Philanthropic Foundations and Higher Education 9780231887977

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Philanthropic Foundations and Higher Education

Philanthropic

Foundations

and Higher

Education By

ERNEST VICTOR HOLLIS, PH.D. T H E S C H O O L OF E D U C A T I O N T H E C O L L E G E OP T H E C I T Y OF N E W Y O R K

New York : Morningside Heights COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

COPYRIGHT COLUMBIA

UNIVERSITY

1938 PRESS,

NEW

YORK

Foreign agents: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, Humphrey Milford, Amen House, London, E.C. 4, England, AND B. I. Building, Nicol Road, Bombay, India; MARUZEN C O M P A N Y , LTD., 6 Nihonbaslii, Tori-Nichome, Tokyo, Japan First Printing, May 19)8 Second Printing, September

19)8

Third Printing, August 1939

Manufactured in the United States of America

To Aly Wife

G L A D Y S JONES H O L L I S

Preface

E

years ago there was not available a single book on any phase of the work of philanthropic foundations. T h e periodical, pamphlet, and other ephemeral sources contained only disconnected and repetitious items. This situation caused me to decline an invitation to give a public discussion on the influence of philanthropic foundations in the professional education of teachers but it fixed in me the determination to make a study intended to help correct this deficiency. T h e fulfilment of this resolve has had to await a period of uninterrupted study. In the meantime there have appeared, in book form, only a series of lectures and two research studies concerned with any phase of foundation activity. IGHT

For his general and specific counsel and criticism at every stage of the study I am greatly indebted to Professor Edward H. Reisner of Teachers College, Columbia University. My thanks are also extended to Professors Edmund deS. Brunner, William H. Kilpatrick, and Floyd B. O'Rear of Teachers College, each of whom has given the study the benefit of criticism from the viewpoint of his specialization. For access to unpublished source material on several of the smaller foundations I am indebted to Professor Eduard C. Lindeman of the New York School of Social Work. The study could not have been made without the cooperation of the officers and staff members of foundations making grants to the purposes of higher education. I regret that it is impracticable to thank each of them by name. Permission to quote from the following books has been specifically granted by individual arrangement with the copyright owner: Frederick P. Keppel, The Foundation, Macmillan Co.; Eduard C. Lindeman, Wealth and Culture, Harcourt, Brace &

viii

Preface

Co.; Harold C. Coffman, American Foundations, Association Press; Harold J . Laski, Dangers of Obedience, Harper 8c Brothers; and J . McKeen Cattell, Carnegie Pensions, Science Press. The following periodicals have specifically granted permission to quote from the articles listed in the Bibliography: Atlantic Monthly, New Republic, School and Society, World's Work, and New York Times. E R N E S T VICTOR H O L L I S

New York City February 21, 1938

Contents I.

INTRODUCTION

3

PART THE FOUNDATION II.

THE

I

AS A SOCIAL

DEVELOPMENT

OF

INSTITUTION

PHILANTHROPIC

FOUNDA-

TIONS

15

Historical and Legal Background T h e Foundation in the United States III.

FOUNDATION

15 20

POLICIES

27

Problems of Policy Formulation Outstanding Policies Social Implications of Foundation Policies IV.

FOUNDATION

ORGANIZATION

T h e Donor T h e Trustees T h e Permanent Staff Outside Advisers Beneficiaries V.

PART

VI. VII.

ACTIVITIES

76

76 86 97 105 110

G E N E R A L S U M M A R Y OF P A R T O N E

FOUNDATION

27 32 58

115

II

FOR HIGHER

F O U N D A T I O N C O N T R I B U T I O N S IN G E N E R A L

EDUCATION 121

DEFINING THE COLLEGE

127

Early Attempts Postwar Activities

127 141

x

Contents

VIII.

DISSEMINATING INFORMATION

156

General Surveys Special Studies Official Reports IX.

157 161 170

A C T I V I T I E S FOR S T U D E N T A N D F A C U L T Y W E L F A R E

Scholarships and Fellowships Student Loans Faculty Welfare X. XI.

XII.

A C T I V I T I E S FOR E N D O W M E N T AND C A P I T A L O U T L A Y

199

A C T I V I T I E S FOR P R O F E S S I O N A L E D U C A T I O N

208

Medical Education Dental Education Legal Education Engineering Education T h e Profession of Education T h e Arts and Other Professional Fields

209 218 221 225 228 233

A C T I V I T I E S FOR N O N P R O F E S S I O N A L E D U C A T I O N

238

Physical and Natural Sciences Social Sciences T h e Humanities Marginal Interests XIII.

THE

GEOGRAPHICAL TION OF G R A N T S

XIV.

174

174 186 190

INTEGRATION

AND

INSTITUTIONAL

241 245 256 261 DISTRIBU268 282

APPENDIX

301

NOTES

307

BIBLIOGRAPHY

329

INDEX

341

Tables I. II.

A P P L I C A T I O N S TO THE R O C K E F E L L E R F O U N D A T I O N , 1 9 2 1

73

A STUDY OF O P I N I O N S A B O U T FOUNDATION P O L I C I E S

114

III.

A D E C A D E OF G R A N T S FROM 1 0 0 FOUNDATIONS, 1 9 2 1 - 3 0

123

IV.

THE

DISTRIBUTION OF FOUNDATION G R A N T S IN

1930

AS

S H O W N BY T W O STUDIES V.

124

A N A L Y S I S OF G R A N T S T O E D U C A T I O N

FROM

100 FOUNDA-

TIONS, 1 9 2 1 - 3 0 VI. VII.

VIII.

FOUNDATION G R A N T S T O N O N P R O F E S S I O N A L E D U C A T I O N A

A

D E C A D E OF G R A N T S FROM 1 0 0 FOUNDATIONS T O N A T U R A L AND P H Y S I C A L SCIENCES DECADE SOCIAL

IX.

125

A

DECADE

OF G R A N T S

FROM

THE 243

1 0 0 FOUNDATIONS T O T H E

SCIENCES

247

OF G R A N T S FROM

1 0 0 FOUNDATIONS T O

THE

HUMANITIES X.

257

G E O G R A P H I C A L DISTRIBUTION OF THE C O L L E G E AND U N I VERSITY G R A N T S OF N I N E FOUNDATIONS, 1 9 0 2 - 3 4

XI.

269

N U M B E R OF INSTITUTIONS OF H I G H E R E D U C A T I O N R E C E I V ING FOUNDATION G R A N T S OF D E S I G N A T E D SIZES, 1 9 2 3 - 3 5

XII.

240

INSTITUTIONS

RECEIVING

THE

LARGEST

AGGREGATE

G R A N T S FROM N I N E FOUNDATIONS, 1 9 0 2 - 3 4

273

OF 274

Philanthropic Foundations and Higher Education

CHAPTER

I

Introduction

T

HE philanthropic foundation is a social institution important enough to be ranked with the school, the press, and the church. It often fails to be accorded a ranking with these agencies, however, because, unlike them, it most frequently attacks social problems indirectly; that is, it gives financial aid and encouragement to well-nigh every type of agency that is directly seeking to improve the quality of our civilization. Through these agencies its influence extends to cultural and social planning in almost every department of our life. Although foundations are important for the volume of money they distribute to cultural undertakings, the essential nature of their influence is not in the aggregate of their contributions. Rather it lies in the fact that the grants may be large enough to provide the essential supplement necessary for foundations to hold the balance of power. In the 1924 fundraising campaign of sixty-eight leading American universities there is an illustration of the powerful influence foundations may exert even when the amount they contribute is only a small percent of the total. T h e y contributed only 18.1 percent of the funds raised, but they were reputed to have exerted a dominant influence on the purposes and plans of the campaigns through being the largest single donors. T h e average size of grants from foundations was $376,322.76 as compared to an average of $5,902.75 from individuals who gave $1,000 or more. 1 A b o u t 3.4 percent of the individual givers contributed 59.3 percent of the total funds, but because the average of their gifts was not large enough to be considered an essential sup-

4

Introduction

plement, they were reputed to have exerted a negligible influence on the policies and programs of these sixty-eight colleges. If such vital and strategic potential powers are a possibility in foundation activity, it should be known whether these new social institutions are committed to a philosophy of social and cultural values in keeping with the needs of a rapidly changing social order. During the first quarter of this century the foundation worked under the handicap of being considered by certain cultural leaders as an institution inimical to the general welfare. Such an antagonistic attitude probably resulted largely from a deep-seated conviction that foundation funds had been accumulated by unsocial practices: the exploitation of the American worker through low wages, or of the American consumer through high prices. Money thus gained would be "tainted" and unfit for social, cultural, or religious purposes. Apparently it was assumed that giving away this "tainted" money would be motivated by the same spirit that was imputed to its accumulation. T h i s hostile attitude culminated in an investigation of the Rockefeller and Carnegie trusts by the Congressional Commission on Industrial Relations. 2 T o this older antagonism, much of which has passed, there has lately been added further doubt as to whether the foundation is the best device to secure an adequate redistribution of surplus wealth. Many persons are advocating substituting compulsory redistribution through taxation. For the most part, foundations today are accepted social institutions. T h e distrust that still exists probably results from their newness and the scarcity of available information concerning their activities. Our social statistics are in such a chaotic state that no one knows even the number of foundations in existence, much less the actual total of their gifts for any particular period. Probably not more than six foundations were established in the nineteenth century; approximately a dozen

Introduction

5

more were created in the first decade of the twentieth century. Since 1910, however, their growth has been so rapid that a recent study secured data on 371 and had in its files the names of 202 other such trusts on which it could secure no data.8 This rapid creation of foundations is one of the notable social phenomena of the century. T h e specific undertaking of this research is to describe and interpret the foundation as one of the forces that have stimulated the development of American higher education during the twentieth century. In the broad outlines of a historical survey it will attempt to answer the question: T o what extent and in what direction has higher education in the United States been influenced by (1) the educational and social philosophy of the foundations, (2) their administrative organization and procedure, (3) their research and diffusion activities, and (4) their financial resources? Such a purpose makes it obvious from the beginning that the study will not present a complete picture of foundation activity, nor will it relate the history of any one foundation. Neither will it attempt to keep in historical perspective the twentieth-century development of higher education. T h e author assumes that the reader has such an understanding of higher education, but he does not take for granted a similar knowledge of the foundation as a social agent. T h e first section of the study attempts to present some of the history of philanthropic foundations and to create an understanding of why and how they have participated in college and university activities. T h e second part of the study, after sketching the range of foundation expenditures for all purposes, focuses attention on the actual undertakings in higher education to which the foundations have given their money and energies. Grants to activities which are intended to influence the whole, or a major part, of higher education are arbitrarily grouped in Chapters V I I through X ; those aimed primarily at develop-

6

Introduction

ing special areas of the field are as arbitrarily grouped in Chapters X I and X I I . Following this study of grants by purposes, Chapter X I I I organizes the same materials roughly by geographical areas and receiving institutions. While the three perspectives are not considered equally significant, it is believed that those interested in studying foundation grants are entitled to see them distributed by the categories of purpose, geography, and institution. The number of foundations participating in various phases of higher education varies from one to probably sixty, and it fluctuates from year to year as foundations are "born," "die," or change the fields of their interests.4 Most of the foundations have only one area of interest, such as scholarships and fellowships, teachers' pensions, or research in medical education. Only a few foundations, typified in the chief Carnegie and Rockefeller philanthropies, make grants to almost every phase of college work; in 1934 their gifts were over seventy-five percent of the total of foundation grants to higher education.8 This same group has developed most of the theory and administrative procedure of foundation giving. T h e reader should therefore expect to find these funds the source of most of the data. It is only within the present century that we have even roughly defined those institutions which are entitled to recognition as agencies of higher education. Both the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the General Education Board have made notable contributions to the establishment of standards for such a determination. There is still an uncertainty among accrediting agencies as to whether normal schools and junior colleges integrally connected with a public-school system are entitled to recognition as units in the American system of higher education. Higher education is not unitary, and the confusion as to its nature is still so great that it is necessary to construct a working definition. For the purposes of this study the field, of American

higher

Introduction

7

education shall be understood to include not only the work of the degree-granting undergraduate or graduate college and university as defined for listing in the Educational Directory of the United States Office of Education, but also the activities of any agencies directly seeking to promote that level of work.6 This definition permits inclusion of certain unaccredited institutions to which foundations are large contributors, and permits a consideration of the relevant work of such nonteaching institutions as the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the Brookings Institution, and the councils of learned societies dealing with higher education. The focus will be on the development of higher education and not on the development of particular institutions of higher education. The study is further narrowed by limiting it to institutions in the District of Columbia and the forty-eight states of the Union. And, most important, it should be remembered that the study is concerned only with the higher-education activities to which the foundations have directed a portion of their efforts. Perhaps this is the greatest delimiting factor. The necessity for a working definition of higher education is shown by contrasting the above delimitation with those used by two other studies of foundations. The Twentieth Century Fund analysis defines the field of higher education as roughly equivalent to the liberal arts college.7 It excludes from the higher education classification all grants to social science, physical science, teacher-training, law, medicine, and the other professional schools; scholarships, fellowships, professors' pensions, and research in general are likewise excluded. The Lindeman study conceives higher education more broadly and extends the geographical limits to include institutions and fellowships throughout the world.8 No special virtue is claimed for the definition of higher education proposed for this study; it does indicate the importance of clearly delimiting the field. In this study a philanthropic

foundation

refers to a

fund,

8

Introduction

legally chartered, eleemosynary in law, and operating under a separate and independent board of control, a part of whose subventions are to outside agencies working for the direct promotion of higher education within the United States. T h i s definition eliminates from consideration the many noncharitable foundations and the unchartered charitable ones. T h e provision for an independent board eliminates that great group of philanthropic trusts so closely attached to single institutions that their funds are really no more than special endowment funds. T h e requirement of making grants to outside agencies eliminates the philanthropic foundation that is its own exclusive operating agent and spends its income on its own projects, such as the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. Finally, this definition excludes a large number of foundations that make no grants to higher education in the United States. Such an explicit definition is made necessary by the loose use of the term "foundation." It is attached to private profitmaking corporations, such as the Economic Research Foundation of Cleveland; it is used by benevolent agencies whose primary purpose is to solicit and use funds rather than to disburse money to other agencies; the term is also used to designate personal private trust funds, and, as we have already pointed out, to designate a variety of semidetached benevolent trusts. A description of the relationships between foundations and higher education is beset with many difficulties. T h e primary and most persistent one is the unwillingness on the part of many foundations to be investigated. T o surmount this first obstacle requires patience and tact in securing the confidence of foundation officials. Of this obstacle three different investigators have reported: My first surprise was to discover that those who managed foundations and trusts did not wish to have these instruments investigated. Had it occurred to me then that it would have required eight years of persistent inquiry at a wholly disproportionate cost to disclose

