Founded October 28, , and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard , it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States.
Its influence, wealth, and rankings have made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Harvard was founded and authorized by the Massachusetts General Court , the governing legislature of colonial -era Massachusetts Bay Colony. By the 19th century, Harvard emerged as the most prominent academic and cultural institution among the Boston elite. In , Harvard co-founded the Association of American Universities. The university has ten academic faculties and a faculty attached to Harvard Radcliffe Institute.
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences offers study in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate academic disciplines , and other faculties offer graduate degrees, including professional degrees. Harvard has three campuses: [ 17 ] the main campus, a acre 85 ha in Cambridge centered on Harvard Yard ; an adjoining campus immediately across Charles River in the Allston neighborhood of Boston ; and the medical campus in Boston's Longwood Medical Area. Harvard alumni, faculty, and researchers include living billionaires , eight U.
Its first headmaster, Nathaniel Eaton , took office the following year. In , the university acquired British North America 's first known printing press. In , a Harvard publication defined the college's purpose: "[to] advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity, dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches when our present ministers shall lie in the dust.
Harvard never formally affiliated with any particular Protestant denomination, but its curriculum conformed to the tenets of Puritanism. From to , Increase Mather , a Puritan clergyman, served as Harvard's sixth president. In , John Leverett became Harvard's seventh president and the first president who was not also a clergyman.
