Bum Wampum Teaches University To Look All Gift Horse in Mouths

Money is where you find it, the saying goes, and since 1640 Harvard has been looking in some mighty strange places.

According to the 151 to '52 Financial received $14,376, 403.36 from endowment and gifts, a Los Angles dentist and the income droppings.

Many donors state specifically that their gift must be used for certain programs of research projects. One of the stranger funds augmented in 1951 to '52 was the "Charitable Irish Society," which received $4,000 anonymously.

In 1940 an unnamed giver established the $278,000 gift "for teaching and research in Celtic languages and literatures..." He later amended the provisions and threw in the "teaching of Irish, literature, and culture..."

Hand-Books

Another unusual gift came from the estate of Augustus P. Loring Jr., "to underwrite the publishing of a second edition of 'Decorated book papers' by my wife..." (The book described the process for producing colored book covers by hand.) Accordingly the University Press repeated its 1942 edition.

But most talked about of classic gifts is an endowment fund established to clean pigeon droppings off a statue. At their twentieth reunion, the class of 1883 presented the college with a bronze bust of James Russell Lowell, class of 1838, to be placed in a niche on Massachusetts Hall, with a stone seat in front.

Dust the Bust

Four years later some classmates returned to Cambridge and were horrified to see pigeons were making a mess of their gift. So in 1908 the class raised $250 to clean the bust and seat below: "The class desired that the College should not be out to any expense in future in keeping the bust, pedestal, and seat clean and in good order..."

This was done until 1932 when Lowell House acquired the bust and assumed the cleaning expenses. But it then took the Corporation 18 years to decide to divert the income from the fund to "maintenance of the Yard."

Traditionally, the University has had difficulties with many of its gifts and endowments; it's first was no exception.

On October 7, 1640 Harvard's investment history officially began with the State of massachusetts granting it the concession of the Boston Charlestown Ferry. The University, seemingly not even impressed by the fact the members of the corporation could travel free here, rented the ferry out, but soon found that that can be even worse. The rents were usually paid in wampum and much bad wampum ended up in the University's pockets.

"All the bad an unfinished wampum made by the Indians finds its way into the College treasury from ferry toll," President Dunster said in 1648.

The University continued to receive income from the Ferry until 1785, when the first toll bridge was built across the Charles and put the ferry out of the picture. However the income still rolled in--this time from the bridge companies. And in 1786 the capital funds were arranged (with one of her sons as guardian), and the other here.

Cotton Wage

Two funds from an old stack of bad wampum are not the University's only immediate link with the past. Thanks immediately link with the past. Thanks to a $156 fund from Thomas Cotton (1727) the President gets about $7.03 a year in addition to his regular salary. Thomas Hollis in 1721 set up enough money to pay well over $20 to help defray the costs of having a treasurer.

Not exactly the bane of the financial report, but admittedly rather a nuisance are two funds that the University holds in trust for purposes unconnected with the College. Needless to say both fund dates back to the 18th country.

Daniel Williams in 1716 left 60 pounds to be divided between two persons "to preach as itinerants in the English plantations, in the west Indies and for the good of what pagans and blacks be neglected there...and the remainder to the College of Cambridge, New England to manage the blessed work of converting the poor Indians there."

In 1933 the Corporation wiggled out of obvious difficulties by giving the bulk of the money to the Mass. Baptist Convention.

Sound Slides

The 1790 fund of Mrs. Sarah Winslow pays the Treasurer to look after it. (Fifty shillings for every hundred pounds --$5.28 in this case.) Otherwise the will is more complicated, but otherwise no different from the rest.

Like many reports, the Financial Report is in dire need of spring housecleaning. Many little odd balances could be written off with ease, but I sympathize with you. Such errors as $143.40 from the National Research Council for making and testing of a series of sound slide films on a single subject, under the direction of the Late Francis T. Spaulding Professor of Education. Spaulding left Harvard in 1945, and died in 1950.

Gifts last year ranged the gamut from $1 to over a million and a half. In 1959 and '51 without explanation a Los Angelan, Myron J. Koobat, sent $1.00 to the an, Myron J. Koobat, sent $1.00 to the College and this sum is duly recorded under "gifts for immediate use." So far his 1952 contribution has not arrived.

Come Back, Winnle

The bequest of Sylia A. G. H. Wilks is the largest gift last year, $1,645,391.82.

Many odd sums are carried year after year on the books because the department on University has temporarily for gotten about them. Apparently the only feasible way to spend a 1944 gift for a memorial of the visit of Churchill to Harvard is for the Prime Minister to come back again.