156 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



property by relations or guardians till they came of age. 

 We should in this way greatly simplify wills, and almost 

 abolish will-cases, while the courts would be relieved from 

 that great mass of causes of the most tedious kind, in 

 which trust-deeds, settlements, legal estates, shifting uses, 

 entails, and trustees bear a prominent part. 



It has been so long and so universally the practice in 

 civilized countries for the law to recognize and enforce 

 the wishes of individuals as to applications of their 

 property other than the simple transfer of it to others, 

 that to many, perhaps to most persons, it Avill at first 

 seem to be a positive injustice to take away from them 

 the power to do so. Yet the law itself recognizes that 

 the practice is beset with evils, and from a very early 

 period legislative restrictions have been applied to it. 

 Hence the laws of mortmain, and the long series of 

 amendments, relaxations, or restrictions of those laws ; 

 as well as the limitation of the power of entailing estates 

 for any longer period than a life in being and twenty-one 

 years afterwards. These restrictions prove that the 

 unlimited power of disposition of property has been held 

 to be a law-given custom, not an inherent right ; for if 

 the latter, every restriction of its exercise must be a 

 wrong to the parties restricted, w^hich it has never been 

 held to be. The whole question is, however, so very 

 important, and has so many and such wide applications, 

 that it deserves a somewhat fuller discussion. 



The establishment of the Endowed Schools Commission 

 has struck the first real blow at the system of a perpetual 

 and blind submission to the wills of dead men ; but the 

 new principle, even in its limited application to endowed 

 schools and charities, often excites much opposition. 

 Many liberal and intelligent men still look upon the 

 " intentions " of those who in past ages endowed churches, 

 schools, hospitals, almshouses, and other institutions, as 

 something sacred, which it is almost imj)ious to ignore, 

 and which it is our plainest duty to carry out with only 

 such slight modifications as the changed conditions of 

 society absolutely necessitate. But it is here contended 

 that this notion is not founded' on any true conception, 



