A typical day, according to a diary he kept during his third year, began a little after 6 a.m., when he studied the Bible for an hour. He then attended prayers in the college hall and “read part of a chapter in Hebrew, till 8 o’clock.” After breakfasting, Jacob spent the rest of his day reading and studying until 7:00 p.m. He attended a religious society meeting for two hours, when, at 9:00 p.m., he supped and allowed himself the indulgence of a pipe. Jacob then prayed until bedtime, “a little before 11” (but on other nights, he stayed up as late as 1:00 a.m.).32
His school assignments involved examining the Bible in Greek and Hebrew, but reading also “Mr. Ray’s Consequences of the Deluge”; papers in the Spectator; “Mr. Allen’s Alarm”; and John Locke and Euclid. Jacob worked hard at arithmetic. It was a thoroughly conventional schedule, typical for students of Harvard and Yale in the mid-eighteenth century.33
Logic was an important part of Harvard’s curriculum, and the assignment of John Locke was a sign of the Enlightenment’s arrival in this Puritan bastion, which revered not only Jesus Christ but Aristotle, Cicero, and other giants of the ancient world. In February 1728, Isaac Greenwood became Harvard’s first Hollis professor of mathematics and natural philosophy, and he did much to introduce the college to the Enlightenment and its liberal values. Greenwood was a scientist who observed the sea and the winds, and he published papers at the Royal Society. Edward Wigglesworth, son of Michael, was the Hollis professor of divinity, and he also did a great deal to modernize the Harvard curriculum by encouraging his students to broaden their knowledge of the leading issues of the day. As one historian noted, “America’s ‘enlightenment’ was . . . a ‘moderate’ and conciliatory cosmology that stressed balance, order, and religious compromise,” and Harvard’s students soon learned the importance of each.34
However, the real “liberal” advances in the curriculum came after Jacob graduated. As his diary shows, theology remained the most important and time-consuming subject. Jacob did not yet know whether he would become a minister after graduation, but his indecision did not really matter. At Harvard in 1740, all students were to master this most important subject. Even a “science” course had a theological twist to it: metaphysics explored nature, and its point was to glean the wisdom of God in the workings of the material world. Indeed, the Puritan philosopher William Ames stressed that metaphysics was a branch of theology.35 Traditional texts from the seventeenth century and earlier remained popular, especially Ames’s Medulla Theologiae (“The Marrow of Sacred Divinity”). Along with Johann Wollebius, Ames emphasized traditional Calvinist themes and attacked Arminianism. In doing so, both authors reinforced the covenantal teachings of Puritanism.
Students took all this religion with varying degrees of seriousness. A 1731 report on the state of Harvard lamented that “religion . . . [was] much in decay” and that “the worship of God in the Hall is scandalously neglected.” Students’ riotous behavior drew the condemnations of the report’s authors, who complained about the students’ “gross immoralities.”36
The class of 1744 did little to improve the atmosphere. A number of them spent their four years at Harvard in nearly constant trouble. Their favorite pastime was drinking rum. Nathaniel Bourne of Marshfield, who was a year younger than Jacob, was fined for drinking it and for tempting “Several Delinquents . . . to the Breach of the Law against prohibited Liquors.” Anthony Lechmere got drunk and made “indecent Noises, in the College Yard and in Town.” Isaac Bowles was a bit more creative. Besides being punished for drinking rum, he was severely admonished for lying, for gambling, and for “associating Himself with Company of a loose and ill Character.” Even Jonathan Mayhew, who went on to great fame as a minister and patriot, found himself in trouble for “drinking prohibited Liquors.” Mayhew reacted haughtily to his being caught and, “in a very impudent manner, made an impertinent Recrimination upon some of the immediate Government of the House.” In 1743, the faculty condemned the entire class for gathering to drink “prohibited Liquors” after 10:00 p.m. and for being slow to disperse after being ordered to return to their rooms.37
Jacob, though, avoided trouble. Even at this young age he was studious and serious. His best subjects, according to his son Ashbel, were math and languages, especially Hebrew—a notoriously difficult subject that had given generations of students fits. But not Jacob. His idea of a relaxing time was to talk Latin with his chum and to “look on the Moon through a telescope.” He clearly did not approve of his classmates’ antics; in a letter he wrote
to Ashbel years later, Jacob condemned Harvard as a “vicious college” and stressed “the necessity of [students’] Shunning and opposing vice” while at college. Jacob practiced what he preached. He focused on his studies, winning three scholarships and becoming Scholar of the House. The latter honor was especially fitting for this stern young man—in return for being paid an annual stipend of about five pounds, Jacob policed his classmates’ behavior.38
Jacob’s main extracurricular activity was his membership in a small religious society that he joined during his first year in Cambridge. The society had a membership of about twelve and met once a week for what he characterized as “religious exercises.” It was an uncomfortable experience during Jacob’s freshman year. To avoid ridicule and harassment, the society was forced to meet in secret, and members were careful not to draw attention to their activities. “So contemptible and persecuted were religious and religious persons, that we dared not sing in our worship,” Jacob complained.39
A pair of storms that swept through Harvard in the fall of 1740 and the winter of 1741 further upended the religious atmosphere on campus. The first disturbance was sparked by George Whitefield, the Anglican itinerant from England, who visited Cambridge on September 24 as part of a grueling, and wildly successful, forty-five-day tour of New England, where he delivered more than 175 sermons to crowds as large as twenty thousand. Whitefield was a mere twenty-five-years old in the fall of 1740, but he was a wizened veteran in the ways of revivalism, having conducted a successful tour of England a year earlier. Whitefield brought with him to New England a devotion to ecumenicalism, to the new birth, and to revivalism. Most of all, he brought a flair for the dramatic—he was a talented performer with a powerful voice that carried across open fields and crowded halls.40
Each appearance was an event. Nathan Cole, a farmer from Middletown, Connecticut, who went to hear the Great Awakener on October 23, 1740, captured the spectacle as well as anyone. Cole was working in his field when a messenger galloped by with the news that Whitefield was approaching Middletown: “I dropt my tool . . . and ran home to my wife telling her to make ready quickly to go and hear Mr. Whitfield preach at Middletown, then run to my pasture for my horse with all my might.” Fearing they would arrive late, Cole and his wife hurried toward the meetinghouse where Whitefield was to preach. Cole was astounded by the scene that awaited them. As they approached, “I saw before me a Cloud or fogg rising; I first thought it came from the great River,” he recalled, “but as I came nearer the Road, I heard a noise something like a low rumbling thunder . . . it was the noise of Horses feet coming down by the road.” A large throng—Cole estimated the “multitude” at three or four thousand—was gathering, and all was chaos: “The land and banks over the river looked black with people and horses all along the 12 miles I saw no man at work in his field, but all seemed to be gone.” Whitefield did not disappoint his hearers. Cole described him as “almost angelical; a young, Slim, slender youth before some thousands of people with a bold undaunted Countenance . . . [and] he looked as if he was Cloathed with authority from the Great God.” His sermon left Cole shaken and his heart pierced: “I saw that my righteousness would not save me; then I was convinced of the doctrine of Election.”41
The Harvard community received Whitefield cordially, with President Edward Holyoke entertaining the itinerant and students flocking to hear him speak at Cambridge’s meetinghouse. Standing before the assembled students, tutors, overseers, and guests, he preached on the theme of “We are not as many, who corrupt the Word of God.” Whitefield was fairly pleased with how it went: “God gave me great boldness and freedom of speech,” and he returned in the afternoon