Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, established in 1636. Its history,   wealth have made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world

Established originally by the Massachusetts legislature and soon thereafter named for John Harvard (its first benefactor), Harvard is the United States' oldest institution of higher learning,and the 

Harvard Corporation (formally, the President and Fellows of is its first chartered corporation. Although never formally affiliated with any denomination, the early College primarily 

trained  and Unitarian clergy. Its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized during the 18th century, and by the 19th century Harvard had emerged as the central cultural establishment among Boston elites.

 Following the American Civil War, President Charles W. Eliot's long tenure transformed the college and affiliated professional schools into a modern research university; Harvard was a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900.

The University is organized into eleven separate  and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced campuses throughout the Boston metropolitan area:

its 209-acre (85 ha) main campus is centered on Harvard Yard in Cambridge, approximately 3 miles (5 km) northwest of Boston; the business school and athletics facilities, including Harvard Stadium, 

and public health s

Harvard has the largest financial endowment of any academic institution in the world, standing at $32.3 billion as of June 2013

Harvard is a large, highly residential research university.The nominal cost of attendance is high, but the University's large endowment allows it to offer generous financial aid packages.

operates several arts, cultural, and scientific museums, alongside the Harvard Library, which is the world's largest academic and private library system, comprising 79 individual libraries with over 18 

date, some 150 Nobel laureates have been affiliated as students, faculty, or staff.

Harvard was formed in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It was initially called "New College" or "the college at New. In 1638, the college became home for North America's first known printing press, carried by the ship John of London.

n 1639, the college was renamed Harvard College after deceased clergyman John Harvard, who was an alumnus of the University of Cambridge. He had left the school £779 and his library of some 400 books.charter creating the Harvard Corporation was granted in 1650.

In the early years the College trained many Puritan ministers.The college offered a classic academic 

 was never affiliated with any particular denomination, but many of its earliest graduates went on to become clergymen in Congregational and Unitarian churches throughout New England.

An early brochure, published in 1643, described the founding of the college as a response to the desire "to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity, dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the c

The leading Boston divine Increase Mather served as president from 1685 to 1701. In 1708, John Leverett became the first president who was not also a clergyman, which marked a turning of the college toward intellectual independence from Puritanism.