University - Universities Beyond Europe

When Europeans took their civilization to new continents, they quickly founded universities modeled on those of Europe. Catholic religious orders and Protestant churches founded most of the overseas universities, which trained indigenous clergy and produce educated lay leaders. The first universities founded in the New World were Santo Domingo (after 1538), Mexico (1551), and Lima (1571). A Catholic bishop of the Dominican Order founded the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, the Philippines, in 1611. The Congregational Church founded Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1636 and named it for a minister who bestowed a considerable gift on the new college. These and many other universities across the world were based on European models. They were small in enrollment, faculty, and instruction at first, but grew over the centuries.