1880.] Editors Table. 793 
gether and amass each his fortune. A late party of prospectors 
passing that way had found the white man’s bones whitening 
among the sun-burnt rocks. The conclusion was that the negro 
had murdered his partner and absconded with the accumulated 
gains of both. And with many such cheerful and edifying bits of 
history do they seek to beguile the time which weary travelers 
spend at these desolate halting places in the wilderness. 
10: 
EDITORS’ TABLE. 
EDITORS: A. S. PACKARD, JR., AND E. D. COPE. 
—— Whenever an institution accepts a bequest designed to 
assist impecunious but worthy students in the acquisition of 
some useful kind of knowledge, such as natural history, its 
obligations to itself, the donor and beneficiaries of the gift, are 
plainly that it must, under the direction of a competent com- 
mittee, see that the donated funds are applied to the objects for 
which they were given. Such bequests render the institutions 
accepting them, charitable, and if in addition the bequest is for 
the purpose of enabling any particular class of persons to acquire 
a specific kind of knowledge, the institution becomes educational 
in the same sense that any special school is considered to be 
such. Under no ordinary circumstances can the governing body 
in charge of such a trust, neglect the duty of ascertaining 
‘whether the persons directly in charge of the incumbent benefi- 
ciaries, do their duty, and whether the beneficiaries themselves 
are competent persons who are making the proper progress under 
the proper discipline. Otherwise there is room for maladminis- 
tration under unauthorized authority ; or, the beneficiaries with no 
direction, under no discipline or instruction, fritter away their 
time in fruitless effort, at a period of life when they can ill afford 
to lose it. 
The Academy of Natural Sciences, of Philadelphia, some years 
ago accepted a trust of this kind. Mr. A. E. Jessup’s children, out 
of dutiful regard for their father’s wishes, gave the society a sum 
in trust, the income of which was designed for the benefit of im- 
pecunious young men who desired to devote the whole of their 
time and energies to the pursuit of natural science. The desire to 
give a sum of money for such a purpose in a man like Mr. Jessup 
was a natural one, which probably took its rise in the recollection 
VOL, ¥1V.~=NO. XI. st 
