(Mental Floss) -- For most of us, college donations entail little more than occasionally dropping a small check in the mail after receiving repeated pleas for cash from our alma maters. Some people, though, tend to be a bit more individualistic with their generosity.





Let's take a look at some of the quirkier donations schools have received:





1. Bequest puts jocks on the ropes





In 1907, fledgling Swarthmore College received a bequest that was estimated to be worth somewhere between $1 and $3 million. If the school wanted the cash, though, it would have to stop participating in intercollegiate sports. Swarthmore badly needed the cash -- its entire endowment was only in the $1 million range -- but in the end, the school turned down the gift and the sports survived.





2. Ivy League has to produce homemakers





When former Massachusetts Attorney General A.E. Pillsbury gave Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia $25,000 apiece in his 1931 will, he had a catch in mind: the schools had to use the bequests to combat the feminist movement that had "already begun to impair the family as the basis of civilization and its advance."





Pillsbury envisioned the schools creating a lectureship that could help keep women in the home.





3. Auburn goes to the dogs





When Miss Eleanor Elizabeth Ritchey, granddaughter of the founder of the Quaker State Oil Refining Company, died in 1968, she left Auburn University a generous gift of $2.5 million.





She also gave the school something a bit more unusual: the responsibility for 150 dogs. Ritchey, who owned a ranch in Florida and loved to adopt homeless dogs, made the large cash donation contingent on the school finding good homes for all 150 of her dogs. The cash was then earmarked for veterinary research.





Mental Floss: Videos: Dogs welcoming home soldiers





4. Bryn Mawr goes on the clock





Did Bryn Mawr need any new clocks in 1957? It didn't matter. They were getting one. Philadelphia physician Florence Chapman Child left the school $50,000 in her will if they would also agree to take her 150-year-old grandfather clock. The doctor stipulated that the school's administrators had to "install it in an appropriate place, keep it in proper condition and repair, make no changes in the fundamental appearance, and are not to have it electrified."





5. Donor wants flowers in perpetuity





For years, Indiana University offered a scholarship with a strange condition: the recipient was supposed to drive from Bloomington to Indianapolis once a year to put flowers on the donor's grave. The school gradually decided it was a bit much to ask a student to take a roadtrip to a stranger's headstone, though, so for 20 years it didn't enforce the requirement.





Eventually the donor's attorney found out that the flowers weren't being placed, but instead of being indignant he worked with the school to remove the clause from the bequest.





6. Colleges find a fountainhead of cash





In 2008, Marshall University received a $1 million gift to establish the BB&T Center for the Advancement of American Capitalism. The catch was that the school had to agree to teach Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" as part of its curriculum. BB&T executives said the requirement was designed to spark debate on the ethical underpinnings of capitalism.





This wasn't the first time BB&T had made this sort of gift, either. In 2005, it gave the University of North Carolina Charlotte another million big ones to make "Atlas Shrugged" required reading for its students.





7. Small potatoes lead to big cash





In 1950, the government had a surplus of potatoes and started looking for ways to get rid of the excess tubers. The Department of Agriculture decided to give the potatoes to Hiwassee College, a small Methodist school in eastern Tennessee. College president D.R. Youell told the government that he didn't want its charity, though.





A short time later, the school received a $10,000 donation with a note praising the institution for taking a stand against "the dangerous trends toward socialism in our Government."





Mental Floss: 7
What is the largest donation that a college has passed up because of conditions? What does the donor's scholarship require? Who could have had $3million to cut its sports program?
between $1 and $3 million. the recipient was supposed to drive from Bloomington to Indianapolis once a year to put flowers on the Swarthmore College
question: What is the largest donation that a college has passed up because of conditions?, answer: between $1 and $3 million. | question: What does the donor's scholarship require?, answer: the recipient was supposed to drive from Bloomington to Indianapolis once a year to put flowers on the | question: Who could have had $3million to cut its sports program?, answer: Swarthmore College