Analysis of a Windfall

The sorry appearance of Nanking Theological Seminary astounds the U. S. visitor who has given his mite to Chinese missions. The Seminary consists of five squat buildings on a drab 20-acre campus. Only furnishings are the scant necessities of Chinese existence. But the 46 students (all natives) embellish their lives with potted plants which they carry around the buildings as the sun moves across the heavens.

Last week Nanking Theological Seminary was as excited as it had not been since the city was bombarded in 1927 and President Harry F. Rowe was forced to flee in trousers and shirt. According to press despatches, Nanking Seminary was to receive not merely wealth, but riches incredible. The news said $13,000,000. That would be more than the endowments of all missionary universities and schools in China put together.* In buying power it would equal $50,000,000 in the U. S. As if Princeton Theological Seminary were to get a billion!

In an ugly brick house on Fifth Avenue and 39th Street, Manhattan, Miss Ella Virginia von Echtzel Wendel had died (TIME, March 30 et ante) and dropped into the lap of Charity what the serious Press insisted upon calling a $75,000,000 to $100,000,000 fortune. Of that it seemed, at first glance, that Nanking Theological Seminary and four other institutions! were each to get 17 1/2%. And the famed Moody-founded Northneld schools of East Northfield, Mass., were to get 11 1/2% which looked like $1,000,000--ample to complete its current endowment campaign.

Quick to get facts, Northfield's President Elliott Speer was the first to ascertain that the estate had been grossly over-estimated in popular notion, that it would come to scarcely more than $30,000,000 and that the residue, to be divided on a percentage basis, might not be more than $20,000,000. Thus, Northfield's share would be only $300,000 and Nanking's about $3,500,000. Even so, it was a huge sum for a theological seminary in China (raising deep questions as to its proper use); but it was not the golden vision which for weeks kept world cables busy. And it left Northfield's Speer with still $880,000 to raise.

Shrinkage in estimate of the Wendel estate was due to various facts: 1) much of the Wendel real estate was held in the form of long leases with fixed rents, hence not salable at fancy prices; 2) all settlement costs must be borne by the residuary legatees and, what with impending litigation, the costs may be heavy.

For one institution, however, the big news was not deflated by analysis. Drew University, in addition to its 17 1/2% of the residuary, received the ugly brick house outright and that is one of the most valuable pieces in the whole estate. The reason for the favoritism toward Drew was found last week in the ancient records of the Wendel family. Its first president, Dr. John McClintock who died in 1870, was pastor at the Wendels' church and in his biography are two letters to Old J. D. Wendel. Each of eleven Wendels (the first in 1896) had $10,000 memorials established for them at Drew. And the only Wendel sister ever to marry (Rebecca Swope) was married by a Drew President. Originally a theological seminary founded by Daniel Drew of financial infamy. Drew recently became a university as result of a paltry $1,500,000 bequest. With $5,000,000 or so from the last Wendel, it may begin to make its title a fact under its present president, Dr. Arlo Ayres Brown.

*Yenching (Peking) University leads with a plant worth $2,000,000, endowment of $1,500,000 for all its various divisions.

|The other four: Drew Theological Seminary (renamed Drew University, at Madison, N. J.); St. Christopher's School (Dobbs Ferry, N. Y.); Flower Hospital (homeopathic, Manhattan. N. Y.); Society for the Relief of the Ruptured & Crippled, Manhattan.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.