Introduction

9

even the basic quantitative facts desired, I am sure that the study would have been promptly abandoned.9 Many foundations feel that their activities are private and that they do not have a responsibility of reporting them to the public In order to secure the figures of resources and disbursements of certain of the foundations it was necessary to promise to keep them confidential, and to use them only in combination with the figures received from other foundations. This promise is one of the important factors in determining the method used in presenting the material. 10 . . . and I myself who am professionally interested in such matters and ought to be in a position to secure available information, have been able to obtain nothing whatever regarding three foundations, the announced capitalization of which aggregates seventy-five million dollars.11 A college professor, a graduate student, and a foundation official agree that taking the necessary first step in studying foundations is an endeavor of major importance, requiring persistence, promises, reticences, and the occasional necessity of facing outright defeat. In fairness to foundations it should be said that, for the most part, they do not raise their barriers and refuse cooperation because they have dark secrets to hide. Many of them are little more than incorporations of private family charities, and they are not willing to be approached in the spirit of an income-tax investigator. Jealousy among foundations is hardly as strong as it is among rival colleges, but this factor is a real barrier to securing data for purposes of comparison. T h e n there is a normal aversion to being the practice material on which neophytes do research for an advanced degree. T h e mass-appeal journalist is another cause for foundation noncooperation. Recently a small foundation was deluged with appeals for a type of aid in which it had only the most ephemeral interest, because of a popularization which appeared in a metropolitan paper. T h e author wholeheartedly subscribes to the dictum that

io

Introduction

"the most important social facts are buried within a social complex; further, such facts can only be revealed by a method which is in itself thoroughly social." 12 He has therefore made a studied effort to secure a human understanding of foundations, rather than merely to secure information through formal inquiries. By the social approach it is possible to obtain explanations in human terms of activities that as recorded in formal reports are cold and meaningless. First-hand information is really necessary for a vital interpretation of foundation relations to higher education, however important published reports may be in supplying basic data. Approximately two-thirds of the foundations do not publish any kind of periodical report of their activities, and a great many of the reports from the other third are so general and condensed that they are for the most part meaningless until interpreted by the officials of the foundations. 18 In working with the large group of trusts that make no reports, the personal visit had to be supplemented either by making, or asking to have made, written memoranda of vital facts and statistics; this entailed considerable additional communication and correspondence. Another way in which the problem was kept in perspective was througli consultation and correspondence with persons in the colleges, institutes, and national councils that were receiving the foundation grants. They gave reasonably explicit replies, but usually only on the assurance that the information would be considered confidential and not used so as to identify them or disturb the friendliness of the foundation toward them. Another very difficult step in both method and procedure was securing significant quantitative data on foundation grants. What the public wants to know about these grants is not so much their exact total as it is the manner and direction of the use of this surplus wealth. Sufficient factual data are introduced to justify inferences as to transitions and probable trends of foundation influence in higher education, but it has been found

Introduction impracticable to present for the whole of the present century anything like a true total of grants for any one purpose or institution. Rather an attempt has been made, through approximations, to show the impact of these quantitative facts and to translate them into qualitative meanings in higher education. T h e compilation of the quantitative data was a very involved task because no two foundations use the same system of bookkeeping. For instance, one foundation records grants by specific purpose, specific agency, and as paid, while another foundation uses a generalized purpose heading, names the agency by class only, and records the grant by appropriation rather than by payment. During the third of a century covered by this study the accounting system of a single foundation may have so changed as to exhibit these and other vagaries. 14

PART O N E

The Foundation as a Social Institution

C H A P T E R II

The Development of Philanthropic Foundations HE practice of philanthropy is based on the altruistic emotions and can be traced back as far as our records of human experience go. The origin of the legal means for projecting the private will to do good beyond the life of the individual cannot now be traced. We must content ourselves with the knowledge that the idea of permanent provision for worthy public purposes has its roots deep in the culture-pattern of every advanced civilization. H I S T O R I C A L AND LECAL

BACKGROUND

By using the term "foundation" loosely enough to include any practices of funding wealth for the general welfare as directed by donors, it can clearly be traced back to Plato, who bequeathed to his successors, for the increase and diffusion of knowledge, his Academy and an endowment of productive land. Likewise the Ptolemies created a foundation for the library and research agency at Alexandria; and Pliny the Younger endowed a school in his native city of Como. 1 These examples indicate the use in ancient civilizations of the foundation as a legal device for perpetuating private will in public purposes. Corporate endowment as a means for preserving and creating social values was given a great impetus throughout the Middle Ages by the Christian church, the dominant institution of that period of civilization. T h e absence of any unitary state to share with the church and its religious orders this function of conserver and creator undoubtedly further accelerated the increase in number and size of ecclesiastical foundations. Even

16

Development

of Foundations

after the emergence of the nation state, the large-pattern organization of the Church Universal allowed the latter a continued dominance in such endowments. For example, it has been estimated that in England during the reign of Henry VIII, from one-third to one-half of the national wealth was in ecclesiastical foundations.® Historians agree that his desire to secure control of this vested wealth for the interests of the state and himself partly motivated Henry VIII's break with the Catholic Church. Following this change of control of the church in England, religious foundations were largely confiscated, and philanthropic endowments created thereafter were more closely related to the Crown through the guilds, city companies of London, and similar organizations operating under sanctions from the king of England. Legally the modern foundation in America is the lineal descendant of the charitable trust-fund provisions and practices of England. Ever since the nation state emerged as the dominant institution of western civilization, the establishment of a foundation has been a joint public and private function. In English law this principle is well illustrated by the use of the term fundatio incipiens to indicate that in the legal incorporation of a charitable foundation the king is the general founder, and by the use of the term fundatio perficiens to describe as the specific founder the donor of the fund to implement the legal incorporation.8 In the United States we accept this principle of law as a part of our inheritance of English jurisprudence. Consequently there are many judicial references in their incorporation to indicate that philanthropic foundations are not wholly private trusts, but rather are affected with a public interest. Such endowments are deemed charitable or eleemosynary in law, and for this reason are accorded an exemption from taxation, a freedom in operation, and a continuity of existence not enjoyed by the private profit-motivated trusts. Under special rules of law even unincorporated charitable trust funds

Development

of

Foundations

are accorded some of these advantages. But to enjoy all of the privileges such funds must secure a charter of incorporation from Congress, the District of Columbia, or a state. Any of these jurisdictions may grant a charter by special enactment or through the general charter-granting power delegated to a subordinate division, such as the office of Secretary of State.4 So much leeway is allowed donors in legally funding wealth for the general welfare that several interesting variants have resulted. From the standpoint of fundatio perficiens, a foundation may be established by the legal will and testament of a donor, by other legal acts of a single donor, or by the legal act of a group of donors. Both because of the ease with which wills are set aside and because of the normal desire of the donor to see some of the results of his philanthropy, individually created trusts most often come into existence through the legal act of the donor. The most familiar example of the foundation variant that results from the legal device permitting a group of donors to create a charitable foundation is the community trust. While differing in the manner of creation, this type of foundation operates in a more restricted area in about the same pattern as the individually created trusts. The semidetached foundation is a variant often associated with colleges, hospitals, and similar institutions. More and more this type of trust, following the example of industrial research groups, is conserving for university research uses the income from patents, inventions, and other commercially profitable results of faculty research. More than a score of leading American universities have such organizations. The Wisconsin Alumni Foundation, the Mayo Foundation at the University of Minnesota, the Purdue Research Foundation, and the Yenching Fund at Harvard are excellent examples of the semidetached trust. They are rapidly increasing in importance as a method of financing university research. Because in their method of operation they are integrally connected with a single university, this

18

Development

of Foundations

foundation variant is not within the scope of our study, but its existence must be recognized. In surveying the several widely varying forms of the philanthropic foundation, one should not forget that the general and special endowment funds of a college are just as truly foundations created by group will as are the more typical variants already described. Such trusts differ from the fund-granting foundations largely in that they usually provide their own operating agency. When, however, the income from permanent college funds is used for such purposes as scholarships, the operation of the trust is no different from that, say, of the Rockefeller Foundation when making scholarship grants. When a fund-granting foundation gives money for the general endowment of a college, it is, in essence, merely transferring the management of the money from its own officials to the group of college officials managing the operating foundation which we more generally call the permanent endowment of the college. Probably a full understanding of this simple fact by the foundations hastened the end of the policy of general endowment grants to colleges. Another development in the legal evolution of foundations concerns the proper manner of holding funds. T h e legal leeway allowed donors in this matter has resulted in three distinct and yet generally acceptable plans. Originally the principal of an endowment was practically always held in perpetuity. This method of holding funds was followed by a chain of evils that brought the whole foundation idea into disrepute. In France and England these evils became so great as to produce any number of statutes against the principle of mortmain or dead-hand control of such wealth. The French statesman, financier, and economist, Turgot, opposed such perpetuities because of his conviction that the donor "cannot communicate his own zeal from age to age." 5 In the United States the dissatisfaction with holding funds

Development

of Foundations

»9

in perpetuity led to two departures: the establishment of foundations in which both the principal and the interest may be used at the discretion of the trustees; and the establishment of those foundations in which the donor specifies that both the principal and the interest must be distributed within a specified period of time. An examination of the individual charters of our present-day foundations will reveal a score or more of variations within these three general patterns of holding funds. While no such general practice exists, President Keppel has suggested the advisability of designating as foundations those trusts whose principal is to be held in perpetuity, and as funds those endowments whose principal fund may or must be spent.6 In theory such designations would help to sharpen the very loose present-day use of the terms, but in practice they might be confusing. The Rockefeller main trust carries the word "foundation" in its title and yet both the principal and the interest may be spent; the Carnegie Corporation does not use the term but holds its principal fund in perpetuity. T h e Rosenwald Fund, where both the principal and the interest must be spent in a given period, is an example of a trust that, as at present named, fits the Keppel suggestion for a logical distinction between funds held in perpetuity and those not so held. T h e relative merits of the three main ways of holding foundation funds is still a matter of earnest debate between those who believe, on the one hand, that the main hindrance in foundation administration is the "dead hand" of perpetuity, and those who believe, on the other hand, that the "deadening hand" is undue restriction in the use of the gift without regard to whether that hand is dead or alive. 7 While this debate has not yet established any one best method of implementing foundations, the trend of American practice seems to be away from funds held in perpetuity. From the Twentieth Century Fund tabulation of foundation data for 1934, it is calculated that sixty-six percent of the foundations established in the United

20

Development

of

Foundations

States d u r i n g the first decade of the present century held their funds in perpetuity, while fewer than thirty-four percent of the foundations established during the decade ending w i t h 1935 held their funds in perpetuity. 8 Since this research is centered o n how the foundations spend their money in the fields of higher education, rather than on how this money was acquired or is held, these interesting questions cannot here be further pursued. THE

FOUNDATION

IN T H E

UNITED

STATES

T h e slow growth of foundations in the U n i t e d States during the nineteenth century is perhaps accounted for by the dearth of surplus wealth necessary to implement them. W h i l e it is not within the scope of this research to examine directly the economic and social influences w h i c h

ultimately

concentrated

wealth and thus permitted foundations to be established, adequate understanding of their relation to higher

education

requires some knowledge of these basic influences, and a more detailed understanding of the social forces which have sustained and modified the foundation d u r i n g the present century. 9 It is primarily w i t h i n such a framework that one can best understand the slow growth of philanthropic foundations d u r i n g the nineteenth century and their rapid increase since 1915. D u r i n g the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries only a few persons l i v i n g in the United States incorporated any part of their wealth in the form of a charitable foundation. A m o n g the first of these was Benjamin Franklin. H e made a bequest of 1 ,ooo pounds sterling to each of the cities of Boston and Philadelphia for loans to " y o u n g married artificers of good character." T h e principal was to be held intact for one hundred years. At

the

end

of

the

period,

in

1891,

Philadelphia's

fund

amounted to $90,000, Boston's was $391,000. According to the bequest the m a j o r part of each f u n d was to be disbursed, at the discretion of the managers, for suggested public works, and

