Agent of Democracy - Society for College and University Planning

Agent of Democracy
The Puritan community of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
founded Harvard College in 1636 in order to train leaders, those
who would govern its Christian commonwealth. The nature of
Puritan society directly affected both who its governors would be
and what they would study in college. Because the early Puritans
wanted a perfectly united community and a public life devoted to
serving God, their religious and political spheres were naturally
interconnected. Nevertheless, because of Protestant theology and a
desire not to replicate the traditional Anglican fusion of church and
state, they simultaneously made a conceptual distinction between
the two spheres. Thus, while citizenship in the Puritan community
required membership in the Congregationalist church, and church
leaders took a lead role in political life by sermonizing on Election
Day and consulting with civil magistrates, ministers were barred
from holding political office and the courts were nonecclesiastical.
Due to the nature of their community, the Puritans needed the
leadership of both ministers and lawyers, and so they founded
Harvard College to train these men to tend to public affairs. The
first institution of Puritan civil society, Harvard developed as a
distinct entity, separate from both church and state, yet subject
to the authority of both. Although Harvard College trained both
sacred and civil leaders, all its students were educated with the
same curriculum, a classical (liberal arts) curriculum, which included
the great works of moral philosophy, theology, history, and
literature. Interestingly, although the study of Scripture took a central
place in Puritan education, so did the great pagan works of
Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, among others.
The Puritans considered a classical curriculum that foregrounded
normative issues both appropriate and necessary for
those who would tend to public affairs—for three reasons. First, the
humanistic tradition transmitted to community leaders knowledge
of accepted truths as revealed through the great classical and religious
texts. Second, studying the liberal arts nurtured in students
the inherent political capacity for reflection, a capacity essential to
good government. And finally, the classical curriculum was designed
to instill in students an excellent moral character.
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