Harvard University got its present name when, on March 13th in 1639, New College (founded 1636) was renamed for John Harvard, a Puritan minister. In 1637 Harvard and his wife had emigrated from England to avoid religious persecution. They settled in Massachusetts where John became a teaching elder at the First Church of Charlestown.
 
Unfortunately Harvard died of consumption barely a year after arriving in America. But he bequeathed half his estate and a 400-book collection to New College, which is how it came to bear his name.
 
History doesn’t record many details on the life of John Harvard, but as a Puritan minister, it’s unlikely he’d be too proud of his namesake today. I’m pretty sure present-day Harvard doesn’t have much use for John’s dusty old books anymore. Or his dusty old worldview.
 
Yet, like nearly every college founded in the New World, Harvard – as explained in an early brochure – was established: “To advance Learning and perpetuate it to Posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate Ministry to the Churches.” I doubt the school’s current brochure includes a similar statement. And I wonder what percentage of the current student body knows that Harvard University’s motto is “Truth . . . for Christ and the church”?
 
Harvard mothballed those quaint sentiments decades ago. Instead they’ve embraced an “all truth is relative” perspective where pretty much anything goes – except traditional Christianity.
 
For instance, I’ll bet you didn’t know that:
 
• “Health is a fundamental right of every human being.” ~ Indeed. This is a “core value” of the Harvard School of Public Health
 
• There’s nothing wrong with pornography so long as one can find an “ethical” source for it. ~ Harvard – home of ethical porn
 
• “Neither truth nor standards matter when it comes to one of the ideological raw nerves like race.” ~ Thomas Sowell on Lawrence Summers’ ’06 resignation.
 
• It’s OK for the college to host a pseudo-academic conference devoted to calls for Israel’s extermination. ~ Harvard’s Academic Pogrom at FrontPageMag.com
 
• CRT (Critical Race Theory*), as advanced by President Obama’s favorite Harvard Law School Professor, and antithetical to our Constitutional Republic, is worthy of serious academic consideration ~ Critical Race Theory Explained

 

I’m not sure what bankrupt relativistic philosophy(s) Harvard embraces these days. Certainly it’s not the transcendent “Veritas” emblazoned on the University’s seal.
 
But that is the only “Truth” that will ever set their students truly free.
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Related:
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Harvard Ironies ~ Veritas for Whom? For What?
Great article by by Rev. Dr. Mark D. Roberts.
 
Information on John Harvard from “The American Patriot’s Almanac” ~ William J. Bennett & John T.E. Cribb
 
*CRT in brief:

Racism cannot be ended within the current system; the current system is actually both a by-product of and a continuing excuse for racism. Minority opinions on the system are more relevant than white opinions, since whites have long enjoyed control of the system, and have an interest in maintaining it.
 
Critical race theorists attack the very foundations of the [classical] liberal legal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism and neutral principles of constitutional law. These liberal values, they allege, have no enduring basis in principles, but are mere social constructs calculated to legitimate white supremacy. The rule of law, according to critical race theorists, is a false promise of principled government, and they have lost patience with false promises.

 
How Much Did Prof. Bell Influence Obama’s Ideology? ~ at Breitbart.com