Development

of Foundations

21

the remainder to be reinvested for another hundred years. In 1908 Philadelphia used $133,000 of its fund to endow Franklin Institute. Boston, in 1904, used $408,000 to build Franklin Union. These institutions were considered the modern answer to Franklin's original intention. In accordance with the bequest Philadelphia's remaining $20,000 and Boston's $62,000 were reinvested for another hundred years, or until 1991. 1 0 Probably the second trust was that now known as the WhiteWilliams Foundation. Organized about 1800, as the Magdalen Society, it is a perpetual trust to help "unhappy females who are desirous of returning to a life of rectitude." T h e necessity of acknowledging the condition implied by this quotation made the fund of limited use until it was reorganized in 1920 to attack the same problem in a more impersonal way. T h e third foundation was established in 1831 when one of America's first millionaires, Stephen Girard, through bequest, founded a home and school for a specified class of orphan boys in Philadelphia, under the easily misunderstood title of Girard College. It will be noted that each of these foundations had a palliative rather than positive preventive attitude toward the ills of society. T h e first foundation in America to show none of the deadening effects of the hand of the founder came through the bequest, in 1829, of $508,000 by James Smithson of England, "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." T h e Smithsonian Institution, established in Washington, D. C., in 1846, is the result of this initial gift. Another outstanding foundation was the Peabody Education Fund of more than $2,000,000 established by George Peabody in 1867 "to aid the stricken South." It is interesting to note that two of the most important of the early foundations in America were established by an Englishman and by an American whom England had adopted. From Paris, in 1890, Baron de Hirsch established the fund

22

Development

of Foundations

that bears his name; its purpose is to provide civic and vocational training to Jewish immigrants. T h e only other foundations of any note established before the close of the nineteenth century were the Havens Relief Fund in 1870, the John F. Slater Fund established by the New England cotton-mill owner in 1882 for the education of Negroes, and the John Edgar Thompson Foundation created in 1882 for the orphan children of certain railway employees. In 1896 Andrew Carnegie, the Pittsburgh ironmaster, chartered the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh as the first of a line of foundations that, before his death in 1919, totaled twenty-two. 11 With the turn into the twentieth century the birth rate of foundations was greatly accelerated. Approximately a dozen were established during the first decade, at least twenty-two during the second decade, and forty-one during the third decade of the century. Just how many foundations are now in existence is not known. In its attempt to discover all of the foundations active in 1932, the Twentieth Century Fund canvassed 207 foundations and received usable returns from only 102, with many organizations either ignoring or specifically refusing its requests for information." From a much more prolonged attempt to get at the basic data of foundations, Lindeman reports: The record for the Foundation Study includes information concerning 258 foundations and 73 additional funds which may or may not be correctly classified as foundations, and of forty community trusts. And now comes the startling fact; namely, the existence of 202 foundations listed in our files concerning which no information can be secured.13 President Keppel indicates some of the causes for this confusion. 14 He reports that the public press indicated sixty-two "foundations" as beginning operation in 1928. Examination revealed that ten of them were camouflaged subscription enterprises masquerading under the name of foundation, and

Development

of Foundations

23

eighteen were additions to the permanent funds of specific colleges, hospitals, and such organizations to the sum of $18,677,500. No information could be obtained as to the purposes of sixteen other "foundations." This left eighteen of the original sixty-two as known foundations with a total capitalization of $36,590,000. Correspondence with the Division of Corporations of the secretaries of state offices for New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Ohio (where most of the philanthropic foundations have received charters) reveals that they have no record of having chartered some foundations claiming incorporation in those states. In general, this correspondence indicates that the lax administration of the charter-granting machinery of the states is partly responsible for the inability of investigators to get at the basic social facts. For example, New York State reported that it kept only an alphabetical listing of corporation charters, without regard to purpose, and that the list contained more than half a million entries. It is impracticable, therefore, even to compile a list of the philanthropic foundations char tered in New York. Despite our inability to learn the exact number of foundations in operation in the United States or the number of new ones incorporated each year, we do know that the number of such trusts is increasing rapidly. 15 An examination of American philanthropic foundations reveals that their ideals are very similar to those of the endowed universities. The two types of agency have so much in common that foundations with any interest in formal education have spent about sixty percent of their educational grants through college channels.10 The administrative devices for the direction and control of foundations and endowed colleges have been very similar, and they have been in the hands of men of closely comparable backgrounds and qualifications. 17 In pointing out the significance of the bonds that unite foundations and colleges, President Keppel says:

24

Development of Foundations

What social instrument is the foundation's nearest relative? I think, without any question, it is the university. The responsibilities of the trustees, both in the control of finances and in the general direction of activities, are the same. In both important decisions are based on group rather than individual judgment and derive their significance from this fact. Almost without exception, permanent foundation executives have had their training in universities. Furthermore, whenever a foundation needs temporary help, it turns uniformly to the university. T h e foundations have learned by experience that one of the most satisfactory ways of disposing of their burdens of responsibility is to lay them upon the universities as operating agencies—to pin responsibilities upon the university as the agency having the greatest assurance of permanence and bearing furthermore a recognized responsibility to a broad constituency for its standards and its activities. 18 From the standpoint of financial resources, the kinship of the two agencies is indeed that of children of the same parents. When the majority of these young and wealthy philanthropic children chose to discharge their social obligations by cooperation with their elder brothers, the colleges, the public welfare was probably best served. If they had entered American life determined to modify its culture directly, rather than through existing social institutions, the history of foundations would, in all probability, have been very different. It is true that most of the early foundations adopted a policy for working through colleges only after considerable debate and experimentation. For example, in establishing the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1902, Andrew Carnegie was not clear as to whether it should become the long-discussed national university, a research university closely affiliated with the federal government, or a combination of the Smithsonian Institution and the Bureau of Standards. It experienced real difficulties in finding fields for direct endeavor that were not already preempted by some other agency or society. T h e establishing of working relations with the universities proved to be a most delicate task and required many compromises for the Institution. 19

Development

of Foundations

25

The wisdom of working through existing independent universities was further called to the attention of all later foundations by two costly ventures. Through the previous personal gifts and interest of Andrew Carnegie, the Carnegie Corporation found itself commonly regarded as committed to the support of the Carnegie Institute of Technology at Pittsburgh. Before 1936 it had appropriated $ 2 3 , 1 3 8 , 1 1 6 for the project, and it has commitments for additional aid to 1946.20 Through comparable circumstances the several Rockefeller foundations have contributed some $30,000,000 (in addition to $34,708,375 given personally by the elder Rockefeller) and remain a chief source of support for the University of Chicago. In the face of these experiences other foundations have tried to avoid supporting a single university as the way to use their trust funds most effectively in promoting higher education. Possibly the best-known compromise solution is that of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. T o the indirect influence sought through its major work of pensioning professors through their colleges, the Foundation added a Division of Enquiry for directly attacking the problems of higher education. The bitter criticism that resulted from joining the two functions in one agency has been a danger signal to other foundations seeking policies for work in the field of higher education. While the Commonwealth Fund and other endowments have since successfully used the joint direct-indirect attack on problems, the great majority of the newer foundations, following the pattern of the Carnegie Corporation and the General Education Board, have sought to influence higher education indirectly, largely through the universities and the associations of learned societies. This recognition of the university as the agency best suited to transmute funded wealth into cultural influence marks an important stage in the evolution of both institutions. T h e close kinship of universities and foundations certainly accounts

26

Development

of

Foundations

largely for their cordial relations. Their cultural and financial backgrounds have had so much in common that to condemn one as a status quo institution is to pronounce a like judgment on the other. Yet their similarities have not eliminated all the causes for discord between them. For a foundation to choose to aid one of a group of competing colleges may be harmful to the others because the grant might disturb their relative status; but obviously the foundation can not help in the support of them all. Therefore its first major problem, after deciding to work through college channels, is to devise plans that will permit a maximum of service to higher education with a minimum of friction among its individual institutions. The next chapter attempts to reconstruct the origin and development of these operating policies.

C H A P T E R

III

Foundation Policies HEORETICALLY

foundation policies are the working expres-

sions of the basic principles of corporate giving, and the pattern of these principles constitutes in turn the philosophy of the philanthropic foundations. Actually foundation policies grow out of what one official described as sweating blood in the attempt to give away other people's money so that it will do more good than harm. Under this conception principles and philosophy are little more than the rationalized residue of these experiences, and one hesitates to use the word policies without quotation marks. PROBLEMS

OF

POLICY

FORMULATION

Even on a pragmatic basis it is difficult to arrive at the generalizations which we call foundation policies. T h e size and complexity of the undertaking can be visualized by mentally paralleling it with an attempt to describe policies in the betterknown field of higher education. If the reader has lived intimately in even one college he knows that "institutional policy" is so inconsistent and changeable as to make the use of the term questionable. If he tries to draw a definition of college policies from the practices of the state, the denominational, and the privately endowed institutions, he will soon realize that their policies are inherently so different as to make the labor futile. Yet the task of describing foundation policies in higher education is but little less involved. T h e r e is probably more diversity in the operating pattern of foundations than of colleges.

28

Foundation

Policies

President Keppel, of the Carnegie Corporation, is the only person of record as having wrestled directly with the problem of organizing a discussion of foundation policies. Of the experience he remarks: How far are we justified in speaking of foundation policies at all? Answering for myself, it depends a good deal on one's state of mind at the moment. Sometimes I find it hard to justify grants as finding their place in any reasoned program. Considering the sums involved and the significance of their wise use, one finds surprisingly little doctrinal writing as to foundation policies. Please don't look for logical sequence in the discussion of foundation policies upon which I am about to embark. It isn't there. I have tried the different sections in half a dozen different orders without success.1 Despite a similar failure in finding a logical framework for discussion, this chapter will attempt to trace the evolution of the principles which have guided the distribution of foundation funds in higher education. It will not be directly concerned with distribution policies in fields other than higher education, nor at all with the policies primarily related to the problems of investing and managing the permanent funds of the foundations. From the beginning, foundations have stressed the fact that their procedures are based on thorough and factual studies of matters to which the particular policy relates. Much was made of the fact that these scientific studies of colleges and universities would take philanthropy out of the realm of whim and sentiment and put it on the impersonal factual basis of private business corporations. Professor Sears cordially endorses the use made of the principle by the General Education Board: Making this study was precisely what Mr. Rockefeller wanted to have done scientifically. T o do this was to demonstrate that philanthropy could be made a successful business enterprise. Accordingly, extensive studies of the question were undertaken, and to date almost the entire college field has been surveyed with respect to

Foundation Policies

29

certain main issues, and those colleges to which contributions have been made have been studied minutely. The result is a mine of important and systematically organized information about our higher institutions of learning that had not hitherto been available. These studies cannot be adequately described nor their value satisfactorily explained in a few words. As a method of giving they stand as a permanent contribution of value. They have meant that fact rather than sentiment has guided the Board from the start.2 Since grant policies apparently were based on these studies, it is unfortunate that their confidential nature makes them inaccessible even to students of the problem. It is recognized, however, that foundations could not obtain the essential data on other than a confidential basis and that its publication would reflect unfavorably on the foundation, the investigator, or the college in question. Besides, publication would lay the foundation open to the charge of using pressure to secure changes in college policy. On the other hand, it must be recognized that this situation gives the student of foundation policies an initial handicap that is hard to overcome. T h e first report of the General Education Board carried such generalized data from the early confidential surveys as it deemed expedient to publish. For instance, in support of its contention that in 1902 the country had far too many colleges, the Board cited the fact that it discovered some 700 institutions calling themselves by this name; Ohio, for example, had forty of these institutions, or twice as many as the German Empire, even though Ohio had only about seven percent as much population. 3 T h e sociological, economic, and administrative fallacies in the Board's comparisons, as well as its inadequate philosophy of higher education, are now obvious and should largely have been so even in 1902. Is it not true that the intervening years have likewise invalidated its conclusion that "Institutions in such numbers cannot be supported, cannot be manned, cannot procure qualified students"? 4 On the more positive findings of its "thorough study" of the

3°

Foundation

Policies

status of American higher education, the General Education Board avowedly built its basic policy: The three main features of the policy of the General Education Board in dealing with higher education may therefore be expressed as follows: (1) Preference for centers of wealth and population as the pivots of the system; (2) Systematic and helpful cooperation with religious denominations; (3) Concentration of gifts in the form of endowment.® Entirely adequate data are presented in support of the first feature of this policy. T h e distinct advantage of locating a college in a thickly populated center was shown through an extensive study of the drawing power of colleges in every section of the United States. In the institutions studied a majority of the students came from homes within a fifty-mile radius of the college, and a hundred-mile radius usually encompassed the homes of more than three-fourths of the students.8 Further, the study indicated that college wealth follows centers of population. Of thirty-four comparable colleges, the twenty-three most favorably located had an endowment of $72,000,000 and a student body of 36,000, as compared to an endowment of $13,000,000 and a student body of 6,000 in the eleven colleges located farther away from centers of population. T h e intent of these facts was to point to the wisdom of concentrating effort on colleges in centers of population. While no factual evidence is introduced in support of the second feature of the policy, the reason for it is very frankly and discerningly stated: " A n effort to develop a system of higher education in the United States requires constant and sympathetic cooperation with denominational organizations; only thus can a movement towards concentration of denominational effort be promoted." 7 A rapidly changing college pattern rendered this premise obsolete after 1918, and it became inoperative, because the Board was no longer interested in promoting a few strong church colleges to be "the pivots of the system" of

