By Asher Intrater

Harvard College was founded in 1636.  Some of the first leaders were John Harvard, Increase Mather, and Henry Dunster.  These men were all dedicated Christian pastors. This is not surprising because the very charter of Harvard defined its purpose as training ministers for the New England churches.

That charter has never been changed. It was and is the only definitive and governing mandate for the school.  The job of the board of trustees is to guarantee that this mandate is continued; the job of the president of the school is to carry it out.

I graduated from Harvard College in 1974. I certainly had no idea then that this was the chartered purpose. Over the years the college grew into a multifaceted university. It is considered the most prestigious academic institution in the world.

The slogan of the school on its banner and coat of arms is Veritas. Veritas is Latin for “truth” (from which we have the words verify, veritable, etc.). It was there as a young philosophy student that I started my search for “the Truth.”

Actually, Veritas is an abbreviation of the full slogan of the school.  The original slogan is “Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae” – which means: “The truth of Christ and the Church.” The original mandate of Harvard was to teach people about the truth of Christ and the Church.

This early ministers’ training school was so dedicated to the Scriptures that every student had to be able to translate the Hebrew text of the Tanakh and the Greek text of the New Covenant as part of graduation requirements.

Harvard and most of the Ivy League schools were totally dedicated to preserving and educating the world about Judeo-Christian moral values and the Hebrew and Greek biblical texts. They saw themselves as connected to the destiny and history of ancient Israel.

The founders of these schools believed that higher academics is based on the central truths of the Scriptures. Other college departments within the university were not expected to teach “divinity” subjects, but they were expected to teach all secular subjects within the framework of the biblical worldview.

Much of academia today is pushing an extreme neo-Marxist, anti-Colonialist, trans-genderist agenda, even becoming “useful idiots” for radical jihadism.  

 
The inability of the current president of Harvard and presidents of other prestigious universities even to state that Hamas propaganda calling for genocide of the Jews is wrong, demonstrates how far the situation has degenerated into a grotesque mockery of the founders’ vision.