Student notebook of Samuel Dunbar, 1721-1722

This leather-bound volume contains substantial transcriptions copied by Samuel Dunbar from textbooks while he was a student at Harvard in 1721 and 1722. There is a general index to texts at the end of the volume. Dunbar's notebook provides a window into the state of higher education in the eighteenth century and offers a firsthand account of academic life at Harvard College. Notably, he often indicated the number of days spent copying texts into his book.

Compendium Physica, copied July 8, 1721-September 4, 1721 -- An Extract out of Dr. Jno Wallis his Hypothesis concerning the Ebbing & Flowing of the Sea in his letter to Mr. Boyle datd April 25, 1666 Inserted in ye Phylosphic Transactions No. 16 P. 263 -- A Catechism Geographical Historical and Chronological by Mr. Henry Flint T. H. Colledge, copied April 24, 1722 -- Theses quaedam extractae potissimum ex Enchiridio Metaphysico Domini Johannis Clerici Dominum Jonathanem Remington, Socium Colle Harvardinia, copied August 13, 1722 from a précis created by Tutor Remington of Jean LeClerc's Ontologia et Pneumatologia -- Geometria Domini Johannis Henrici Alstedy, copied [September 26, 1722], -- [William Brattle, Compendium of Logic], copied May 9-26 1721 in English and in Latin -- A Treatise of Logick extracted from Mr. Morton by Mr. Taber Fitch, June 3-5, 1721 -- A Collection of some astronomical definitions [by] D.E.P, September 6, 1721 -- Some Mathematical problems resolved.

Positive microfilm available for reference use; negative microfilm available for reproduction purposes.

Received in the Harvard College Library on September 18, 1942 with Sheldon Funds.

Rear paste-down endpaper: 'Elijah Dunbar 1753 march,' [A. B. 1760] 'Samuel Dunbars Book 1753 of 1722'

Samuel Dunbar, minister of the First Church of Canton, was born on October 2, 1704 in Boston. He studied at the Boston Latin School before attending Harvard and graduating in the Class of 1723. After studying divinity under Cotton Mather, Dunbar received an AM from Harvard in 1726. He was ordained as the minister of the First Church of Canton in 1727 and served as minister until his death on June 2, 1783. Dunbar’s son Elijah graduated from Harvard in 1760.

The undergraduate students of Harvard College followed a structured program of study in the early 1700s. Certain key texts were adopted as textbooks at Harvard, and students often copied them into personal notebooks in place of purchased books. Textbooks created by Harvard Tutors Henry Flynt and William Brattle, Instructor Judah Monis, and Fellow Charles Morton were among the earliest used in the colonies.