Foundation Policies

31

higher education it had hoped to build. The part the factual studies played in deciding on the third feature of the policy, restricting grants to general endowment, is left to a later section of this chapter. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching also followed the policy of basing affiliation in its system on a thorough knowledge of the college. Its practices differed from those of the General Education Board in that definite standards were announced and the merits of an institution had largely to be established by the college itself. The Foundation acted as jury or judge rather than as a confidential investigator and collector of data. Before 1910 only the Peabody, Rockefeller, and Carnegie funds based policies on general and special surveys of institutions of learning. The findings undoubtedly had a significant effect on the operating policies of these foundations, but their confidential nature precludes a more thorough discussion than has been given here. The fundamental financial needs of colleges are relatively stable, but foundation policies for ministering to these needs have changed with the varying social pressures and with the maturing wisdom of the philanthropic foundations. As early as 1907 President Woodward of the Carnegie Institution called attention to the effect of public opinion on the choice of foundation policies: Moreover, the trend of the development of the foundation at any epoch must be expected to conform, to a greater or less extent, to the prevailing intelligent sentiments of that epoch. At any rate, whether favorable or inimical to progress, such sentiments must be reckoned with. In view of these considerations, it appears to be the part of wisdom to pursue chiefly those researches which meet with approval, rather than opposition, from contemporary society.8 During the present century the activities of foundations have become differentiated by what the foundations, in retrospect,

3«

Foundation

Policies

describe as three rather well-defined policy periods. In the first, which ended with the World War, it was the usual practice to make grants to the general endowment of colleges. T h e second period, ending in 1924, was one of grants to special endowments, such as medical education, teachers' salaries, and postwar emergencies. Foundations describe themselves as now in the third period, in which society encourages them to influence directly the quality of education by grants to specific projects. 9 In each of the three periods effective foundation leadership has depended on properly responding to social sensitivity as much as on following its own wisdom. OUTSTANDING

POLICIES

Historically one of the first and most widely adopted principles in foundation giving was that of limiting grants to preventive and constructive purposes. Prior philanthropy had been largely palliative, resulting at the best in temporary relief and at the worst in utterly fruitless charity. In his enthusiasm for the impetus given the preventive principle by the Peabody Fund, Elbert Hubbard wrote, "George Peabody was the world's first philanthropist," and he added that "up to this time philanthropy was palliative; now it seeks to lay hold on the age to come." 1 0 T h e distribution of the Peabody money was to be a business, with the immediate goal of helping the South rehabilitate and build up a system of public education, and with the ultimate goal of soothing the prejudices and modifying the temper of the entire nation. Since that time most foundations have sought to avoid stop-gap grants based only on need; they have more largely followed the principle of "to him that hath shall be given," in the expectation that funds so allotted would have a permanent effect and would draw other money and interest to the strategically situated beneficiary. Palliative giving has. however, had a legitimate place in the plans of foundations. In times of war, flood, depression, and

Foundation Policies

33

such disasters, foundations have temporarily abandoned their long-range programs and have diverted a portion of their revenue to the alleviation of immediate suffering. For example, the World War activities of the Rockefeller Foundation totaled $22,444,815, and since the war the Foundation has given liberally to other national and international disaster relief. T h e Carnegie Corporation has given $3,810,500 to humanitarian war purposes and to recent emergency relief. 1 1 T h e Commonwealth Fund and many smaller foundations poured millions into the postwar European relief projects. Foundations are almost as responsive to the immediate pressures in the society as are individuals of corresponding wealth. But even in relief work corporate philanthropy has sought out preventive projects having desirable effects beyond the mere satisfaction of immediate distress. Without being allowed to become a fetish, preventive philanthropy continues to be a basic principle of foundations. The early decision of foundations to leave state colleges outside the sphere of their intended influence was based in part on a test case made by the Peabody Education Fund between 1870 and 1880. Through the first quarter of the present century foundations accepted the decision of the Peabody experiment with the same acquiescence that the public gave to such legal pronouncements as the Dartmouth College case in 1819 or the Kalamazoo decision in 1872. As a first foundation policy in higher education, the story is of enough significance to merit a detailed recital. Refusing its aid and prestige to existing private colleges, the Peabody Fund conceived the idea of concentrating on a few centrally located degree-granting state normal schools "of a high order." Such institutions were to be created and liberally supported by the states; and in return for the Peabody grant they were to accept from it the same leadership and direction that it had given with its grants to the city school systems. For

34

Foundation

Policies

seven years Barnas Sears, the director of the Fund, sought to establish the first of these schools in Nashville, Tennessee. Several times he addressed the legislature on the merits of the proposal. He enlisted the state teachers' association and other influential organizations to exert pressure on the legislature. Finally, in 1875, the Tennessee legislature created what was nominally a state normal school, but it then and thereafter refused to appropriate one cent for support. This "state" institution began operation on the campus of a private college, financed by Peabody money, and jointly controlled by the Peabody Board and the board of the University of Nashville. 12 During the next five years the Nashville experiment was a crucible in which was tested almost every phase of foundation relationship to state higher education. Throughout the maneuvering, the Peabody Board supported the school, and Sears fought openly, intelligently, and tenaciously, but unsuccessfully, for state support. He lost in Tennessee, but he still believed the idea would work in a more sympathetic and unbiased setting. The Peabody forces then turned to the state of Georgia; the legislature created the school and provided for half of its support, contingent on the Peabody Fund's supplying the other half, as it had proposed. But to the chagrin of the Peabody Board the charter carried a definite provision for state control. Sears entered into a detailed discussion of the nature and amount of control the charter provisions gave the Peabody Fund. 13 When he was convinced that the state of Georgia was just as unwilling as the state of Tennessee to allow a private agency to control a state-supported institution, he withdrew the offer of Peabody Fund support. After ten years of battling for the policy of shared control of state higher education, Sears acknowledged defeat and turned the Peabody Fund largely toward a privately endowed college. Andrew Carnegie's letter of gift to the trustees of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching carried the fol-

Foundation

Policies

35

lowing provision for preventing state institutions from sharing in the gift: We have, however, to recognize that State and colonial governments which have established or mainly supported universities, colleges or other schools may prefer that their relations shall remain exclusively with the State. I cannot, therefore, presume to include them.14 It is not too fantastic to attribute some measure of Peabody influence to this pronouncement, for it must be remembered that this was a formal letter which probably contained the combined wisdom of the founder's educational and legal advisers, as well as his own shrewdness. The decision of the General Education Board to omit state institutions from its sphere of influence can be more specifically traced to the Peabody experience. Five of the ten initial policy-makers and trustees of this foundation had previously served on the boards of the Peabody Fund and the Slater Fund. Another powerful factor in eliminating state institutions from the sphere of foundation influence was the decision to make grants in the form of general-endowment gifts. For the most part, state colleges were not geared to this method of support; many of them would have had to secure enabling acts from their legislatures in order to receive such gifts. It was for these reasons that during the first two decades of this century gifts to state institutions were the exception and not the policy of foundations. After 1920 the change in grant policies enabled them to share more generally, but today state institutions get less than ten percent of foundation grants to higher education. From the days when the Peabody Fund conceived the idea of developing a system of state normal schools to the close of the World War, the leading foundations entertained the idea of promoting a "comprehensive system of higher education" as a bringing a group of institutions under their influence and thus

36

Foundation Policies

model demonstration to the rest of the country. For almost two decades the grants of the General Education Board and the Carnegie Foundation were based on such a program. T h e Board declared that its purpose in higher education was to assist such institutions of learning as the Board may deem best adapted to promote a comprehensive system of higher education in the United States.16 In justification of this bold step the Board further declared: . . . up to this time the states have not generally shown themselves competent to deal with higher education on a nonpartisan, impersonal, and comprehensive basis. . . There is no indication that in the near future either the state or the national government will fearlessly endeavor to bring order out of the chaos just described.16 A further reason for undertaking this self-imposed task of bringing order out of chaos was that: Rival religious bodies have invaded fields fully—or more than fully —occupied already; misguided individuals have founded a new college instead of strengthening an old one.17 "Over-zealous religious groups, misdirected individuals, and an incompetent government! Chaos everywhere! But in the Board a savior was at hand to lead these benighted forces," declared a satirically contemptuous critic of foundations, viewing their declarations in the light of the third instead of the first decade of the twentieth century. Any informed contemporary will agree that higher education was as chaotic as described. T h e foundations were working miracles in public health and medical education, and the ambition to reform the colleges did not then seem either colossal or fantastic. T h e policy of the Carnegie Foundation for building a "system" was in its actual operation more explicit than that of the General Education Board. Definite and announced standards required for affiliation in the "Carnegie System" were made known. T o share in the Foundation's pension fund a college

Foundation

Policies

37

not only had to qualify according to these standards, but it had to maintain them to the satisfaction of the supervisory officials of the Foundation, or lose affiliation and the accompanying revenue. In explaining and assuming responsibility for the objectives of the system President Henry S. Pritchett stated: I had naturally given more attention to the matter than any other member of the group, since I had been concerned with the project for some months. In the discussion of this small group (the initial policymakers) I put forward the suggestion, that while the primary purpose of Mr. Carnegie's gift was the establishment of a pension system, there would be involved in the administration of this gift a scrutiny of education which would not only be desirable in the granting of pensions, but would go far to resolve the confusion that then existed in American higher education.18 During the early years of the Foundation colleges sought its scrutiny on the assumption that the professors of any eligible institution would be pensioned. Andrew Carnegie's letter transmitting the endowment substantiates the expectation. He wrote that this $10,000,000 was to "provide retiring pensions for the teachers of universities, colleges, and technical schools in our country, Canada and Newfoundland," and he further asserted that "Expert calculation shows that the revenue will be ample for the purpose." 19 The fact that this pension program was to be carried out by the trustees "under such conditions as you may adopt from time to time" supplied the authorization that from the beginning enabled the Foundation to undertake a program restricted to its probable income. If this intent to select only key institutions with which to cooperate existed before the writing of the Carnegie letter, then the statement that "Expert calculation shows that the revenue will be ample for the purpose" is entitled to some credence. In his 1908 letter to President Pritchett, agreeing to provide funds for the inclusion of state universities in the Carnegie pension system, Andrew Carnegie wrote: " I understand from you that if all the State Universities would apply and be ad-

38

Foundation Policies

mitted, five millions more of five percent bonds would be required." 2 0 Professor Cattell, a contemporary and an active critic of Carnegie pension administration, pointed out at the time that it was common knowledge that the income from five million dollars was not sufficient for the proposed pensions in even two of the large state universities. 21 President Pritchett knew, however, that the Foundation could control the number of institutions actually to share in the gift, and this undoubtedly increased his confidence in the adequacy of the funds. Probably the primary reason for this confidence is revealed in his statement that "Mr. Carnegie in the early days had intimated that other millions might be forthcoming for free pensions." 22 With this assurance of additional funds and secure in the intention, announced in each of the first five annual reports, to limit participation to such a group of colleges and universities as would serve as a demonstration to the rest of the country, President Pritchett could afford to ignore his critics. He explained Carnegie's belief that the funds were adequate by showing that the donor's conception of a professor's pension was the very modest sum he knew to be usual in Scottish universities. 23 Probably the attitudes and policies of the Carnegie Foundation concerning denominational colleges were largely conditioned by the system-building idea. Certainly Andrew Carnegie's personal giving had shown no enmity toward either denominational or obscure "freshwater" institutions. In fact, before 1 9 1 1 he had contributed $15,000,000 to them.24 T h e desire to have a system of superior colleges which owed no measure of allegiance to any other external control originated with those who sought to use the pension plan as an instrument for resolving the confusion in higher education. Was it inimical to the general welfare that two semiprivate foundations had presumed, through leading a system of colleges, to exert an influence intended to reform and systematize

Foundation

Policies

39

the chief cultural agent of American society? As early as 1909 President Jacob Gould Schurman of Cornell University answered this question with the declaration that: " T h e very ambition of such corporations to reform educational abuses is itself a source of danger. Men are not constituted educational reformers by having a million dollars to spend." 2 5 This distinguished educator, though a member of the Carnegie Foundation Board of Trustees, was frankly skeptical of the wisdom and competence of the foundations to exercise the leadership they sought in higher education. The adversely affected denominational colleges were even more pointed and caustic in their comment. In the face of such criticism foundations evidently deemed it inexpedient to stress further in public their system-building policy. It remained, however, a very powerful force in shaping foundation operating plans until the policy of grants to general endowment was generally abandoned in the changed educational and social conditions following the World War. Today, although grants are no longer made so frequently to general endowment the policy which accompanied this practice —a policy of conditioning the gift—is still being used with the current specific project type of grant. The conditioned or "matching" grant was introduced to modern corporate philanthropy by the Peabody Education Fund in 1867. At the time it was attached to current support and accompanied by a frank and avowed control of the resulting program. For example, a $1,000 grant to the city schools of Rome, Georgia, was conditioned by the requirement that the city "vote a tax of $3,000 and convert private schools into public schools"; for a similar grant Augusta, Georgia, was required to "consolidate existing schools, organize a graded system, and elect a city superintendent." 26 In applying the policy of conditional grants the Peabody Fund was criticized, not for its control features, but because it was based on the principle of "unto him that hath

