Three hundred and seven years ago last October 7 the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony turned the Boston-Charleston Ferry over to Harvard. This was the first grant to an endowment fund which is worth just short of $200 millions today. Although most of the 1800 separate funds that make up the endowment are larger and more significant than the two which stem from the 1640 ferry concession, none are more novel, and the growth of the first concession to its current value of $18,000 stands as a miniature example of the rabbit-like multiplication of Harvard's money.

The Ferry concession was immediately rented for an annual sum of 30 pounds. After eight years of difficulties with the concession, the two gentlemen who had rented it surrendered their title, explaining to the Court that what little payment actually was made by passengers was in "refuse, unwrought, broken, unstrung, and unmerchantable peag wampum." Later in the same year President Dunster informed the Court that "all the bad and unfinished wampum made by the Indians finds its way into the college treasury from ferry toll." Nevertheless, Harvard held on to the concession and its returns until 1785, when the first toll-bridge across the Charles was built and the ferry went out of business. At this point the Court forced the bridge owners to pay Harvard $666.66 (200 pounds) annually for 70 years, and when the second bridge was built in 1796, the College received a similar sum from it for 40 years. The College later created two capital funds out of accumulated income from one of the bridges, and those add up to the $18,000 on the books today. One of the funds is used for scholarships, the other for faculty salaries.

The endowment today consists of a mass of gifts, legacies, chairs, scholarships, prizes, and bequests, coming from special foundations, corporations, alumni, "friends", and persons never heard of in University Hall until they died. The donations vary in size from several million dollars to one capital gift received last year by the Committee on the Regulation of Athletic Sports for $9.11. Most of the gifts are tied to specific departments and projects, ranging from the Botanical Museum's Oakes Ames Fund for Orchidology to Stillman Infirmary's Free Bed Fund of the Class of 1868. They continue to pour in every year, both in gifts for capital and gifts for immediate use. Last year's capital gifts added up to nearly six million dollars, and the gifts for immediate use totalled better than two million. Some of the donations, such as certain library gifts, arrive yearly. Some are carefully planned in advance, such as gifts for new buildings. Others turn up unsolicited and unexpected.

With the growth in size and intricacy of the endowment fund, the President, who originally was in personal command of most of its involvements, has gradually been relieved of many of his financial duties. The most recent addition to the University's pecuniary crew, which includes the Treasurer and administrative vice-President, is a special adviser to the President. As the special adviser, Richmond Keith Kane '22 sees his job as the discovery of "who is hitting whom for what." In order to gain this knowledge, he must sit midway between the departments, which initiate projects requiring more money, the Corporation, which authorizes most solicitations, and whatever persons or organizations are interested in giving money where it is wanted.

The advantage of such organization is three-fold. On the side of the solicitors, it will frequently enable them to touch where the money is ripe, and ready to fall on the particular project at hand. On the side of the donators, it will prevent them from being irritated and confused by numerous requests for different projects. And on the side of the University as a whole--in terms of "futures," as Kane calls it--it will tend to keep the influx of money organized and smooth. Today, when the percentage of endowment dollars to expenses is lower than it has been for 100 years, such an efficiently managed supply of money is vital, if the University is to be able to meet costs without raising tuition.