Printing of Harvard's 1766 List of Graduating Students and Theses

HARVARD COLLEGE

Published by Boston, 1766

Broadside. ILLUSTRISSIMO ac sublimi Virtute, optimaque Eruditione, ornatissimo Viro FRANCISCO BERNARDO, Armigero, Provinciae MASSACHUSETTENSIS GUBERNATORI, Marisque Contermini Vice-Admirallo insignissimo; HONORATISSIMO THOM HUTCHINSONO, Armigero, Provinciae MASSACHUSETTENSIS VICE-GUBERNATORI spectatissimo . . . THESES hasce, quas (Divino annuente Numine) in COLLEGIO-HARVARDINO defendere. List of Graduating Students and Theses for Disputation. Boston, Massachusetts: Richard Draper and Samuel Draper. 1 p., 17 x 21 1/2 in. This interesting broadside, issued in Latin for Harvard University's 1766 commencement, lists the Latinized names of 40 graduating students. It is dedicated to Provincial Governor Francis Bernard and Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson. Thirty-two members of the class returned for their second degrees in 1769.Richard and Samuel Draper had published the Theses for the classes of 1763 to 1766, and Richard Draper alone for those from 1767 to 1770. As printers to the governor and council, the Drapers represented the conservative colonial government.Among the graduates were brothers Dr. Ebenezer Barnard (1745-1790), who had Loyalist leanings, and Judge Samuel Barnard (1747-1819), who supported the Patriot cause and became an ardent Federalist; Dr. Nathanael Bond (1746/7-1777), who served as a surgeon for the Continental Army until he died of disease; Dr. David Cobb (1748-1830), who served as a surgeon, organizer of a smallpox hospital, and aide-de-camp on George Washington's staff during the Revolutionary War, and later served as a Congressman (1793-1795) and as lieutenant governor of Massachusetts (1809-1810); Dr. Samuel Curtis (1747-1822), a physician who later compiled an annual almanac for New Hampshire from 1798 to 1810; Benjamin Goodhue (1748-1814), who represented Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives (1789-1796) and U.S. Senate (1796-1800); Dr. Peter Green (1745-1828), who served as a physician in Concord, New Hampshire, for decades; Nicholas Pike (1743-1819), the author of a frequently reprinted Arithmetic textbook (1788); and John Prentice (1746-1808), who served as the attorney general of New Hampshire (1787-1793).Several of the class members became ministers throughout New England, and some were Loyalists during the Revolutionary War, including Rufus Chandler (1747-1823), who became an attorney in 1768 and served with the Associated Loyalists during the Revolutionary War, before fleeing to England, where he lived for most of the rest of his life; Dr. Joseph Dowse (1747-c1827), who became a surgeon in the British Army; Samuel Hale (1746/7-1787), who became an attorney in New Hampshire, but evacuated to Halifax after the siege of Boston; and Sir William Pepperrell (1746-1816), who was the first president of the Loyalist Association and his extensive land holdings in Maine were confiscated. Historical BackgroundThe Theses broadsides display propositions, used in the Commencement tradition of public student disputation that began at Harvard College in 1642. Henry Dunster, who served as Harvard's first president from 1640 to 1654, instituted the practice within a larger effort to model the college after European universities.Behind the printed broadsides was a multi-stage process that involved both students and faculty. The Latin theses were academic statements created by the graduating students to reflect the scope of their undergraduate study. The Theses fit within a curriculum that emphasized public discourse and syllogistic debate and ranged between approximately 50 and 250 propositions in most years. This broadside includes theses in technology, metaphysics, theology, logic, grammar, rhetoric, mathematics, and physics.Printed at the expense of the graduating class, the Theses were posted in advance, and graduates were expected to be able to defend them upon request on Commencement Day. The faculty selected certain students to discuss and dispute spe. (See website for full description). Seller Inventory # 28131

Bibliographic Details

Title: Printing of Harvard's 1766 List of ...
Publisher: Boston
Publication Date: 1766
Binding: No binding
Condition: Very Good
Book Type: Broadside