The 3 Lies of Harvard Noureddine Boutahar

During my stay in Boston in 2004, I had the privilage of visiting Harvard
University—that towering beacon of learning—in the company of a group of distinguished professors and students from Boston University. It was there, in the heart of this esteemed institution that enshrines Veritas (Truth) as its sacred motto, that I chanced upon a deliciously ironic paradox, one the locals recount with a knowing smile.

Standing proudly in Harvard Yard is a magestic bronze statue said to represent John Harvard. Among students, however, it goes by a far less reverent moniker: the Statue of Three Lies. At first glance, the label seems almost heretical in America’s oldest university, a place that claims truth as its lodestar. But, as the saying goes, the devil is in the details.

The First Lie: A Case of Mistaken Identity

The inscription confidently asserts that the statue portrays John Harvard himself. In truth, that’s a bit of a tall tale. When the sculptor Daniel Chester French began work in 1884, he quickly discovered that no authentic portraits of John Harvard existed; the man had died more than two centuries earlier. Faced with this void, French scraped together an escape by using a Harvard student of the time, Sherman Hoar, as his model—thus giving a fictional face to a very real benefactor.

The Second Lie: The Founder’s Myth

The pedestal also proclaims John Harvard as the university’s “Founder.” Historically, however, a different truth lies beneath the surface. Harvard was established by a formal vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. John Harvard’s true claim to fame lies elsewhere: he was the institution’s first benevolent benefactor, donating half his estate and his entire library. The university bears his name as a tribute to his altruistic generosity, not as recognition of authorship.

The Third Lie: A Chronological Slip

Finally, the date 1638 is engraved as the year of Harvard’s founding. The records, however, are clear: the university was founded in 1636. The year 1638 marks John Harvard’s death and the execution of his bequest—not the birth of the institution itself.

Granting these narrative concessions, the statue remains a mandatory stop on any Harvard tour. Visitors and students alike line up to rub the statue’s left shoe for luck and for academic success. Decades of hopeful hands have polished the toe box of the shoe to a gleaming gold, creating a striking contrast with the rest of the bronze figure.

It is a scene that perfectly captures the uneasy marriage of academic dignity and popular myth. In the end, it reminds us that all that glitters is not gold—and that even at Harvard, a well-polished “lie” can grow into a beloved tradition.