designate them; and the point decided was that, they having all died without doing so, the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Pennsylvania could not sustain a bill to establish them, filed by charitable institutions in Pennsylvania and South Carolina in the name of the administrator de bonis non and next of kin of the testator. The question there was, whether the authority of a court of chancery, under such circumstances, belonged to its ordinary jurisdiction over trusts, or to its prerogative power under the sign manual of the crown, which last has never been introduced into this country. See Boyle on Charities, 238, 239; Jackson v. Phillips, 14 Allen (Mass.), 539,576, 588. No question of the validity of the gift as against the next of kin was presented; and even Chief Justice Taney, who, differing from the rest of the court, alone asserted that "if the object to be benefited is so indefinite and so vaguely described that the bequest could not be supported in the case of an ordinary trust, it cannot be established in a court of the United States upon the ground that it is a charity," distinctly admitted that a suit by an heir or representative of the testator to recover property or money bequeathed to a charity could not be maintained in a court of the United States if the bequest was valid by the law of the State. 17 How. 395, 396. Accordingly, in Lorings v. Marsh, 6 Wall. 337, the court dismissed a bill by the next of kin to set aside a bequest by a citizen of Massachusetts "in trust for the benefit of the poor," by means of such incorporated charitable institutions as should be designated by three persons appointed by the trustees or their successors; such a bequest being valid under the law of Massachusetts as habitually administered in her courts.

In United States v. Fox, 94 U. S. 315, this court, affirming the judgment of the Court of Appeals of New York in 52 N. Y. 530, held a devise of land in New York to the United States, for the purpose of assisting to discharge the debt contracted by the war for the suppression of the Rebellion, to be invalid, solely because by the law of New York, as declared by recent decisions of the Court of Appeals, none but a natural person, or a corporation created by that State with authority to take by devise, could be a devisee of land in that State. Where not prohibited by statute, a devise or bequest for such

a purpose is a good charitable gift. Nightingale v. Goulburn, 5 Hare, 484, and 2 Phillips, 594; Dickson v. United States, 125 Mass. 311.

In Ould v. Washington Hospital, 95 U. S. 303, a citizen of Washington devised land in the District of Columbia to two persons named, in trust to hold it "as and for a site for the erection of a hospital for foundlings," to be built by a corporation to be established by act of Congress and approved by the trustees or their successors, and, upon such incorporation, to convey the land to the corporation in fee. It was contended for the heirs at law that the devise was void, because it was to a corporation to be established in the future, and might not take effect within the rule against perpetuities, and because of the uncertainty of the beneficiaries; and reference was made to the Maryland Statute of Wills of 1798, still in force in the District of Columbia, providing that no will should "be effectual to create any interest or perpetuity, or make any limitation, or appoint any uses, not now permitted by the Constitution or laws of the State," and to a series of decisions in Maryland, holding that the Statute of Elizabeth was not in force in that State, and that charitable uses were there governed by the same rules as private trusts. But those decisions having been made since the separation of the District of Columbia from the State of Maryland, the court held that the case must be determined upon general principles of jurisprudence, and that the devise was valid.

The objection to the validity of the gift before us, as tending to create a perpetuity, is fully met by the cases of Inglis v. Sailor's Snug Harbor, McDonogh v. Murdoch, and Ould v. Washington Hospital, above cited, which clearly show that a gift in trust for a charity not existing at the date of the gift, and the beginning of whose existence is uncertain, or which is to take effect upon a contingency that may possibly not happen within a life or lives in being and twenty-one years afterwards, is valid, provided there is no gift of the property meanwhile to or for the benefit of any private corporation or person. Those cases are in accord with English decisions of the highest authority, of which it is sufficient to refer to the leading case of Downing College, reported under the name of Attorney-Gen

eral v. Downing in Wilmot, 1 Dick. 414, and Ambler, 550, 571, and under the name of Attorney-General v. Bowyer in 3 Ves. 714, 5 id. 300, and 8 id. 256, and to the recent case of Chamberlayne v. Brockett, Law Rep. 8 Ch. 206. See also Sanderson v. White, 18 Pick. (Mass.) 328, 336; Odell v. Odell, 10 Allen (Mass.), 1.

That the gift is for a charitable use cannot be doubted. All gifts for the promotion of education are charitable, in the legal sense. The Smithsonian Institution owes its existence to a bequest of James Smithson, an Englishman, "to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." See Acts of Congress of 1st July, 1836, c. 252; 10th August, 1846, c. 178. This was held by Lord Langdale, Master of the Rolls, in United States v. Drummond, decided in 1838, to be a good charitable bequest. The decision on this point is not contained in the regular reports, but appears by the letters of Mr. Rush, then Minister to England (printed in the Documents relating to the Origin and History of the Smithsonian Institution, published by the Institution in 1879), to have been made after full argument in behalf of the United States by Mr. Pemberton (afterwards Mr. Pemberton Leigh and Lord Kingsdown), and on deliberate consideration by the Master of the Rolls. History of Smithsonian Institution, 15, 19, 20, 56, 58, 62. And it was cited as authoritative in Whicker v. Hume, 7 H. L. Cas. 124, 141, 155, in which the House of Lords held that a bequest in trust to be applied, in the discretion of the trustees, "for the benefit and advancement and propagation of education and learning in every part of the world, as far as circumstances will permit," was a valid charitable bequest and not void for uncertainty.

