The Reverend Cotton Mather (1662–1728) was a Bostonian minister and one of the most important writers and thinkers in American literature. He attended Harvard University and graduated in 1678 at the age of fifteen. He is considered today one of the foremost early promoters of scientific thinking in the Americas for his support for inoculation as a way of combating smallpox and for his experiments with hybridizing corn. Mather was elected to membership in the Royal Society, England's academy of sciences, in 1723. He is perhaps best remembered, however, for his role in the prosecution of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692.