Student notebook of John Tufts, 1705

Small vellum-covered notebook containing handwritten transcriptions copied by Harvard undergraduate John Tufts from two Harvard textbooks. The notebook is divided into two sections with the first, numbered 1-100, containing an English transcription of "Compendium of Logick" compiled by William Brattle, and the second, numbered 1-66, containing an untitled Latin transcription of Charles Morton's "Compendium Physicae." The flyleaf is inscribed "John Tufts His Book 1705."

Title supplied by cataloger. Received in June 1990 from George Goodspeed.

John Tufts (1688/9-1750), a Massachusetts minister and music educator, was born in Medford, Mass. on February 26, 1688/9. He received an AB from Harvard in 1708 and an AM in 1711. Tufts was ordained as the minister of the second church of Newbury, Mass. (later the first church of West Newbury) on June 30, 1714, and served until March 2, 1737/8. Tufts published the first singing book printed in the English colonies (usually bound at the back of the New England Psalm Book) around 1712. After leaving Newbury, Tufts moved to Amesbury and worked as a shop-keeper until his death on August 17, 1750.

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.