After an eventful life as soldier, linguist, “rain-maker,” Deputy Commissioner of Patents, man of affairs, and wealthy patent attorney, Robert G. Dryenforth, of Washington, D.C., died July 4, 1910. His will is one of the most unusual instruments ever offered for probate in the United States: his estate is a large one and is left to an eight-year-old foster son, Robert St. George Dryenforth, subject to conditions of a remarkable character:
The lad is to get practically the entire estate--provided he conscientiously complies with all conditions--when he reaches the age of twenty-eight. Robert St. George will be busily occupied for the intervening twenty years in complying with conditions.
He must not associate with one Jennie Dryenforth or her daughter, Rose Marie Knowlton. Should he do so, the estate goes to William H., Harold and Robert Dryenforth, who are named as executors.
The above-named executors will also share the estate in the event Robert St. George thoughtlessly dies before he reaches the given age.
The boy must be trained right from the start to shy at the wiles of women. If he must marry, he must not marry beneath him.
“I particularly request my executors to thoughtfully and well guard my beloved son from women, and sensibly, that is, gradually, through no erratic extreme, to let him be informed and know the artful and parasitical nature of most of the unfortunate sex, and to care that he does not marry beneath him.”
The lad must keep his face between the covers of a book for a great portion of these twenty years. He will become a confirmed burner of the midnight oil. Here is the programme, duly mapped out in the will:
He must be prepared to enter high school at the age of fourteen.
At the age of eighteen he must be ready to enter Harvard, there to take a special course fitting him for Oxford University.
In the meantime, the boy must be taken to see one country in Europe each year.
As soon as he graduates from Oxford, the boy is to hasten back to these shores and to enter immediately the United States Military Academy, complete the course and serve the required time in the army.
After he has well and patiently performed these preliminary tasks, the young man is then required to take up the practice of law, at which profession he may while his time away until he reaches the twenty-eighth milestone. Upon that happy and long-delayed day, the executors will take an inventory, and if the stewardship of Robert St. George has been good, he will receive talents an hundred fold.