Chandler v. County Board of Education

AlleN, J. The will of Dr. John C. Terrell shows that the principal purpose of the testator was to improve the public schools of his native county of Person, and this intent on his part is expressed in terms sufficiently certain to be sustained as a charitable trust. He lived in the Cunningham School District, and prior to his death had built therein *447 a seboolbouse called Terrell Academy. In bis will be gives certain bequests to relatives amounting to $20,000 or $30,000, and tben devises a tract of land of three hundred and fifty acres, subject to the life estate of a brother, to the Cunningham School District, and also to each school district in the county, numbering twenty-sis or twenty-eight, except the Cunningham district, in which he had already built a schoolhouse, $300, for the purpose of building a seboolbouse in each district of the county, and the residue of the estate, amounting to $80,000 or $60,000, he gave to the schools of the whole county. No mention is made in the will of Terrell Academy, and the proceeds from the land are given for “public school purposes,” to be administered by the school committee of the district. It is thus clear that under the conditions existing at the time of the death of the testator it was the duty of the school committee to use the farm and its rents for the school district, and not to keep up and maintain any particular school or schoolhouse, with the right, under the supervision of the board of education, to change the location of any house, if deemed for the best interest of those in the district, and this duty still exists, although it is made more difficult of iierformance because the Cunningham district has been discontinued and different parts of its territory have been given to four other school districts. This does not, however, destroy the trust, and as the devise was made for.the benefit of the children of the Cunningham district, the proceeds of the farm must be apportioned among the districts of which the old Cunningham district is a part, in proportion to the number of children of the old district in each of the four districts. It follows, therefore, that there is no error on the plaintiffs’ appeal, and that that part of the order requiring the proceeds from the farm to be used in maintaining the Terrell Academy School must be reversed. Plaintiffs’ appeal affirmed. Defendant’s appeal reversed. 'WalKee, J., dissenting.