Happy Birthday, Harvard!
On this day in 1636, Harvard University was founded by order of the Massachusetts legislature, making it the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. It is arguably the most prestigious school in America and amongst the most important in the world. Named after its first benefactor, John Harvard (an Englishman and Cambridge University man), its roster of graduates boast 144 Nobel Laureates and eight U. S. presidents.
The university’s motto, “Veritas” (“Truth”), is crisply declared on the cast iron bookends which bear the school’s famous crest. They were cast in the 1920’s by the Bradley and Hubbard Company of Meriden, Connecticut.