name=times_honors|{{cite newspaper

}} {{closed access}} }}{{refn|{{cite newspaper

}} {{open access}} }}{{refn|name=harvard_alumni|{{cite book

}} {{closed access}} }}

The dog was recovered a few days later, though not before the Harvard Lampoon had photographed him licking John Harvard{{'}}s boots,{{refn|{{cite newspaper

}} {{open access}} }}{{refn|{{cite newspaper

}} {{open access}} }}

which had been smeared with hamburger.{{r|harvard_alumni}}

("Dog licks man", a Crimson headline read.){{refn|{{cite newspaper

}} {{open access}} }}

"Some years ago some students painted [the statue] crimson and our cops caught them red-handed", Deputy Chief of the Harvard University Police Jack W. Morse told The Harvard Crimson in 1984, adding "I've been waiting a long time to use that."{{hsp}}{{r|Crimson1984}}

(Crimson is Harvard's school color.){{refn| {{cite web|title=Color – Identity Guidelines – Harvard Business School|url=http://www.hbs.edu/marketing/color.html|publisher=Harvard Business School|accessdate=3 March 2015}} }}

As the work's hundredth anniversary approached, Harvard Lampoon president Conan O'Brien predicted that "we'll probably stuff it with cottage cheese, maybe also with some chives."{{hsp}}{{r|Crimson1984}}

"I think it’s creative but I wish students would direct their creative energies elsewhere," a Harvard maintenance official said in 2002.{{r|crime_2002}}

"Idealization" dispute

The challenge of creating an idealized representation of John Harvard was discussed by Ellis at the October 1883 meeting of the Massachu{{shy}}setts Historical Society:{{r|MassHist}}

But Society president Robert Charles Winthrop harshly disapproved:

A year later, in his oration{{ran|M}} before the unveiling of what he called "a simula{{shy}}crum{{nbsp}}... a conception of what Harvard might have been in body and lineament, from what we know that he was in mind and in soul", Ellis answered Winthrop's criticism:

The wise, the honored, the fair, the noble, and the saintly, are never grudged some finer touches of the artist in tint or feature, which etherialize their beauty, or magnify their elevation, as expressed in the actual body,{{mdashb}}the eye, the brow, the lip, the moulding of the mortal clay. To flatter is not always to falsify.

Should there ever appear, however,

See also

• John Bridge monument

Notes

Sources and further reading

Further reading

• {{rma|tag=M|reference=

[https://books.google.com/books?id=iorOAAAAMAAJ&pg=PP1#v=onepage Memorial of John Harvard: The gift to Harvard University of Samuel James Bridge. Ceremonies at the Unveiling of the Statue (1884)]

Other sources cited

}} }}

}} }}

}} }}

}} }}

The College Pump: Toes Imperiled. Harvard Magazine May{{ndash}}{{zwsp}}June 1999.}}

[https://web.archive.org/web/20131012062952/http://hlcra.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2013/04/harvardcharter.pdf The Charter of the President and Fellows of Harvard College]

}} The quotation is the entirety of McCord's poem "Man from Emmanuel", originally published in the Harvard Lampoon (1936).

}}

}} Control number IAS 77000368 }}

}} }}

}} }}

}} }}

External links

• [https://books.google.com/books?id=nUwEAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Harvard: America's Great University Now Leads the World] Life, vol. 10, no. 18 (May 5, 1941), cover (showing "John Harvard [statue]{{nbsp}}& Freshman") and pp.{{nbsp}}22, 89{{ndash}}{{zwsp}}99.
• Josiah Quincy, [https://books.google.com/books?id=KynqxH_4lGUC&pg=PR3#v=onepage&q&f=false History of Harvard College] (title page showing "Quincy seal")
• Smithsonian American Art Museum{{snd}}Inventory of American Sculpture{{snd}}John Harvard (sculpture){{snd}}Detailed technical inventory

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