Tags: Artwork.
John Harvard is a sculpture in bronze by Daniel Chester French in Harvard Yard Cambridge Massachusetts honoring John Harvard (1607–1638) whose deathbedbequest to theschoale or Colledgerecently undertaken by the Massachusetts Bay Colony was so gratefully received that it was consequently ordered that theColledgeagreed upon formerly tobeebuilt atCambridg shalbeecalled HarvardColledge. There being nothing to indicate what John Harvard had looked like French used a Harvard student descended from an early New England family as inspiration.The statue’s inscriptionJOHN HARVARD • FOUNDER • 1638is the subject of an arch polemictraditionally recited for visitorsquestioning whether John Harvard justly merits the honorific founder.According to a Harvard official the founding of the college was not the act of one but the work of many;John Harvard is therefore considered not the founder but a founder of the school though the timeliness and generosity of his contribution have made him the most honored of these.
