CHARTER AND LAWS. I. THE ACT ESTABLISHING THE OVERSEERS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. At a General Court held at Boston, on the 8th of September, in the year 1642. WHEREAS, through the good hand of God upon us, there is a College founded in Cambridge, in the County of Middlesex, called HARVARD COLLEGE, for the encouragement whereof this Court has given the sum of four hundred pounds, and also the revenue of the ferry betwixt Charlestown and Boston, and that the well ordering and managing of the said College is of great concernment, — It is therefore ordered by this Court and the authority thereof, that the Governor and Deputy-Governor for the time being, and all the magistrates of this jurisdiction, together with the teaching elders of the six next adjoining towns, viz., Cambridge, Watertown, Charlestown, Boston, Roxbury, and Dorchester, and the President of the said College for the time being, shall, from time to time, have full power and authority to make and establish all such orders, statutes, and constitutions as they shall see necessary for the instituting, guiding, and furthering of the said. College, and the several members thereof, from time to time, in piety, morality, and learning; as also to dispose, order, and manage, to the use and behoof of the said College and the members thereof, all gifts, legacies, bequeaths, revenues, lands, and donations, as either have been, are, or shall be conferred, bestowed, or any ways shall fall or come to the said College. And whereas it may come to pass that many of the said magistrates and elders may be 1 absent, or otherwise employed in other weighty affairs, when the said College may need their present help and counsel, -It is therefore ordered, that the greater number of magistrates and elders which shall be present, with the President, shall have the power of the whole. Provided, that if any constitution, order, or orders, by them made, shall be found hurtful unto the said College, or the members thereof, or to the weal public, then, upon appeal of the party or parties grieved unto the company of Overseers first mentioned, they shall repeal the said order or orders, if they shall see cause, at their next meeting, or stand accountable thereof to the next General Court. [This act is copied from "The General Laws of the Massachusetts Colony, revised and published by order of the General Court in October, 1658;" which was the second edition of the Laws of the Colony, and was printed in 1660. It varies slightly in phraseology from the Act contained in the Records of the General Court, vol. ii. page 24.] |