If there was any envy of Harvard’s good fortune at New Haven, it was dissipated two or three days later when Yale rejoiced in the receipt of a mysterious gift of the same magnificent proportions. In the case of Yale, however, the endowment was coupled with a condition or request which excited much surprise and made no end of talk. The mysterious donor asked that half of the five millions should be set apart as a fund to be used under the direction of the Yale Scientific School in practical investigation of the subject of aërial navigation. This was a trust which the university accepted with a good deal of misgiving. When the matter was considered by the trustees there was even some opposition to the acceptance of this portion of the donation on such terms. “Must we set our professors to building flying machines, and compel them to risk their necks in balloons?” exclaimed one of the older members of the board in some asperity, and with small measure of gratitude to the giver of such a fund. “For my part, I hope the university will not go to the absurd extreme of turning our scientific school into a Darius Green workshop to gratify a generous but whimsical millionaire.” But the old gentleman was in a small minority, and he was quite silenced by the remarks of a younger and more progressive member, whose investigations in practical science had made him famous. Besides, who ever heard of a gift of $2,500,000 being refused by an educational institution, no matter how hard the conditions? “I do not regard this gift as either absurd or whimsical,” said the man of science and sense, with much emphasis. “On the contrary, I welcome it with enthusiasm as a practical pledge of the next and greatest triumph of civilization. Aërial navigation is the one branch of practical science in which America is not keeping pace with the foremost investigators. France and Germany and even Russia have obtained better results than we have. The reason, of course, is that there are military incentives in Europe which do not exist here. But I firmly believe that this gift will enable us to gain the same mastery of the paths of the winds that we have already won over the land and the sea. No gift to the cause of physical science could be more valuable and more timely than this. I hope it will be accepted with the sincerest expression of our gratitude.” And so it was. National curiosity was again aroused to highest pitch. Nor was it allowed to subside, for within a month fresh benefactions, all anonymous and all dealing with large sums, were announced. Chicago’s fund for a memorial of the Columbian Fair received a round million. New York rejoiced in the news that Samuel J. Tilden’s thwarted attempt to provide a magnificent free library for his fellow-citizens was to succeed after all. Three millions had come from somewhere--the trustees would not say where--to be used in carrying out the plans of the dead statesman on the same scale that he had wisely designed.