One of the most prestigious universities in the country and the oldest (established in 1636) is Harvard University. It belongs to the Ivy League of colleges. A few miles west of Boston's city center, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, along the Charles River, is where the main campus of the institution is located. About 23,000 students attend Harvard overall. The founding of a college in New Towne, later renamed Cambridge after the English university attended by some of the most influential colonists, marked the beginning of Harvard. One teacher taught students in a single frame home with a "college yard" in the summer of 1638. John Harvard, a Puritan clergyman who left the college his writings and half of his estate, is the inspiration behind the name Harvard.