To John C. Gray.
Downing College,
Cambridge.
19 April, 1902.
I returned yesterday from a winter spent in the Canaries where I am compelled to take refuge. Already I have read your article about gifts for non-charitable purposes and have been delighted by it. It puts an accent on what I think a matter of great historical importance—namely the extreme liberality of our law about charitable trusts. It seems to me that our people slid unconsciously from the enforcement of the rights of a c.q.t. to the establishment of trusts without a c.q.t.—the so-called charitable trusts: and I think that continental law shows that this was a step that would not and could not be taken by men whose heads were full of Roman Law. Practically the private man who creates a charitable trust does something that is very like the creation of an artificial person, and does it without asking leave of the State.
I only saw Thayer for a few hours, but I feel his death as the death of a friend. The loss must be deeply felt at Harvard.