Edward S. Harkness, Harvard's greatest benefactor, who donated money for the House systems here and at Yale, died suddenly Monday night. University officials yesterday expressed deep great at the death of the unassuming philanthropist, who had done so much for education here and throughout the country.

He had been ill with intestinal grippe for two or three weeks, and complications caused his death at his home in New York Monday night.

Besides his $13.250,000 gift for the Houses, Harkness gave a $50,000 endowment fund for the Fogg Museum, and at the Tercentenary in 1936, $100,000 for National Scholarships in the Medical School.

"Present and future generations of Harvard students and faculty," Dean Hanford said, "will remember will gratitude the generosity of Mr. Harkness.

"Through his magnificent gift to the University in 1928 which made possible the establishment of the seven Houses, a more satisfactory environment has been provided for carrying on the educational and social activities of the upperclassmen, the disintegration which threatened the College has been prevented, and what Professor Morrison has so aptly called 'the collegiate way of living' has been restored.

"A Memorial to Him"

"Each year since 1928 has brought forth new evidence of the important contributions of the Houses to the life of Harvard College. There rest upon all of us a very special obligation to see that the memorial which he has left behind in the Houses along the banks of the Charles serves as a worthy and vital monument to him."

Jerome D. Greene '96, secretary to the Corporation, told what Harkness had meant to the House plan in a statement yesterday:

"Mr. Harkness will always be remembered as one of Harvard's greatest benefactors. Through his generosity came the realization of President Lowell's plan for greatly improving the social and intellectual life of Harvard undergraduates by making it possible for them to live in comfortable attractive surroundings during the college days.

"We shall always be happy to keep the memory of this distinguished graduates of Yale College, who had done more than anyone else to make the communal organization of undergraduate life what it is."