Education: Fight for a Fortune

Last week two respectable gentlemen, trustees of a will, were in Winter Park, Fla. poking and prying about Rollins College's palm-studded campus, trying to dispose of a body—and $1,250,000.

The Rollins campus is really something. During the 21-year presidency of imaginative Hamilton Holt, Rollins' midway has blossomed with such sprightly sideshows as a course in Evil, a professorship of hunting & fishing, a tree-lined "Walk of Fame" paved with stones from the homes and haunts of the world's great, from Louisa M. Alcott to Christopher Columbus. Also, for all its eccentricities, it has been a sprightly school, with a lively interest in art.

Six years ago Tennessee-born Bachelor William Hayes Ackland, who had made a fortune in the stockmarket, died at 84. He wanted to leave most of his wealth to a Southern university, to build and stock an art museum. His first will, drawn in 1936, had left the money to Duke University; if Duke didn't want it, the money was to go to the University of North Carolina. Third choice: Rollins. Duke invited Ackland down for a visit, set an architect to drawing plans. Obviously pleased, Ackland drew up a second will, which made no mention of North Carolina, left a few token legacies to relatives and Rollins. It bequeathed to Duke not only about $1,250,000 for the art museum but the mortal remains of William Ackland—to be buried in an apse of the museum. After Ackland died, well-heeled Duke, which doesn't like legacies with strings attached, turned the offer down.

In the six years since, Ackland's nieces and nephews have taken the case to the Supreme Court, arguing that, since only Duke was to get the money under the final will, the money belongs to the relatives now that Duke has turned it down.

To fight this argument, Rollins hired former U.S. Attorney General Homer S. Cummings, and North Carolina hired ex-Governor Oliver Max Gardner. The Supreme Court turned down the Ackland family, left only Rollins and North Carolina in the running.

Last week the trustees were looking over Rollins; this month they will inspect Chapel Hill. It will then be up to a District of Columbia court to decide who will get generous William Ackland's bones and fortune.