s. They are private corporations. A college is as much a private
corporation as a hospital; especially a college founded, as this was, by
private bounty. A college is a charity. "The establishment of learning,"
says Lord Hardwicke, "is a charity, and so considered in the statute of
Elizabeth. A devise to a college, for their benefit, is a laudable
charity, and deserves encouragement."[11]

The legal signification of _a charity_ is derived chiefly from the
statute 43 Eliz. ch. 4. "Those purposes," says Sir William Grant, "are
considered _charitable_ which that statute enumerates."[12] Colleges are
enumerated as charities in that statute. The government, in these cases,
lends its aid to perpetuate the beneficent intention of the donor, by
granting a charter under which his private charity shall continue to be
dispensed after his death. This is done either by incorporating the
objects of the charity, as, for instance, the scholars in a college or
the poor in a hospital, or by incorporating those who are to be
governors or trustees of the charity.[13] In cases of the first sort,
the founder is, by the common law, visitor. In early times it became a
maxim, that he who gave the property might regulate it in future. "Cujus
est dare, ejus est disponere." This right of visitation descended from
the founder to his heir as a right of property, and precisely as his
other property went to his heir; and in default of heirs it went to the
king, as all other property goes to the king for the want of heirs. The
right of visitation arises from the property. It grows out of the
endowment. The founder may, if he please, part with it at the time when
he establishes the charity, and may vest it in others. Therefore, if he
chooses that governors, trustees, or overseers should be appointed in
the charter, he may cause it to be done, and his power of visitation may
be transferred to them, instead of descending to his heirs. The persons
thus assigned or appointed by the founder will be visitors, with all the
powers of the founder, in exclusion of his heir.[14] The right of
visitation, then, accrues to them, as a matter of property, by the gift,
transfer, or appointment of the founder. This is a private right, which
they can assert in all legal modes, and in which they have the same
protection of the law as in all other rights. As visitors they may make
rules, ordinances, and statutes, and alter and repeal them, as far as
permitted so to do by the