oldest institution of higher learning in the United States (founded 1636) and one of the nation’s most prestigious. It is one of the Ivy League schools. The main university campus lies along the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a few miles west of downtown Boston.

Harvard’s history began when a college was established at New Towne, which was later renamed Cambridge for the English alma mater of some of the leading colonists. Classes began in the summer of 1638 with one master in a single frame house and a “college yard.” Harvard was named for a Puritan minister, John Harvard, who left the college his books and half of his estate.