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America’s First Constitutions and Declarations of Rights
gifts, grants, devises of houses, lands, tenements, goods, chattels, legacies
and conveyances, heretofore made, either to Harvard-College in Cambridge, in New-England, or to the President and Fellows of HarvardCollege, or to the said College, by some other description, under several
charters successively: it is declared, That all the said gifts, grants, devises, legacies and conveyances, are hereby forever confirmed unto the
President and Fellows of Harvard-College, and to their successors, in the
capacity aforesaid, according to the true intent and meaning of the donor
or donors, grantor or grantors, devisor or devisors.
iii.—and whereas by an act of the General Court of the Colony of
Massachusetts-Bay, passed in the year one thousand six hundred and
forty-two, the Governor and Deputy-Governor, for the time being, and
all the magistrates of that jurisdiction, were, with the President, and a
number of the clergy in the said act described, constituted the Overseers
of Harvard-College: And it being necessary, in this new Constitution of
Government, to ascertain who shall be deemed successors to the said
Governor, Deputy-Governor and Magistrates: it is declared, That the
Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Council and Senate of this Commonwealth, are, and shall be deemed, their successors; who, with the President of Harvard-College, for the time being, together with the ministers
of the congregational churches in the towns of Cambridge, Watertown,
Charlestown, Boston, Roxbury, and Dorchester, mentioned in the said
act, shall be, and hereby are, vested with all the powers and authority
belonging, or in any way appertaining to the Overseers of HarvardCollege; provided, that nothing herein shall be construed to prevent the
Legislature of this Commonwealth from making such alterations in the
government of the said university, as shall be conducive to its advantage,
and the interest of the republic of letters, in as full a manner as might have
been done by the Legislature of the late Province of the Massachusetts-Bay.
chapter v
section ii
The Encouragement of Literature, etc.
Wisdom, and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among
the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their