In 1675 at the age of twelve he entered Harvard College. While at Harvard he studied logic, ethics, metaphysics, mathematics, rhetoric, oratory, and divinity and continued his study of languages. After graduation in 1678, a speech defect hindered his entry into the ministry, and he began studying medicine.
The surviving books of Cotton Mather's library show that until the age of twenty he habitually inscribed each with his name and the year he acquired it. These early acquisitions suggest the breadth of his education and confirm his interest in languages. In the 1670s he acquired an English/ Latin dictionary; a collection of aphorisms in Greek and Latin; Jean Tixier's Epithetorum ... Epitome (London: ex officina Societatis Stationariorum, 1642); Wilhelm Schickard's Hebrew grammar, Horologium Hebraeum (London: typis Thomas Paine, venit apud Philemonem Stephanum and Christophorum Meredith, 1639); William Walker's Phraseologia Anglo-Latina (London: for R. Royston, 1672); and a recent Greek grammar. Mather took pleasure learning Latin by reading Terence's and Plautus's comedies, copies of which he received from his father. Increase Mather's home was destroyed by fire in 1678, but fortunately much of the library was saved.
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