SMACKDOWN: CAMBRIDGE VS. NEW HAVEN

Cambridge: Student-led tours of Harvard Yard wind up with a quiz at Daniel Chester French’s statue of John Harvard, a.k.a. “the statue of three lies.” Two errors are in the inscription: “John Harvard Founder 1638”: (a) the school was founded in 1636 and (b) John Harvard was merely a donor who got history’s best deal on naming rights. The third lie? It’s not John Harvard at all. Since no image of the 17th-century cleric existed, French modeled the head on a student in the Class of 1882. David Lyon for The Boston Globe

By Patricia Harris and David Lyon / Globe Correspondents

Cambridge: Student-led tours of Harvard Yard wind up with a quiz at Daniel Chester French’s statue of John Harvard, a.k.a. “the statue of three lies.” Two errors are in the inscription: “John Harvard Founder 1638”: (a) the school was founded in 1636 and (b) John Harvard was merely a donor who got history’s best deal on naming rights. The third lie? It’s not John Harvard at all. Since no image of the 17th-century cleric existed, French modeled the head on a student in the Class of 1882.

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