4°

Foundation

Policies

shall be given." After experimenting five years Sears declared: I have deemed it best to scatter the seed with a liberal hand where the soil was well prepared for it; in less favorable circumstances, to distribute more sparingly; and in extreme cases to withhold till a more auspicious time shall arrive, which cannot be far distant. Permanent results have steadily been kept in view, rather than inadequate temporary relief, or fruitless charity.27 T h e General Education Board likewise defended its matching policy on the basis of the fruits it bore. It contended that college growth and security depend on a wide circle of devoted friends which must, because of the mounting costs of conducting higher education, be rapidly enlarged. Every conditional giver increases the leverage by means of which the required total may be collected; he accepts a responsibility for the future of the institution. T h e conditional giving of the General Education Board, therefore, has not only increased college funds, but it has doubled and trebled its outright gifts by drawing other funds to the same cause. T h e college is left an added heritage of more friends who have an investment at stake.28 Because of certain practical difficulties in applying the principle of financially conditioned giving a great many foundations are abandoning its use. One foundation official reports that his trust discontinued financially conditioned grants because they forced him and his board to become appraisers of land, buildings, securities, and even jewelry that college officials offered for the purpose of matching the foundation's gift. T o have accepted these items at the valuation the donors placed on them would have defeated the principle of conditioning; to appraise such a miscellany was technically difficult, distasteful, and a questionable function for foundation officials to perform. President Keppel doubts the advisability of financially conditioning gifts, but for a different reason. He says: It may be questioned whether in some instances a conditional offer does not put too powerful a weapon in the hands of persons

Foundation

Policies

41

perhaps not fully qualified to exercise the responsibility of using it. It would not be difficult to cite instances in which local communities, or alumni, or religious bodies, have been dragooned by the use of this weapon into making contributions beyond their means and beyond the real needs of the institutions in question.29 Perhaps it should be pointed out that the power which conditional giving puts in the hands of foundation officials is also susceptible of abuse. Indeed one critic asserts that "Those who accept foundation grants often turn out to be radical critics, in private, of the control which has been exercised over them and their program." 30 When the condition stipulated by the foundation is only that of matching its dollars, the dangers are not nearly so vital as they are when the condition involves some nonfinancial idea. For example, the General Education Board at one time made grants to the clinical departments of only such medical schools as voluntarily submitted a plan to maintain a "full-time clinical staff." T o avoid even the suspicion of abuse, the Carnegie Corporation has so reshaped its policies that "in the last three years [written in 1929] only eleven percent of our grants were conditioned in any respect, and only 2 percent were conditioned on the securing of funds from other sources." 31 T h e strength and weakness of the operating policy of the Carnegie Foundation lay in its use of the principle of conditional giving. If its pension grants had not been conditioned by requiring high standards the Foundation would have been largely without influence in improving the quality of higher education. From the beginning foundations have been formulating and revising policies intended to increase their effectiveness through a further concentration of activities. T h e early policy of concentrating support in institutions located in areas of the greatest concentration of population and wealth has already been mentioned. Many of the foundations incorporated within the last two decades have attempted to effect concentration by oper-

42

Foundation

Policies

ating in a single city, county, state, or small group of states. When Coffman polled sixty foundation executives for an opinion on the desirable degree of geographical concentration the vote indicated no consensus, each official tending to prefer an area similar to that used by his trust.32 Another way to secure concentration is to limit the number of phases of higher education which a foundation attempts to aid, and on this point there was considerably more agreement among the sixty executives who answered Coffman's questionnaire. Only five thought a foundation should "sow beside all waters," twenty-four approved of concentration on a single enterprise or phase of work, while twenty-two disapproved of so much concentration, and fourteen were undecided. In practice, policies for securing this form of concentration are widely used because they enable a foundation to judge more intelligently among the colleges competing for its funds in the specified field, and such concentration increases the foundation's expectation of securing cumulative results that may be judged a significant contribution to the field in question. During the period that followed the policy of making grants to general endowment, the concentration principle was made effective through limiting cooperation to a few carefully chosen institutions. But with increased quantitative and qualitative costs of higher education following the World War, foundations began to concentrate on endowing for special purposes, such as medical education, professorial salaries, and library science. By 1925 the costs of all education had mounted still higher and foundations, to maintain their effectiveness, gave up special endowment and concentrated on current support and research grants. The Carnegie Corporation described the evolution of its concentration policy as follows: . . . in 1921 sixty-seven percent of the number of grants made and seventy-seven percent of the total sum voted, outside of the appro-

Foundation Policies

43

priations to other Carnegie enterprises, were in the nature of contributions to campaigns for the general endowment or equipment of institutions or for the general support of organizations. Since that year, the tendency on the part of the Corporation has been more and more to support specific projects rather than to make general contributions.38 In the same year the Milbank Memorial Fund announced its concentration policy as intended "to give greater emphasis to a few major projects instead of distributing small sums to a wide variety of agencies." 34 In the same decade the Commonwealth Fund so concentrated its grants that by 1930 sixty-two percent of the funds were allocated to a few major projects directly or indirectly administered by itself, and the balance was spent through outside agencies but on interests closely allied to the major projects. 38 T h e General Education Board probably has best described the changed conditions of American society that fostered the concentration policies of foundations. From 1900 to 1925 the general population increased approximately fifty percent, but the attendance in colleges and professional schools increased in the same period by two hundred fifty percent, and the attendance in the graduate departments of universities increased by nearly four hundred percent. 36 Even with endowment funds increasing fivefold between 1900 and 1925 and aggregating $800,000,000, provisions for permanent support did not grow as fast as the needs. In most colleges the amount of such funds per student was less than it had been at the beginning of the century. In view of the augmented program the General Education Board declared its policy of concentration: The Board felt that it had made its contribution in stimulating giving to general endowment. . . Moreover, as far as endowment was relied upon, the sums sought were so large that any contribution from the General Education Board from its relatively small resources was felt to be unimportant. In the autumn of 1924, in view of these changed conditions, the

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Board decided to terminate its work in stimulating efforts for increasing the general resources of colleges, and to direct its attention towards raising the standards of scholarship, such as the develop ment of honors courses, research fellowships, more adequate facilities and opportunities for fundamental research and training in the physical and biological sciences, and special encouragement in the humanities. This change of program has naturally involved dealing with fewer institutions and the consideration of institutional plans designed to raise the quality of higher education.37 T h e above statement sums up the reasons for a policy of concentration, but the declaration of the Rockefeller Foundation on the same policy points out one further trend, the tendency toward concentration in research: . . . the year 1929 marks the initiation of a policy under which research and the advancement of knowledge in the medical sciences may be considered as the principal interest, thus taking the place of a previously predominating interest in the welfare of schools or faculties of medicine as institutions.88 T h u s foundations have reached a stage where they can no longer claim to be impartial. By the very choice of projects to support they are giving direction to and accelerating the processes of change. Concentration has given the foundations the power of initiative and the responsibility for justifying the degree of progressiveness or conservatism represented in their choices. As will be specifically shown in Chapter X I I I , concentration has now reached the point where 20 universities receive approximately three-fourths of all foundation grants, the remaining one-fourth being distributed among 3 1 0 institutions. This policy leaves about 700 colleges without reasonable expectation of receiving foundation aid. Foundations justify the policies that have led to this further concentration by declaring that they are now seeking to improve the quality of the higher-education process, rather than merely to add to the quantitative facilities of particular institutions.

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45

From the beginning of their activities foundations have favored demonstrations of the practical value of untried ideas. T h e currently dominant interest in research has tended to submerge the policies which grew up around the idea of demonstration and the possible resulting cooperation with other foundations or with agencies of government. " I t is hard to remember that the chief justification of a foundation grant lies frequently not in the help it may give to the institution receiving it, nor even to the quality of the work itself, but in its significance as a demonstration." 3 9 For example, the cooperation of the General Education Board with the federal and state governments in farm demonstration projects and in boys' and girls' club work was not intended primarily to help the farmers of the localized areas but, rather, to demonstrate to the whole country that such a program had merit. T h e county-unit health activities of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Commonwealth Fund, and the Rosenwald Fund in the South served an identical function. T h e purpose of the General Education Board in supporting in Southern state universities a professor of secondary education, and in the departments of education of these states a number of supervisors, has been to demonstrate the urgent need for these services. T h e demonstrations have been so successful that the states have usually underwritten their support when the Board indicated an intention to withdraw. T h e rural, small city, and metropolitan health-unit demonstrations by the Milbank Memorial Fund in New York State provide another example of the merit and method of this type of foundation work. T h e Carnegie Foundation's Pennsylvania study is intended as a demonstration in the articulation and coordination of highschool and college admission and graduation standards. Various "new college" plans, from honors courses to the general college curricula, are receiving support not for the sake of, let us say, Swarthmore or the University of Minnesota, but in the expec-

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tation that the plans, if successful, will be widely used. Almost every ambitious college wishes to have on its campus a variation of one of these experimental college plans. As a consequence a foundation that supports a demonstration in one college is usually bombarded by other colleges to set up a slightly varying demonstration. T h e reasons for rejecting such applications constitute the negative aspect of such policy formulation. O n the positive side, a foundation has many policy considerations to face in deciding to support a demonstration. 40 T o be worthy of support, the idea must be educationally sound and within the means of the public to support. On each of these principles the General Education Board and the Rockefeller Foundation have been criticized in medical circles for supporting demonstrations seeking to establish in medical schools full-time clinical professors to supplant the more traditional part-time staff members. T h e demonstrations of almost every other foundation have been criticized as violating one or the other of the principles. T h e Rockefeller philanthropies, however, have been among the most extensive and successful in demonstrating to the public the merit of ideas: the people have voted to tax themselves to retain successfully demonstrated programs. T h e demonstration idea assumes a similarity of conditions over a wide area. Since the degree of parallelism is difficult to determine, a decision to undertake a demonstration requires a sociological and economic understanding of the country that can best be obtained by a policy of continuous surveys, through field agents and special investigators, and for these surveys larger foundations are noted. Disregard of these factors leads to overestimating the importance of demonstration, and failure to gauge them properly may cause the particular demonstration to give only negative results. Granting funds for demonstrations has led to cooperation

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47

with local, state, and federal governmental agencies, and has contributed in time to policies pertinent to this aim. Effective work with governmental agencies demands some self-imposed restriction not required of foundations working with private organizations. For example, the Rockefeller philanthropies refuse to cooperate in enterprises designed to promote legislation or to influence public opinion on any issue; they first make certain that there has been adequate legislative and administrative authorization for the project. In cooperating with minor subdivisions of governmental departments one trust has come to the conclusion that foundations should have definite policies for securing the approval of general administrative officers, and should be sure that policies for the use of funds leave these officials responsible only to the public body to which they are officially attached; and that as an even more fundamental obligation, foundations should satisfy themselves that the project to be aided is clearly a public responsibility and that it is designed for the general public benefit. 41 The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching was a pioneer in formulating some of these working policies. Before it would accept a state university for affiliation it required that the application have not only the approval of the president and the board of trustees, but also that of the governor of the state, preceded by a formal authorization from the state legislature. 42 T h e Rockefeller Foundation is perhaps the most conspicuous example of foundation cooperation with public bodies. In pursuit of its health program such cooperation has extended over a long period of years and has included such public bodies as cities, counties, states, national governments, and finally the League of Nations. For two full decades the Rosenwald Fund has been cooperating with the Southern states and their political subdivisions in the promotion of Negro education and, through a scrupulous observance of these policies, has avoided dissension and friction.

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T h e policies of the General Education Board and the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial for assisting certain state universities in the promotion of research in child welfare and parent education offer another instance of effective cooperation. Although not by established policy, the Carnegie Corporation's successful cooperation during the depression years with federal government projects, such as Civilian Conservation Corps activities, is another testimonial to the fact that this merging of private and public funds in a single endeavor can be carried on successfully. Possibly the Spelman Fund of New York, in its work to improve the technical aspects of public administration in local, state, and national units, is engaged in the use of the cooperative principle at points where it is most liable to the charge of political or commercial motives. When two or more foundations jointly promote an activity, they do so according to rather clearly defined but unannounced policies. Apparently both the nature and the extent of participation are governed by basic considerations. If an undertaking is so large that it taxes the income of a single foundation it obviously calls for cooperation, as for example the war and postwar activities of the leading foundations. A number of the larger foundations collaborate in supporting Negro education activities through the Phelps-Stokes and Slater funds, because these agencies are well equipped to administer such grants. Largely because they use them, the foundations jointly support such clearinghouse agencies as the National Research Council, the Social Science Research Council, the American Council on Education, and the American Council of Learned Societies. When an enterprise seems likely to involve social criticism^ a foundation likes to have other members of the fraternity cooperate in the undertaking. This final reason for interfoundation cooperation has decreased with the coming of workable policies for steering a wise course among controversial problems.

