The oldest and premier educational institution in the United States, is located at Cambridge, Massachusetts, 3 m. W. of Boston; it is named after the Rev. John Harvard, a graduate of Cambridge, who by the bequest of his library and small fortune helped to launch the institution in 1638; it was originally intended for the training of youths for the Puritan ministry, but it has during the present century been extended into a university of the first rank, under emancipation from all sectarian control; it has a student roll of about 3000, is splendidly equipped, and now richly endowed.