Abstract
IT is usually the case that private endowments for public purposes are made subject to narrowing restrictions, and then it too often ensues that with the lapse of time the very object of the gift is defeated by the restrictions—the letter kills the spirit. It must therefore be a matter of congratulation when a great public donation is left as free as compatible with the general object for which it is made. This is remarkably the case with a noble and munificent endowment established by Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson, of Stamford, Connecticut—an American lady well known for her public benefactions. Her long experience with churches and various charitable enterprises had led her to question whether the money spent in them achieves the greatest possible good. She finally reached the conviction that knowledge is the real source, the impelling power, of human progress, and it became her desire, from motives of the highest philantropy, to contribute to the promotion of science.
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MINOT, C. A New Endowment for Research . Nature 32, 297–298 (1885). https://doi.org/10.1038/032297b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/032297b0