Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/592

 578 FBDBBAL EBPOBTEE. �meuts of one, twp, three, and four years from January 1, 1877, and for which the subscribers; agreed to give their respective notes, not bearing interest until after due, to the said executors, in trust for the said scbool, so sooh as the amount required to seoure said bequest of $40,000 had been pledged. The subscriptions were not to be lield binding unless the requisite sum was pledged to secure the bequest of Mr. Knox for the school; that a corporation had been duly created under the law, which was willing to accept and had accepted this bequest made to the agricultural school. This corporation bas been made a party by supplemental bill. The controversy, therefore, turns uponthe fact, whether there was a subscription made by respon- sible citizens of Knoxville and Knox county, to the amount of $40,000, for the same objeot and purpose which the testator had in view, namely, for the founding and building up of an agricultural school near Knoxville, within. the terms of the will. �I will state my opinion on some of the points made by counsel : lu order to give a proper construction to the second codicil of the will we must take into consideration the object of the testator. He intended to aid in the founding and building of an agricultural school near Knoxville ; but in order to aceomplish this he seemed to think that something more was necessary than that which he con- tributed himself. He obviously deaired that the means of others, and those residing in the vicinity where the school was to be located, should be added to his own, as well as their influence in favor of the institution; for he says that withont their moral and material aid he fears that what he can do or wish would be fruitless. But he cer- tainly did not contemplate the payment of the whole sum of $40,000, which he required from citizens of Knoxville and Knox county, within six months after his decease, otherwise he would have so etated. He only declared that amount should be pledged and subscribed by re- sponsible citizens of Knoxville and Knox county; and he certainly was fully aware of the condition, or what might be the condition, of his own estate at the time of his death ; that it consisted, as is stated by the trustees in their answer, and as the fact appears, largely in real estate, scattered in different localities, and even in different states ; that it would require possibly some years for his executors to realize on this property in such a way as to enable them to pay as well the otherbequests which he had made as the particular one to the agricultural school near Knoxville, and therefoi-e he did not deem it necessary that the money should be paid within the six months, but only pledged and subscribed by responsible citizens of the neigh- ��� �