Extract from the will of Miss Caroline Haskell Ingersoll, who
died in Keene, County of Cheshire, New Hampshire, Jan. 26, 1893.
First. In carrying out the wishes of my late beloved father,
George Goldthwait Ingersoll, as declared by him in his last will
and testament, I give and bequeath to Harvard University in
Cambridge, Mass., where my late father was graduated, and which
he always held in love and honor, the sum of Five thousand
dollars ($5,000) as a fund for the establishment of a Lectureship
on a plan somewhat similar to that of the Dudleian lecture, that
is--one lecture to be delivered each year, on any convenient
day between the last of May and the first day of December, on
this subject, "the Immortality of Man," said lecture not to form
a part of the usual college course, nor to be delivered by any
Professor or Tutor as part of his usual routine of instruction,
though any such Professor or Tutor may be appointed to such
service. The choice of said lecturer is not to be limited to any
one religious denomination, nor to any one profession, but may be
that of either clergyman or layman, the appointment to take place
at least six months before the delivery of said lecture. The
above sum to be safely invested and three fourths of the annual
interest thereof to be paid to the lecturer for his services and
the remaining fourth to be expended in the publishment and
gratuitous distribution of the lecture, a copy of which is always
to be furnished by the lecturer for such purpose. The same
lecture to be named and known as the "the Ingersoll lecture on
the Immortality of Man."