"Schools of learning, free schools, and scholars in universities," are among the charities enumerated in the Statute of Elizabeth; and no trusts have been more constantly and uniformly upheld as charitable than those for the establishment o support of schools and colleges. Perry on Trusts, sect. 700. That the gift" for the purpose of founding an institution for the education of youth in St. Louis County, Missouri," to be

managed by a board of trustees, is sufficiently definite, is shown by the decisions of this court in Perin v. Carey, and Ould v. Washington Hospital, above cited, as well as by that of the House of Lords in Dundee Magistrates v. Morris, 3 Macq. 134.

The law of Missouri, as declared by the Supreme Court of that State, sustains the validity of this gift. In Chambers v. St. Louis, 29 Mo. 543, a devise and bequest to the city of St. Louis, in trust "to be and constitute a fund to furnish relief to all poor emigrants and travellers coming to St. Louis on their way bona fide to settle in the West," which was objected to for indefiniteness in the object, as well as for want of capacity in the trustee to take, was held to be valid. And in Schmidt v. Hess, 60 id. 591, a grant of a parcel of land to the Lutheran Church for a burial ground was held to be a valid charitable gift, which equity would execute by compelling a conveyance to the trustees of a church proved to be the church intended by the testator, although it was not incorporated at the time of the gift. We have been referred to nothing having any tendency to show that the law of Arkansas, in which the lands granted lie, is different.

The money paid and the lands conveyed by Horner to Allen stand charged in the hands of Allen and his executors with the same charitable trust to which they were subject in the hands of Horner.

Steps to organize such an institution as is described in the deeds may be taken either by the Attorney-General or other public officer of the State, or by individuals. Whenever an institute for the education of youth in St. Louis shall have been incorporated and shall claim the property, it will then be a matter for judicial determination in the proper tribunal whether it meets the requirements of the gift. The only question now presented is of the validity of the gift as against the donor's heirs at law and next of kin.

Decree affirmed.

JONES v. HABERSHAM.

1. In a will containing many legacies, bequests, and devises, each present and immediate in form, to individuals and to charitable institutions, a clause expressing a wish and direction that none of the legacies, bequests, or devises shall be executed or take effect until" a certain memorial hall (in fact nearly finished at the time of the execution of the will and of the testator's death) on land previously conveyed by the testator in trust, "shall be completed and entirely paid for out of my estate," does not suspend the vesting, but only the payment and carrying out of the various legacies, bequests, and devises.

2. Section 2419 of the Code of Georgia of 1873 does not invalidate a charitable devise contained in a will executed within ninety days before the testator's death, unless he leaves a wife or child or descendants of a child.

8. The validity of a charitable devise as against the heir at law depends upon the law of the State where the land lies.

4. The validity of a charitable bequest as against the next of kin depends upon the law of the State of the testator's domicile.

5. The law of charities is fully adopted in Georgia, as far as is compatible with a free government where no royal prerogative is exercised.

6. A parcel of land, with buildings thereon, was devised to the trustees of the Independent Presbyterian Church in Savannah, an incorporated religious society, "upon the following terms and conditions, and not otherwise: " 1st. That the trustees should appropriate annually out of the rents and profits the sum of $1,000 “to one or more Presbyterian or Congregational Churches in the State of Georgia in such destitute and needy localities as the proper officers of said Independent Presbyterian Church may select, so as to promote the cause of religion among the poor and feeble churches of the State." 2d. That the trustees should not materially alter the pulpit or galleries of the present church edifice, or sell the lot on which the Sabbath-school room of the church stood. 3d. That the trustees should keep in order the burial place of the testator, which he devised to them for that purpose. Held, that under the Code of Georgia of 1873, sect. 3157, the charitable purposes named in the first and third conditions were good charitable uses, sufficiently defined; that the trustees were capable of taking the devise, and that its validity was not impaired by the conditions subsequent.

7. A devise to a society incorporated "for the relief of distressed widows and the schooling and maintaining of poor children," of buildings and land, to "use and appropriate the rents and profits for the support of the school and charities of said institution, without said lot being at any time liable for the debts or contracts of said society," is a good charitable devise.

8. A devise to a society incorporated "for the relief of indigent widows and orphans in the city of Savannah," of buildings and land, "the rents and profits to be appropriated to the benevolent purposes of said society," is a good charitable devise.

9. The rule against perpetuities does not apply to charities; and if a devise is made to one charity in the first instance, and then over, upon a contingency