Famous Givers and Their Gifts

Sarah Knowles Bolton

Jan. 1896 · T.Y. Crowell

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1896 Excerpt: ... SOPHIA SMITH AND HER COLLEOE FOli WOMEN. Miss Sophia Smith, the founder of Smith College, came from a family of savers as well as givers. Selfindulgent persons rarely give. She was the niece of Oliver Smith, whose unique charities have been a blessing to many towns. Mr. Smith, who died at Hatfield, Mass., Dec. 22, 1845, left to the towns of Northampton, Hadley, Hatfield, Amherst, and Williamsburg, in the county of Hampshire, and Deerfield, Greenfield, and Whately, in the county of Franklin, about a million dollars to a Board of Trustees, to be used as follows: --To be set aside for sixty years from the time of his death, so as to double and treble itself, for an Agricultural School at Northampton, $30,000. In 1894, fortynine years after Mr. Smith died, this fund had become $190,801.15, so rapidly does interest accumulate. This will be used to purchase two farms, one a Pattern Farm, to become a model to all farmers; the other an Experimental Farm, to aid the Pattern Farm in the art and science of husbandry and agriculture. Buildings are to be erected on the grounds suitable for mechanics, and workshops for the manufacture of implements of husbandry of the most approved models. If the income will warrant it, tools for other trades may be manufactured. There is also to be a School of Industry on the farms for the benefit of the poor. The boys to be aided must be from the poorest in the town, are to receive a good common education, and be taught in agriculture or in some mechanic art in the shops on the premises. When twenty-one years of age they are to be loaned $200 each, and after paying interest for five years at five per cent are to receive the $200 as a gift, if they have proved themselves worthy. Three years before they are twenty-one, each is to to have ..