Commonplace book, October 29, 1728-January 15, 1735

The small hardcover volume contains excerpts copied by John Winthrop beginning at the age of thirteen as a freshman at Harvard College. Winthrop’s own description of this book as “a book of Extracts from many Authors” is accurate, as it includes neither personal information about Winthrop nor reflections on what he read. With the exception of occasional notations indicating the date he finished reading particular books, the volume consists of passages he copied from a wide range of sources. It begins with an index of the various sections of the book (History, Poetry, Miscellanies, Geography, Divinity, History, Philosophy, Philosophy, Miscellanies, Poetry, Divinity, Philosophy) and ends with an index of the extracts' authors.

Subjects suggested by Levi Hedge, ca. 1820s

A handwritten letter to President Kirkland with three suggested questions from Levi Hedge, a professor of logic and metaphysics from 1810 to 1827, and the Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity from 1827 to 1832.

Student lecture notes of Benjamin Peirce, 1797-1798

This collection contains approximately twenty-three handwritten lecture summaries on six leaves made by Harvard undergraduate Benjamin Peirce between September 1797 and November 22, 1798. The summaries generally provide a few sentences describing the topic covered and primarily pertain to lectures on English grammar delivered by Eliphalet Pearson, the Hollis Professor of Hebrew and other Oriental Languages. There are also summaries for single lectures by David Tappan, the Hollis Professor Divinity; Samuel Webber, the Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy; and John Snelling Popkin, the Greek Tutor from 1795 to 1798, and later the Eliot Professor of Greek Literature. There is also an undated summary of a lecture by Benjamin Waterhouse, the Hersey Professor of Theory and Practice of Physic.