WILLS COLLEGE $1,500,000

Announcement has recently been made that the College would receive $1,500,000 from the estate of Edwin Webster Sanborn of the Class of 1878, who died on March eighteenth on his way to Southern California and who was buried in the Hanover cemetery on March thirtieth.

Mr. Sanborn was the son of Edwin D. Sanborn who, for almost half a century was a member of the Dartmouth Faculty and during part of his career occupied the post of Librarian of the College. On his mother's side Mr. Sanborn was the grandson of Ezekiel Webster, a brother of Daniel Webster and an early graduate of the College.

The will provides that a sum not to exceed $400,000 shall be expended for the construction and furnishing of an English House. The purpose of this house is to reproduce in the modern college the same spirit and atmosphere of essential intimacy between professor and student which prevailed in the Sanborn home when Mr. Sanborn's father was Professor of English Literature. The remainder of the bequest, amounting to more than $1,000,000, will be held as an endowment fund, the annual income from which to be expended for the purchase of books for the College Library. Books so purchased will form a specifically designated collection in the College commemorative of Professor Sanborn's services as Librarian and his life-long interest in the literary life of the College.

Plans for the English House have not been definitely developed as yet but certain facts are known. In the first place, the location selected is the land between the White Church and the southwest wing of the Baker Library. The building, therefore, will face North Main Street and will balance the Carpenter fine arts building which will be placed on the corner of Main and Elm Streets at the other end of the Library.

The House will probably contain a small auditorium where lectures and talks about literature, such as have been sponsored by The Arts in recent years, will be held. There will also be constructed within the building a replica of Professor Sanborn's study. For many years the furnishings and books from the old study have been carefully preserved awaiting the time when such use could be made of them. There will be special reading rooms and libraries designed to form attractive meeting places for literary organizations and for men interested in meeting in small groups as well as a few seminar rooms where part of the in- struction work of the department of English will be carried on. There is also the possibility that a suite of rooms will be set apart for use in entertaining authors and lecturers who from time to time visit the College. Professor Sanborn always opened up his home to such guests when he was alive and it was his son's wish that this act of hospitality be perpetuated in the English House.

It is particularly fitting that the Sanborn name should be perpetuated in the life of Dartmouth and there is real satisfaction in having the largest single gift to the College come from the Webster and Sanborn families which have contributed so much to the great tradition which is Dartmouth's.