Life of Count Rumford. 265 



" Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa- 

 tives, in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the 

 same, That the justices of the Supreme Judicial Court be, and 

 they hereby are, authorized and empowered to hear and deter- 

 mine in equity any and all matters relating to the donation of 

 Benjamin Count Rumford to the American Academy of Arts 

 and Sciences, and to make all necessary or proper orders and 

 decrees touching the same." 



Count Rumford by his last will, made in Paris, had 

 bequeathed the residue of his estate to Harvard College, 

 for the purpose of founding a Professorship to teach by 

 lectures and experiments the utility of the physical and 

 mathematical sciences for the improvement of the useful 

 arts and the industry and well-being of society. The 

 College, therefore, became a party to the hearing of 

 this case in equity, and as defendants withstood the 

 prayer of the Academy for a legal liberty to depart from 

 the conditions attached to Count Rumford's donation. 

 The College claimed that the objects which he had in 

 view in his fund for a premium intrusted to the 

 Academy were substantially included in and covered 

 by the objects assigned for the Rumford Professorship, 

 and insisted, " that if the said fund and the accumula- 

 tion thereof, or any part thereof, cannot be appropri- 

 ated and applied in the hands of the said plaintiffs to 

 the execution of the general intent of said donor in 

 making his said donation to the said plaintiffs, the 

 same, or so much thereof as cannot be so applied, ought 

 to be decreed to be paid over to these defendants, as 

 residuary legatees of said Count Rumford, for the use 

 of the said Rumford Professorship." 



The case was fully heard with arguments of counsel, 

 and an application by the court of those principles of 

 equity which allow a modification of the conditions 



