Harvard University was founded by the Massachusetts colonial legislature in 1636, and named after John Harvard, a young Puritan minister who had bequeathed his library and half his estate to the institution. The original purpose of the university was to train ministers for the Puritan church, but it later expanded its curriculum to include a broad range of subjects. Today, Harvard is a private Ivy League research university and is widely regarded as one of the world's most prestigious institutions of higher learning. This was 140 years before America's Independence.