#  61. The future of Harvard in 1700 

 



##  Increase Mather's "Queries Worthy of Consideration" 

 

 

  ![Increase Mather's "Queries Worthy of Consideration" 1700 Harvard University](/sites/g/files/omnuum10456/files/2025-10/archives-mather-1_0.jpg)

 



 

  

 

  ![Increase Mather's "Queries Worthy of Consideration" 1700 Harvard University](/sites/g/files/omnuum10456/files/2025-10/archives-mather-2_0.jpg)

 



 

  

 

 

 

 

 

**Increase Mather**  
Harvard University, 1700  
  
Increase Mather (1639-1723) was the sixth president of Harvard College, serving as acting president from 1685 to 1686, rector from 1686 to 1692, and president from 1692 to 1701.

Born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, Mather received his A.B. from Harvard in 1656, and an A.M. degree from Trinity College, Dublin, in 1658. In 1661 he was ordained as minister at the North Church in Boston, a position he held for sixty years.

A staunch proponent of Puritan religious orthodoxy, Increase Mather defended religious uniformity in New England and supported the enforcement of a strict moral code in Massachusetts. During his sixteen-year tenure as president of Harvard, Mather retained his ministry in Boston, refusing to live in Cambridge, and spent much of his time in England where he pursued political matters on behalf of the Massachusetts colony. Opposition to Mather’s presidency and his perceived lack of attention to the College eventually grew strong enough to force his resignation from Harvard in 1701. He continued in his Boston ministry for another twenty years.

As part of his efforts to secure a royal charter for Harvard College, Mather hoped to insert provisions in the charter that would institutionalize an orthodox puritan religious outlook. These notes describe Mather’s concern regarding the religious views of future members of the Corporation. A published transcription is available in Samuel Eliot Morison’s Harvard in the Seventeenth Century, pages 526-527. Taking notes as he did here in a column on the right side of the page left space on the left for later comments or additions.

[View Digitized Item](http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.ARCH:3333135)  
English. Paper.  
Harvard University Archives. UAI 15.860 Box 1, Folder 3. HOLLIS Catalog: [009516273](https://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/990095162730203941/catalog)



 

 

 [62. Guiding the reader chevron\_right](/62-guiding-reader) 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 See also:- [ The Fragment and the Whole ](/itineraries/fragment-and-whole)
- [ Harvard University ](/keywords/harvard-university)
- [ Increase Mather ](/keywords/increase-mather)
- [ lists ](/keywords/lists)
- [ notes on notes ](/keywords/notes-notes)
- [ Harvard University Archives ](/libraries/harvard-university-archives)