Unusual Bequest Benefits Divinity And Law Schools

The very needy Divinity School--which has plans for a large-scale modernization program and no money with which to carry them out--will soon come in for an $11,287 bequest, under the terms of an unusual will filed Wednesday in Suffolk probate court. The Law School will also receive a portion of the estate.

The gift will be one of the largest ones received in some time by the Divinity School, which has no wealthy alumni to contribute to its welfare. In the last report on gifts to the University, covering the three-month period up to June 30, the Divinity School received no grants at all.

Mrs. Hattie M. Jacobs, who died on April 17, 1948, left $205,000 in specific bequests, but directed the trustees of her estate to divide the balance, amounting to $569,344, among charitable organizations within five years after her death.

The trustees, Dudley H. Dorr '07 and Reginald Hober Smith '10, split the money into 100 equal shares, and allocated three of these to the Law School and two to the Divinity School.

The distribution formula filed by Dorr and Smith specified that the Law School money, $17,080, be used for loans and scholarships, but the Divinity School grant was unrestricted. The Dean's office there said yesterday that no decision had been made yet on what would be done with the bequest.