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49

Of all the controversial questions connected with policies for administering foundation grants none has been more persistent or provocative than the degree to which a foundation is justified in combining the function of giving advice with that of granting financial aid. T h e problem is even more difficult if it involves the giving of advice when financial aid is refused. T h e stewardship of money cannot ordinarily be effectively exercised by foundations without in some degree planning, advising, and directing the expenditure. 4 3 Most of the complaints against the operating policies of foundations have resulted, however, from their failure to steer an acceptable course while discharging these obligations. "Certainly the bulk of recent criticism of foundation policies," declares President Keppel, "has been directed against what the writers believe to be the dangers attending the exercise of such power." 4 4 As early as 1909 Dr. Jacob Gould Schurman, President of Cornell University and member of the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Foundation, said he feared domination would result if a foundation supervised the grants it had made: I cannot but think that they create a new and dangerous situation for the independent and privately endowed universities. Just in the proportion as these are supported by those benevolent corporations is their centre of gravity thrown outside themselves. It is no longer a case of a rich man giving his money and going his way (eventually dying) and leaving the university free to manage its affairs. The purse strings are now controlled by an immortal power, which makes it its business to investigate and supervise, and which lays down the conditions that the university must accept if it is to receive grants of money.45 T h e following pronouncements of the Committee on Pensions of the American Association of University Professors express their immediate interest in this question: We deem it unnecessary to repeat at length those portions of our last report (1916) in which we direct attention to the menace to educational freedom in the United States of uniting in the Car-

5°

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Policies

negie Foundation the function of critic and mentor of our educational institutions with that of distributing financial benefits to such institutions and of controlling the savings of their teachers.46 The opinion of the Carnegie Foundation, or of its president, concerning educational questions should, in our judgment, rely upon their intrinsic merit for their influence upon the policies of higher institutions; that influence should not be reenforced by an arrangement enabling the Foundation, by the threat of sudden withdrawal of anticipated benefits, to involve in more or less serious embarrassment boards or administrative officers who decline to conform to its views.47 The chairman of the committee making this report was Mr. Justice Harlan Fiske Stone of the United States Supreme Court, who at the time was Dean of the Columbia University Law School. T h e distinguished jurist was deploring a series of occurrences which indicated that the influence being wielded emanated only secondarily from the wisdom of the official to whom reference was being made. When the acceptance of advice is divorced from other considerations, the foundation executive may render, through his advice, a valuable service to both the individual institution and higher education in general. His office can become a clearinghouse for the ideas and plans of many institutions. By seeing that one college proposal reacts upon another and that people of common interests are brought together, such an official may do more service than by recommending the grant originally sought. T h e capably staffed foundation does some of its most useful work through such indirect and nonfinancial channels. Such activities are individual; they are not discharged by any formally announced policy. Possibly the early history of the Carnegie Foundation provides the best example of the struggle involved in formulating and administering policies for giving advice with or without giving money. T h e opposition was so pronounced that even the Foundation's right to have its own administrative policies

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51

was questioned. At the risk of obscuring the point at issue, two decades of the Foundation's struggle will be sketched. When President Pritchett offered to colleges factually justified but sharply worded counsel on honesty in enforcing admission standards, when he criticized fake schools of sundry kinds, and when he spoke disparagingly of college standards in advertising, "omniscient busy-body" and worse epithets were applied to him by persons responsible for the agencies he sought to reform. But it was when he undertook to advise the denominational colleges, which the Foundation had specifically excluded from sharing its funds, that he was most thoroughly castigated for "officious impudence." 48 The following example of reproof is from a scholarly and rather judicious monograph issued by the Princeton University Press: Some persons might suppose that denominational institutions, being excluded from the benefaction of the Foundation, would also be deprived of the benefits arising out of the scrutiny of the President of the Foundation. This, however, is a hopelessly narrow view. He seeks to elevate by his criticisms, institutions which the Foundation declines to assist with its money, and not institutions only, but denominations as well.49 For the most part the Carnegie Foundation took such chastisement without dignifying it by an official reply. But in his Ninth Annual Report, President Pritchett in thinly veiled sarcasm catalogues the "sins" charged against the Foundation and declares: It is, however, the fate of virtue to be misunderstood, and perhaps it should cause no surprise that this highly virtuous practice [that of criticizing and urging standards] of the Foundation has incurred the common lot. . . . The public has in one way or another come to believe that the Foundation has laid down certain arbitrary standards which it is seeking to enforce upon the colleges of the country. Mr. Andrew Carnegie has been sharply attacked for inventing the "Carnegie unit," which with a diabolical ingenuity and a clever use of money he is urging upon the universi-

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ties, with a special and particular design on religious colleges. A committee of the National Education Association on normal schools at its last meeting "viewed with alarm" the efforts of the Foundation to "control the educational standards of the country," and a Methodist Bishop has solemnly warned the country of the same awful tendencies. The hardest blow has come from an eminent professor of Harvard in a pamphlet entitled "A Plea for Independence in Provincial Education," printed and circulated by Middlebury College. . . . He warns to beware of educational advice from the Carnegie Foundation, for its experts are "professional standardizes." Nothing so cruel as this has been said about the Foundation during all its short life.50 The very language reveals something of the attitude in which the recited criticisms were received. All of the criticism did not come from the professionally and personally disillusioned, disappointed, or disgruntled. The intelligent lay public had come to discern in the activities of the Foundation outcomes other than the declared intention of providing pensions for aging university professors. After five years of operation had produced general educational effects apparently not very different from those officially expected by the Foundation, magazine editorial opinion awoke "to discern, beyond the illusion of a near and apparent good, the real evils" of the Carnegie Foundation program. An editorial in the Independent is representative: When a man sets a lump sum of 115,000,000 rolling around the country there is no knowing what it will do. It was supposed that the endowment provided by Mr. Carnegie for the pensioning of superannuated college professors would simply serve to ease the declining years of a useful and underpaid class of public servants. Who anticipated that in less than five years it would effect profound changes in the constitution and management of our colleges, severing venerable denominational ties, tightening up requirements for admission, differentiating the college from the university, systematizing finances, raising salaries, and in more subtle ways modifying the life and work of thousands of educators.51 Not only were some of the reforms questioned but, even

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more evident, there was a critical attitude toward the advisability of putting private funds into philanthropic channels without first ascertaining the probable effects beyond those announced as the objects of the gift. From observing the effects produced by the activities of the charitable foundations of France more than a hundred years before the time of the Carnegie Foundation, Turgot had reached a conclusion similar to that of the editor of the Independent. He had seen clearly that a foundation need not have a sinister motive for its activities to produce results at great variance with those which were the immediate objective: How easy it is to do harm in wishing to do good! To foresee with certainty that an establishment will produce only the effect desired from it, and no effect at variance with its object; to discern, beyond the illusion of a near and apparent good, the real evils which a long series of unseen causes may bring about—this would need the effort of the most profound genius.®2 President Pritchett agreed with his critics on the harm that a foundation might do with its philanthropic grants. His utterances are as vigorous as those of Turgot, the archenemy of foundations: Somebody must sweat blood with gift money if its effect is not to do more harm than good. . . All giving, like all accomplishment intended for human betterment, cuts more than one way. Ofttimes the by-products of giving, even of giving to a good cause, result in social toxins which do enough harm to more than counteract the benefit that may come from the original gift.83 In applying its policies for improving colleges the Carnegie Foundation met its most determined opposition in the sectarian leadership of the denominational colleges. While it was common knowledge in educational circles that many of the church colleges were already chafing under the restrictions of denominational ties, and a few were either loosening or severing the ties before the Carnegie Foundation was chartered,

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the Foundation was charged with planning the destruction of Christian education. It seems only, however, to have sensed the movement toward secularization and, through its pension policies, to have greatly accelerated it. T h e deliberations of the trustees of Brown University on the advisability of liberalizing the denominational provisions of its charter provide an excellent illustration of how these two independent forces worked toward a common end. A preliminary report of the Board's deliberations declared: It is useless for any institution to pretend, in changing its charter as we propose, it has no reference whatever to the standards of the Carnegie Foundation: on the contrary, we freely acknowledge that the desire to secure retiring allowances for our teaching staff is one of the objects that we desire—though by no means the chief one.84 Apparently an element in the Brown University Board was using Carnegie pensions as a lever for a liberalization which they themselves sought. Such actions probably caused many church leaders to heap on President Pritchett the blame that they would have preferred to place on the shoulders of their own liberal-minded college officials. T h e vested church interests most vigorously fought Foundation policies, however, in situations where colleges under their control actually passed, as they expressed it, to the "control of the Carnegie Foundation." T h e conflict centered in such colleges as Wesleyan, Drury, Drake, Coe, and Central University (Centre College) of Kentucky. 55 Each of these colleges left a denominational affiliation to become associated in the Carnegie system. T h u s to bring "tainted" money into the very citadel of church education and wean away its devotees was considered a despicable procedure. 56 T h e resentment of Carnegie policies was quite as often based on the vested property rights of the denomination: It is a guidance which comes after the prayers, and the tears, and the sacrifices of the Church have brought the college an endow-

Foundation Policies

r>r>

ment, which to satisfy the requirements of the Foundation, must be at least $200,000, all of which passes beyond the control of the Church when the college enters upon this new relationship.57 When the Foundation accepted the best of the church colleges and yet continued its policies of advising and opposing the weaker ones it would not receive, it is not surprising that the denominational leaders vehemently fought what they considered to be an enemy. Church colleges that accepted the guidance of the Foundation discovered it was intent to see that every standard and policy prescribed was strictly observed. It was frequently necessary for the Foundation to warn and admonish these colleges concerning their church activities. For instance, one college was denied permission to require that "a majority of the faculty must be members of Protestant churches, but shall be so chosen that the members of no one church shall have a majority." The colleges were warned that it was a violation of the rules of affiliation to continue to appeal to the denomination for support; they were even forbidden to allow the name of the college to be listed in denominational literature, unless the listing was accompanied by the explanation that the church exercised no ownership or control. It was interpreted as sufficient cause for a college to be dropped from the Carnegie system if it continued an endowed professorship carrying the stipulation that the president or a majority of the trustees should remain "in doctrinal sympathy" with a specified denomination.58 These and similar policy interpretations engendered an enmity from certain groups within the affiliated colleges that was almost as bitter as that exhibited by the denominational leadership itself. Another major source of dissension was the Foundation's interpretation of the $200,000 endowment standard to mean that at all times a college must have this actual minimum. It stopped the questionable former practice of "borrowing" from

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the endowment fund to meet current expenses of an "emergency" character. It was also an effective means for securing the observance of other requirements in a spirit agreeable to the Foundation. 59 Whether for good or for ill the interpretation gave an external agency a powerful voice in controlling the financial affairs of the colleges, and it was often irksome to them. Just as the Foundation wanted to be positive that all denominational ties of the church-affiliated institutions had been severed, so it wanted to make certain that every group having control or direction of the state universities agreed to the institution's proposed connection with the Foundation. To this end the application of a state university for affiliation required the joint approval of the governing board, the legislature, and the governor of the state.60 The specific approval of the legislature was required even in states where the constitution made the board of regents of the state university independent of the legislature in the matter of receiving gifts and endowments.81 Moreover, the Foundation was cautious enough to protect its stake in the university from political control or interference through reserving the right to reject applications and to discontinue affiliation with universities so dominated. 82 "In effect, the state must apply for participation in Mr. Carnegie's gift" 88 is the language used to indicate that it is not merely the statesupported institution but the sovereign state, as represented by its legislature and its governor, that must file the application. This policy was both repugnant and inconvenient to the state universities, and through a committee of their national association they sought in vain to have it modified. Despite the dissatisfaction only two states refused the terms. Largely through the efforts of William Jennings Bryan the Nebraska legislature refused its university permission to make application; and Governor Campbell of Texas "would not be a party to such an entreaty" by that state.84

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In the year following the announcement of the gift forty-one legislatures were in session, and thirty-two of them took the legal step necessary to qualify their state universities.65 State officials were soon to learn that their acts were not merely perfunctory legal gestures. Governors in California, Illinois, and Ohio were advised by the Carnegie Foundation of the chaotic condition of their systems of higher education, and suggestions were made as to the reforms, consolidations, and coordinations it would be necessary to effect in order to qualify their universities for inclusion in the Carnegie pension system.66 Another matter on which the Foundation warned state officials was the devastating effect of politics. Ohio State University officials were criticized for the political chicanery alleged to be involved in absorbing two private medical schools into the university system. The universities in Kentucky, Iowa, and Wyoming were similarly admonished. The political situation concerning the University of Oklahoma was so intolerable that President Pritchett made a personal tour of the state. His specific findings, as well as his valid and stimulating criticism of the whole problem of political influence in state universities, are set forth in twelve pages of the 1908 report.67 This courageous publicizing was followed by an abatement in the specified political interference but it brought new enmity to the Foundation and its leader. T h e experiences of the Carnegie Foundation have been chosen to illustrate the mistakes and successes of a provocative and rigorous administration of policies because its standards were forthright, its leadership vigorous, and its work consummated in the sight of all men. T h e focal point of the controversy was on the degree of control the Foundation was justified in exercising through a non financial conditioning of its pension grants. Its policies for giving advice with and without grants were equally provocative. Although foundations are still wrestling with these perennial problems they are greatly in-

