6 THE RUMFORD FUND 



co very or improvement, if the plaintiffs see fit so to do, a sum of 

 money not exceeding three hundred dollars. 



"And it is further ordered, adjudged, and decreed, that the 

 plaintiffs may appropriate from time to time, as the same can 

 advantageously be done, the residue of the income of said fund 

 hereafter to be received, and not so as aforesaid awarded in 

 premiums, to the purchase of such books and papers and philo- 

 sophical apparatus (to be the property of said Academy) and in 

 making such publications or procuring such lectures, experiments, 

 or investigations, as shall in their opinion best facilitate and en- 

 courage the making of discoveries and improvements which may 

 merit the premium so as aforesaid to be by them awarded. And 

 that the books, papers, and apparatus so purchased shall be used, 

 and such lectures, experiments, and investigations be delivered and 

 made, either in the said Academy or elsewhere, as the plaintiffs 

 shall think best adapted to promote such discoveries and improve- 

 ments as aforesaid, and either by the Rumford Professor of Harvard 

 University or by any other person or persons, as to the plaintiffs 

 shall from time to time seem best." 



In considering this action of the Court, Dr. George 

 E. Ellis, the biographer of Count Rumford, makes the 

 following comment : 



" It is easy to express the obvious suggestion, that the enlarge- 

 ment and direction thus allowed by judicial decision to the use of 

 the trust fund committed by Count Rumford to the Academy, for 

 one specified and well-defined object, exceed any possible construc- 

 tion that can be put upon the liberal terms of his deed of gift. 

 But it is just as easy to meet the suggestion by affirming that the 

 judicial decree has in view, and aims, it may even be said, most 

 conscientiously to fulfil, the intent of the donor. Under its de- 

 cision the Academy may make the munificence of Count Rumford 

 most serviceable at the fountain-head and sources of that scientific 

 development which alone can secure biennially, or at longer or shorter 



