power, which still belongs, it is apprehended, to the fellows or members of the corporation.  In general, there are many donors.  A charter is obtained, comprising them all, or some of them, and such others as they choose to include, with the right of appointing successors.  They are thus the visitors of their own charity, and appoint others, such as they may see fit, to exercise the same office in time to come.  All such corporations are private.  The case before the court is clearly that of an eleemosynary corporation.  It is, in the strictest legal sense, a private charity.  In King v.  St. Catherine’s Hall,[26] that college is called a private eleemosynary lay corporation.  It was endowed by a private founder, and incorporated by letters patent.  And in the same manner was Dartmouth College founded and incorporated.  Dr. Wheelock is declared by the charter to be its founder.  It was established by him, on funds contributed and collected by himself.

As such founder, he had a right of visitation, which he assigned to the trustees, and they received it by his consent and appointment, and held it under the charter.[27] He appointed these trustees visitors, and in that respect to take place of his heir; as he might have appointed devisees, to take his estate instead of his heir.  Little, probably, did he think, at that time, that the legislature would ever take away this property and these privileges, and give them to others.  Little did he suppose that this charter secured to him and his successors no legal rights.  Little did the other donors think so.  If they had, the college would have been, what the university is now, a thing upon paper, existing only in name.

The numerous academies in New England have been established substantially in the same manner.  They hold their property by the same tenure, and no other.  Nor has Harvard College any surer title than Dartmouth College.  It may to-day have more friends; but to-morrow it may have more enemies.  Its legal rights are the same.  So also of Yale College; and, indeed, of all the others.  When the legislature gives to these institutions, it may and does accompany its grants with such conditions as it pleases.  The grant of lands by the legislature of New Hampshire to Dartmouth College, in 1789, was accompanied with various conditions.  When donations are made, by the legislature or others, to a charity already existing, without any condition, or the specification of any new use, the donation follows the nature of the charity.  Hence the doctrine, that all eleemosynary corporations are private bodies.  They are founded by private persons, and on private property.  The public cannot be charitable in these institutions.  It is not the money of the public, but of private persons, which is dispensed.  It may be public, that is general, in its uses and advantages; and the State may very laudably add contributions of its own to the funds; but it is still private in the tenure of the property, and in the right of administering the funds.