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debted to this pioneer attempt for increased effectiveness in administering operating policies that have a better social basis.68 SOCIAL

IMPLICATIONS

OF FOUNDATION

POLICIES

Foundation policies and practices cannot be catalogued as either reactionary and conservative or radical and progressive. T h e literature indicates that attempts to classify foundations have usually r u n to such extremes. Obviously, however, no "either-or" labeling can do other than confuse the discussion. Foundations must be interpreted as agencies w h i c h have come into existence in response to g r o u p needs. In this respect they do not differ f r o m the family, the school, the church, or any other social institution. T h o s e w h o object to the influence of foundations on the recipient of a grant, or o n the operation and outcome of the project to which the grant is devoted, usually believe that such influence

is reactionary and dictated by the interests of wealth

and privilege. T h e earlier, less informed, and more fearful critics pictured the foundation as a c u n n i n g and powerful financial octopus that would destroy the interests of the common people. T h e later critics are less fearful of foundation influence,

but many of them are convinced that it is an unpro-

gressive social force aimed by its very nature and personnel at maintaining the existing social and cultural institutions. "Nothing," declares one such critic, "is so repugnant as the arrogance of those who presume to impose cultural norms upon a society on no basis or warrant other than their pecuniary success under the dispensation of a competitive economy. Such arrogance excites indignation." 6 9 As a matter of fact, as will be shown below, a good case can be made for the foundation as a culturally alert social agent. O n e could indict the colleges as justifiably as the foundations for "conniving and conspiring" to maintain the cultural status quo. It would be difficult to find a foundation so reactionary

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59

that its ideas for reconstructing the social order would not prove a liberalizing leaven in the type of college represented by the following description: We were founded by a capitalist of the old days. We have developed and prospered under the capitalistic regime. T h e men we have sent forth and who have become industrial leaders have, in their generosity, and for the benefit of the youth of the country, richly endowed us. We have trained men eager to work under that system, full of confidence that the doctrine of rugged individualism is the doctrine which, supported by strong self-respect and self-sacrifice, fighting bravely the battle of legitimate competition, will bring them financial independence and protection from adversity. We are proud of those alumni and we are proud of their adherence to the inexorable human laws. I think we should stand four-square to the world and declare our faith. In my opinion as the years pass, time will vindicate us just as surely as the past has approved of us. If we are condemned as the last refuge of conservatism, let us glory in it. 70 T h i s social and economic outlook is not representative of the attitude of most American colleges toward a changing social order, nor is it cited as a representative attitude. But it would be equally misleading if the foundation as a social institution were judged by the attitude of a single reactionary philanthropic trust, or by the most reactionary group of grants made by any foundation selected at random. As has been pointed out, foundations, like other social institutions, show in the pattern of their activities more of the intermediate shades than of the black or white of either conservatism or progressiveness. It has already been said that from the beginning there was a kinship between foundations and colleges as a result of the conservative characteristics common to both institutions. Also we have seen how social pressures helped to hold foundation activity to the conventional pattern approved by contemporary opinion. Therefore to brand foundations as conservative during the first two decades of the twentieth century is to accuse them of no greater crime than being, like the col-

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leges of the period, responsive to the climate of opinion in which they existed. Even in this prewar period the reforms that the foundations sought in accrediting secondary and higher educational institutions showed a more progressive attitude than prevailed among the cooperating colleges. It is only since the World War that foundations in their choice of causes have exercised enough initiative to show the degree of their conservative or progressive leanings in higher education. Before that time the Carnegie and Rockefeller trusts did make an effort to work in the controversial areas of the social sciences, but they were so severely reprimanded by the Congressional investigation in 1915 that they were very reluctant to venture again away from safe conservative projects. In the annual report following this investigation the General Education Board even went the length of declaring: "the Board does not endorse nor promulgate any educational theory." It was not until about 1924 that the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial formulated twelve principles for guiding foundation activity in controversial fields, and in the decade that followed these became the operating policies of all Rockefeller trusts and also of many other foundations. 71 T h e more important of these principles are that foundations should not attempt to secure social, economic, or political reform or to support organizations centered on securing legislative changes; that foundations should not attempt to influence the findings of research either by designating specific projects, personnel, or methods of inquiry, or by indicating the contingencies which might lead to continued support; and that foundations should not directly carry on any research, or otherwise support research, unless it is sponsored by some reputable educational or scientific institution. In essence these policies were intended to protect the public welfare and to prevent the imputation of a selfish motive to the foundations. As the Memorial report expresses it:

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The mere controversial nature of the problems within a field, therefore, is not the real point at issue. But there exists a type of controversial question in which it might be thought that a selfish interest was the motivating one in the Memorial's activities. Around these questions lies the real problem. . . 72 The use of the twelve principles was entered upon very cautiously. Foundations were conscious of the difficulty, complexity, and delicacy involved in seeking to modify aspects of life in which folkways governed the standards of value. Foundations have been so skilful in overcoming these obstacles that they now exercise a maximum of initiative. Today they have a vital part in practically every type of progressive educational experiment under way in America. Possibly there has been no more radical and forward-looking study of the American scene than is presented in the sixteen-volume report of the Social Studies Commission of the American Historical Association which was begun in 1927 and very recently completed. The report demands a radical change in many of the major premises underlying our social, economic, and cultural life. This ultraprogressive study was sponsored and supported to the extent of $340,000 by the Carnegie Corporation. In addition the Corporation has contributed an aggregate of $1,404,840 to experimentation in adult education; $309,500 to the study of radio in education; an aggregate of $5,700,000 to the endowment and support of progressive experimental college programs in general, and specifically at Chicago, Bard, Colgate, Stephens, and Southwestern; and over $5,000,000 to the promotion of educational efforts in the fine arts, especially the pictorial and graphic arts and music. Of the arts program President Keppel says: " . . . the Corporation has proved itself sensitive to a new interest in the arts on the part of the American people, an interest which has already brought about education and social changes of considerable significance." 73 The record of the Rockefeller funds for progressive grants

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is quite as impressive. The General Education Board has made grants to most of the experimental college programs, such as the General College of the University of Minnesota, Stephens, Sarah Lawrence, Bennington, Swarthmore, and the Fieldston Junior College of the Ethical Culture Schools. It has supported, in its several phases, the research and experimentation of the Progressive Education Association. T h e Lincoln School of Teachers College, Columbia University, has alone been given about $6,000,000 for capital outlay and experiment. Educators generally concede that these groups are as forward-looking as any seeking to enrich American education. T h e same Board is supporting the movement among the regional accrediting associations for liberalizing and fundamentally reforming the whole idea of the proper relations between the high school and the college. More than a half-million dollars has recently been granted for a survey and study of the youth problem in America. These listings are only representative of how close to "the growing edge of things," to borrow a phrase from John Dewey, is the present-day foundation program. T h e intention has been to present enough illustrations to show the increasing progressiveness of foundation activities as they gain freedom to determine their own policies and theory of values. Of course foundations have not yet overcome all the difficulties implicit in supporting controversial issues. Policy formulation has come a long way, but there is still uncertainty ahead: If it were ever true that a foundation could turn to the support of educational inquiry as a means of playing safe, of carrying out its trust with the minimum of danger from public criticism, certainly this is not true today. No field is more exciting to the public, more speculative as to results, nothing is more likely to get a foundation into trouble—and probably none is more fundamentally useful or better adapted to carrying out its broad purposes. With the increasing tensions resulting from the changes, both rapid and profound, now taking place in man's thinking and in his

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63

standards of value, the field will become more and more difficult, but at the same time more and more important. 74 Among such rapid and profound changes foundations must be progressive agencies if they are to remain a salutary influence in effecting change. In forging socially acceptable programs for the days ahead they will probably cause tensions as great as any that have existed in the past. While no one knows what these new programs will be, they probably are foreshadowed in the explicit statement of the current Twentieth Century Fund policies: Whatever research the Fund undertakes is directed toward the practical solution of some economic problem of crucial importance. The Trustees of the Fund believe that there is an especially urgent need in these days for the interpretation and application of facts— for the formulation of practical policies—rather than for the accumulation of mere information. Nor does the Fund avoid controversial issues. Rather it seeks them out. The Trustees believe that controversy is an index of the public interest in a subject and of its importance. Also the greater the controversy the more need for precisely the objective, detached and non-partisan review of the facts at issue and of their application, which it is hoped the foundation can make. . . . In this field, propaganda and partisanship are supreme. Politics, pressure groups, and commercial self-interest largely dominate the enormous flood of economic exhortation and suggestion that is poured out upon the minds of the American people.76 Here is a foundation deliberately seeking controversial questions, not for mere academic study or for granting funds to some independent agency to make a study for which it is not responsible, but for the direct and immediate purpose of formulating legislative acts in such controversial fields as labor disputes and stock-market regulation; it has recommended specific policies for socialized medical care and for the regulation of trusts and other unfair business combinations. Such principles and practices are the answer of one progressive foundation to the question of what vested wealth should do in controversial

64

Foundation

Policies

fields. Regardless of whether it is the correct answer, it indicates the direction in which an increasing number of foundations are moving. T h e administration of foundation grants in higher education requires many important operating policies not directly concerned with the problem of progressiveness or with the desire to influence the outcome of an undertaking. How far ahead shall future income be pledged to specific undertakings? What factors should determine the size of a grant to a given organization? Should the policy for payments on long-time grants be a uniformly increasing or decreasing annual sum? W h e n and how should a foundation withdraw from a project to which it is making grants? These questions are representative of the problems on which foundations must have some operating policies satisfactory to themselves and reasonably agreeable to the recipients. By continued commitments to long-time programs it is easy, yet fatal, for a foundation to lose its most valuable asset, that is, the freedom to initiate and support currently strategic projects. On the other hand, the college does not wish to embark on a program that calls for an expansion of facilities and personnel unless there is rather definite assurance of continued support from the agency which is jointly launching the enterprise. Naturally the college would like to have the foundation continue its support for a long period; the foundation would like to demonstrate the feasibility of the project, leave its routine support to the whole of society, and refocus its limited funds in some other untried area. What are equitable policies in these circumstances? In the early days the practice of the majority of foundations was to grant to acceptable applicants such sums as could be immediately paid from current revenue. T h i s hand-to-mouth policy denied consideration to more comprehensive, and often more valuable, long-time undertakings. T h e policy of making

Foundation

Policies

65

grants which anticipated the use of revenue several years in advance of its existence came with the interest of the larger foundations in endowing or currently supporting some specialized enterprise, such as a full-time clinical staff in medical colleges, library schools, research councils, child welfare research, and the research institutes within existing universities. T h e policy has the advantage of supporting an idea for a time long enough to test its merit, but if the idea succeeds it usually means an enlargement of the grants, both in amount and in duration, and this soon freezes much of the possible revenue of a foundation for years in advance. This is exactly what happened to the Carnegie Corporation; in 1920-21 it appropriated 33.4 million dollars when its income for that year was only 6.3 million. This anticipation of a half-decade of income in a single year's appropriations has hampered the normal freedom of the Corporation in meeting the needs of the years that have since elapsed. The mortgage on the future had in 1936 been reduced to 8.7 million dollars and the Corporation was again beginning to undertake larger current programs.76 The Carnegie Corporation grants to Stanford University for the Food Research Institute provide a simple illustration of how long-time support affects both the foundation and the college. The Stanford Trustees asked for support of the project for four years; in the final negotiation $704,000 was granted, to be paid in instalments over a period of ten years. Toward the close of the period the Institute asked for a ten-year extension of the grant, to which the Corporation replied: The Corporation does not see its way to renewing the existing contract for a second ten-year period. . . . The Corporation believes that the work if continued should be under the direct and undivided responsibility of Stanford University.77 It is a story repeated in every such grant. T h e college desires to continue the existing arrangement and the foundation desires to withdraw, but it wants the investment it has already

66

Foundation Policies

made to continue to bear fruit. In order to accomplish these two objectives the Corporation, in the case of the Food Research Institute, contributed an endowment of $750,000 and continued current support grants which totaled $143,000 through 1936. There is often a sad rather than a happy ending to such stories. If the cooperating foundation lacks either the means or the inclination to follow the socially minded example of the Carnegie Corporation with the Institute, then the college finds it has a rapidly expanding and costly enterprise that cannot wisely be included in the regular budget. T h e social waste of abandoning such undertakings is very great, to say nothing of the human waste involved. Under the stimulus of liberal initial grants such a project flourishes like the Biblical green bay tree, but when the grants are diminished or withdrawn the foundation is surprised to find that the project has not taken root either in the college or in the mind of that part of the public that might finance it. It is all too evident that the indigenous sources of support are not yet sufficient. Because of these conditions the General Education Board has continued to support much of its Southern program long past the announced time for withdrawal. Many of the bettermanaged and liberally endowed foundations have done the same thing, or have followed the practice of capitalizing their current support grants as a mutually agreeable method of withdrawal. Some of the less astutely managed or more meagerly endowed foundations have not followed these socially desirable practices; indeed even the major foundations have occasionally been derelict. It is in these instances that cooperating institutions have felt the pinch. And it is such foundations that Lindeman accuses because of . . . the excessively large appropriations given to a comparatively small agency or organization, thus causing rapid expansion of its

Foundation Policies

67

service, followed by a sudden withdrawal. In interviewing officials of agencies and organizations supported in part by foundations this practice was found to be the most prevalent cause of criticism, and sometimes of bitterness. Many foundations now follow the procedure of making a large appropriation at the time of appeal and then decreasing this amount over a number of years until the term of the grant comes to an end. This may be a more humane way of encouraging and discouraging a project, but I doubt whether experience in general attests to its ultimate fairness or efficacy.78 It should be evident that there is no easy way of withdrawing from a cause that has been supported over a period of years. The bitterness that results from a sudden withdrawal is easily understood, but if a previously announced and gradual withdrawal is to be considered a discouragement rather than a means for the gradual absorption of the project into a regular budget, just what way is open to the foundation that is financially unable to capitalize its grants? No policy has yet been evolved that is an answer to the question. How harassing the withdrawal of long-continued foundation support can be to the college executive is well illustrated by a recent statement concerning the budget difficulties of Teachers College, Columbia University: Consider the budget problem of the moment. The grant of $50,000 a year for the Child Development Institute expires on June 30, 1936. The grant to the International Institute, once $100,000, is now |i8,500. 79 T o meet such contingencies colleges are tending to accept these grants only when they fit into the more comprehensive and stable pattern of work to which the institution is committed. Just as colleges now occasionally refuse an offer of a building because equipment and maintenance are not included, so also they hesitate to begin a new research venture, or to expand an existing one, unless the plan includes reasonable assurance of the means for incorporating it into the permanent college program. T h e wisdom of this attitude is every day more evident.

