and the very valuable Congregational Library, named for Samuel A. Hitchcock, who gave $25,000 for the building. Already the building is found inadequate to the needs of these organizations, and plans have been submitted for a new and much larger structure on the site of the present one. When sufficient funds shall have been secured, it is confidently anticipated that the glory of the latter house will far surpass the glory

of the former.

CHAPTER XIX.

W

EDUCATION.

HEREVER, in any land, groups of Congrega

tional churches have arisen, institutions of learning have been planted among them. The Puritans believed in the necessity of an educated ministry, and of an intelligent laity who could give a reason for the faith that was in them. Therefore the Congregationalists of New England originated free common schools which have spread through the land.

But our fathers were not satisfied with primary education for their children. Six years after they settled Boston they founded Harvard College, which bears the name of a Congregational minister who began its endowment. They intended it to be, first of all, an institution for training ministers of the gospel, and for that reason especially the prayers and interest of the churches centered around it as the chief fountain of learning in this country. They gave it for its motto, "Christo et Ecclesiæ." From its earliest years its standard of scholarship was high, and many of its alumni were intellectually as well equipped as the graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, England, where so many of the earliest settlers of New England had gained academic degrees. In 1647 the Massachusetts General Court enacted a law that every town with fifty families should provide a school where children