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ENDOWMENT Definition & Legal Meaning

Definition & Citations:

1. The assignment of dower; the setting off a woman’s dower. 2 Bl.Comm. 135.2. In appropriations of churches, (in English law,) the setting off a sufficient maintenancefor the vicar in perpetuity. 1 Bl. Comm. 3S7.3. The act of settling a fund, or permanent pecuniary provision, for the maintenanceof a public institution, charity, college, etc.4. A fund settled upon a public institution, etc., for its maintenance or use.The words “endowment” and “fund,” iu a statute exempting from taxation the realestate, the furniture and personal property, and the “endowment or fund” of religiousand educational corporations, are ejusdem generis, and intended to comprehend a classof property different from tlie other two, not real estate or chattels. The differencebetween (lie words is that “fund” is a general term, including tlie endowment, while”endowment” means that particular fund, or part of the fund, of tlie institution,bestowed for its more permanent uses, and usually kept sacred for the purposesintended. The word “endowment” does not, in such an enactment, include real estate.See First Reformed Dutch Church v. Lyon. 32 N. J. Law. 300; Appeal of WagnerInstitute. 110 Pa. 555, 11 Atl. 402; Flovd v. Rankin, ,Nti Cal. 150. 24 Pac. 030; Liggettv. Ladd, 17 Or. 80. 21 Pac. 133.

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