limits are of course obliged to be members, and to submit to the duties
which the law imposes on them as such. Other civil corporations are for
the advancement of trade and business, such as banks, insurance companies,
and the like. These are created, not by general law, but usually by grant.
Their constitution is special. It is such as the legislature sees fit to
give, and the grantees to accept.

The corporation in question is not a civil, although it is a lay
corporation. It is an eleemosynary corporation. It is a private charity,
originally founded and endowed by an individual, with a charter obtained
for it at his request, for the better administration of his charity. "The
eleemosynary sort of corporations are such as are constituted for the
perpetual distributions of the free alms or bounty of the founder of them,
to such persons as he has directed. Of this are all hospitals for the
maintenance of the poor, sick, and impotent; and all colleges both in our
universities and out of them." Eleemosynary corporations are for the
management of private property, according to the will of the donors. They
are private corporations. A college is as much a private corporation as a
hospital; especially a college founded, as this was, by private bounty. A
college is a charity. "The establishment of learning," says Lord
Hardwicke, "is a charity, and so considered in the statute of Elizabeth.
To devise to a college, for their benefit, is a laudable charity, and
deserves encouragement."

The legal signification of _a charity_ is derived chiefly from the
statute 43 Eliz. ch. 4. "Those purposes," says Sir William Grant, "are
considered _charitable_ which that statute enumerates." Colleges are
enumerated as charities in that statute. The government, in these cases,
lends its aid to perpetuate the beneficent intention of the donor, by
granting a charter under which his private charity shall continue to be