68

Foundation Policies

Policies that are ultimately fair to both the foundation and the college have not yet been formulated. For the foundation President Keppel confesses: Nor have we learned how to avoid certain unhappy by-products, the presence of which we must frankly recognize: over-production in many fields; over-stimulation through conditional grants and otherwise, and, sometimes, a stifling of the vital sense of local responsibility. Through the encouragement and support of grandiose schemes, we have, I fear, turned not a few first-rate scholars into third-rate executives.80 The unsatisfactory experiences of the immediate past have caused both colleges and foundations to review the problem, and there is very good reason to expect more satisfactory policies in the future. The growing public confidence in the foundation as a social institution is probably being disturbed by the failure of a majority of these trusts to publish accounts of their activities. "In the case of the seventy-five foundations and community trusts used in this study, 73 percent of them during the decade 1921-30 inclusive did not issue regular reports of their activities," declares Harold Coffman. 81 Probably most of these were the smaller trusts, but it has already been mentioned that President Keppel could obtain absolutely no information from three philanthropic trusts reputed to have an aggregate capitalization of $75,000,000. In the opinion of forty-seven of the sixty foundation executives who answered Coffman's questionnaire, these agencies should give full publicity to their activities and finances; only four of these officials were of the opinion that reports to the public should not be made, and eight others were undecided in the matter.82 The gap between the theory and the practice of foundation officials amounts almost to a gulf. The parent of modern foundations set a good example in publicity policy. Of its activities the Peabody Education Fund

Foundation

Policies

69

very early declared, " T h e fullest information on the subject should be within the ready reach of all who are interested in it." 83 T h e Slater Fund, the Southern Education Board, the Carnegie Institution, the Carnegie Foundation, and the Milbank Memorial Fund each from its beginning operated on the policy announced by the Peabody Fund. T h i s group of trusts performed the invaluable function of building the good will that established foundations as desirable social institutions. 84 T h e Russell Sage Foundation is representative of a group of meritorious foundations that have never responded to the obligation to render to the public regularly an account of their activities. More than a decade elapsed between the time the General Education Board and the Carnegie Corporation began to function and the time that either issued a printed report giving the public an account of its stewardship. From 1911 to Andrew Carnegie's death in 1919 the Corporation was little more than a holding company for making grants to other Carnegie philanthropies; its chief direct activity was making grants for library buildings and church organs. During that time it issued no reports. Since 1922 the Corporation has issued a series of the most adequate and most quoted of annual reports. Only the reports of the Rockefeller Foundation rival them for specific factual completeness. T h e General Education Board's explanation for not issuing reports during the first decade of its existence was that "as the Board's work was felt to be experimental in character, premature statements respecting the scope and outcome of its efforts were to be avoided." T h e statement continued by declaring that "Henceforth, statements will be issued annually, and from time to time, a more critical discussion like the present report will be published." 85 T h e findings of the Congressional Commission investigating foundations indicate, however, that the attitude of the Board toward reporting to the public was not wholly represented in its own statement. 56

7°

Foundation Policies

President Eliot of Harvard, a member of the Board, testified under oath before the Commission that the first report had not been submitted to the trustees, and that he had not seen it before its publication. 87 This early attitude should not be interpreted as representative of the Board's present-day practices. While the reports are still open to criticism for omissions and for a lack of clarity in descriptions of smaller grants, they may now be rated among the better examples of reporting to the public. In 1 9 1 3 enmity toward the Rockefeller business and philanthropic interests rankled in the political consciousness of the country to such an extent that the Rockefeller Foundation did not obtain the Congressional charter for which it applied. In trying to overcome Congressional opposition the Foundation offered, among other things, to publish a detailed annual report, to conduct a clearinghouse for appeals, and to summarize each year the applications for aid received but rejected or deferred. 88 While the charter received from the State of New York does not obligate the Foundation to the type of reporting it promised Congress, it is significant that this Foundation does give the most adequate accounting of rejected applications; in fact, except for the Carnegie Corporation's annual summary of the number of applications considered, it is the only foundation reporting on this item of vital public interest. T h e most persistent criticism of foundation reports is directed against their failure to discuss explicitly the rejected, deferred, and granted applications for aid. Likewise they are criticized for failing to give a clear picture of the administrative machinery and procedure used in considering applications. Failure to advise the public on the successes, failures, and inconclusive outcomes of projects aided is next in the list of foundation publicity weaknesses. The public's judgment of how effectively a foundation is discharging its trust must of necessity be based on such information. For the uninitiated to read

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Policies

71

in an annual report that so many thousands of dollars have been granted to a specific research and then never to read of what results followed is at the least an unenlightening experience. T h e practical need for a more objective policy in connection with the rejection of applications is emphasized by the statement attributed to a large and influential donor that "our endorsement is often worth more than our gift." Conversely, the failure of a foundation to endorse a worthy undertaking through a grant may have a disastrous effect that is not intended by the foundation. Of this danger President Keppel has said: In these matters one must not consider merely the foundation itself and its place at the bar of public opinion, but also the effect on those who either make application for help or may reasonably expect help to be offered. Foundation decisions seem to serve more and more as a measuring rod of merit, to a degree alarming to those who are familiar with their very human limitations. Either affirmation or negative action by a foundation may have an influence on other possible contributors much more powerful than it should.89 Foundations in general should find it fairly easy to imitate the method of the excellent descriptions of projects that have been so consistently published by the Rockefeller Foundation; but even the four lesser Rockefeller trusts did not follow the example, as may be ascertained by anyone who will take the trouble to compare the annual reports. In attempting to establish policies for reporting rejected applications, foundations find themselves in a real dilemma. If they follow the alternative demanded by some critics and publish factual summaries, with the names of the applicants omitted, they run the risk of committing the blunders President Keppel suggests in the passage just quoted. If foundations take the alternative preferred by applicants and withhold as confidential all information on rejected grants, they open themselves to such criticism as that aimed at the Rockefeller Founda-

72

Foundation Policies

tion when it sought a charter from Congress. Between the horns of this dilemma some of the foundations are seeking an acceptable compromise. The Carnegie Corporation has gone one step of the way by acknowledging the number of applications received, rejected, and carried over for further consideration. For the year 193435, this statistical statement shows 2,090 proposals considered, of which 1,189 were rejected, 618 carried over for further consideration, and 275 granted; 5 applications were withdrawn and 3 were referred to other foundations. 90 There is not a single qualitative statement to explain or support the action taken. President Keppel partly justifies the procedure from the Corporation's viewpoint but he seems forgetful of the social effects of such an institution-centered attitude: The attitude of a foundation toward such proposals is hard to define. On the one hand, it seems gratuitous to encourage applications when from the nature of the case not one in a score could receive support, but on the other hand, it is important for a foundation to be open to suggestions from every source, to know what is going on in people's minds, and perhaps information of this character provides the best available measure of changes in public interest. The present attitude of the Corporation is really a compromise. It discourages as well as it can formal applications which leave the applicant almost certainly with a feeling that his plan has been tried and found wanting, but, on the other hand, it encourages informal visits, memoranda, and suggestions.91 Even for its own sake the Corporation would seem to owe both the prospective beneficiary and the general public the guidance they would receive from a well-prepared factual generalization of the rejected proposals, supplemented by similarly generalized reasons (aside from the lack of funds) for the rejections. With these improvements, and with provisions for the wider circulation of the cumulative record of grants and the addition of an index, the reports of the Carnegie Corporation would stand as a model for reporting to the public.

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Policies

73

T h e Rockefeller Foundation carries one step further this matter of reporting to the public on applications for grants, as illustrated in T a b l e I and the following quotation. Table / APPLICATIONS T O T H E ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION, Classification

of Application

Received

Public health 56 Medical and nursing education and subsidization of medical research and fellowships 13» General education (including educational projects and research other than

Granted

Declined

1921« Pending

7

49

41

86

5

3

67 21

1

medical) Foreign relief or reconstruction National movements in fields other than

71 si

public health and medicine Campaigns to influence public o p i n i o n . .

8 16

8 16

Local churches and institutions 163 Personal aid (including loans, gifts, medical treatment, education) 128

163 128

Financing or promotion of books, plays, inventions, etc Investigation, reward, or purchase alleged medical discoveries Miscellaneous TOTAL

37

36

1

of 51 38 721

• A d a p t e d from Rockefeller Foundation, Annual reports give the same information.

51 1

37

52

662

Report,

7

1921, p. 71. Current

T h e types of assistance requested did not fall within the scope of its activities as determined by its present policies. T h e Foundation does not make gifts or loans to individuals, nor contribute to the building or maintenance of churches and other local institutions, nor support campaigns to influence public opinion on social or political questions. A record is kept of all applications formally refused by the officers or the Executive Committee, and these are regularly reported to the trustees; but the names of the applicants and the details of their requests are not made public. 92 A reporting policy that takes the public this much into the confidence of the foundation is presumed to be more meritorious than a policy of silence or one of merely stating summary

74

Foundation Policies

figures. There is nothing to indicate that any active foundation is ready to take the next step in improving policies in reporting on applications refused. A complete record of each grant made is a commonly accepted standard in foundation reporting to the public, yet many of even the better-managed philanthropic trusts fall short of an adequate policy for achieving it. The General Education Board, for example, frequently fails to itemize appropriations either according to purpose or according to individual colleges, as witness the following: During the year grants totaling $39,666.67 were made to aid the work of certain staff members in the following colleges: Birmingham-Southern College, Birmingham, Alabama; Mercer University, Macon, Georgia; Southwestern College, Memphis, Tennessee; Hendrix College, Conway, Arkansas; University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee.93 Nowhere does the report disclose the purposes for which the five colleges received $39,666.67 or the proportion of the sum allotted to each college. On the same page as the quoted paragraph are recorded grants to three colleges for library purposes but again the sum to any one of the colleges is undisclosed. This practice of lumping small grants by purposes and receiving agents has been followed throughout the history of the Board, in contrast to the carefully itemized, descriptive account of each individual grant that is published by its related trust, the Rockefeller Foundation. If these are valid criticisms of the best of foundation reports, what must the poorest be like? They are issued at irregular intervals and in some ephemeral form; they frequently do not list all of the trustees or staff officers; they omit the listing of the executive and other important standing committees. They do not list the administrative expenses of the foundation or the securities in which it invests its principal fund. Frequently, there is no indication of the time or purpose of a grant,

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75

or any indication as to whether the money has actually been paid or merely appropriated against unnamed conditions. It has already been pointed out that about three-fourths of all philanthropic trusts do not issue even the semblance of a report to the public. Some of these go the length of refusing the public any information whatever. Since approximately threefourths of a representative sampling of foundation officials believe that trusts should give full and factual publicity to their activities, the formulation of adequate public relations policies may soon be forthcoming, at least among the larger and more active foundations.

C H A P T E R

Foundation

IV

Organization

HE operation of fund-granting machinery is neither an automatic nor a routine clerical job. T h e r e can be no ruleof-thumb measuring of applications by unvarying and predetermined policies. T h e decision to make or refuse a grant is usually a complicated cultural undertaking involving a varied group of people. Such decisions are the results of an unanalyzed mingling of the intelligence, knowledge, ambition, bias, and idiosyncrasy of donors, trustees, operating staff, and advisers. Nor does this very human machine operate in a social vacuum. As has already been pointed out, these groups are usually sensitive to the dominant social pressures of a particular time or place. And finally, the influence on grant proceedings of officials representing the colleges has quite often been more noteworthy than is generally recognized or credited. It is the purpose of this chapter to present the operating machinery of foundations in terms of these human components. THE

DONOR

T h e donor is the prime mover in organizing a foundation. From the beginning the foundation tends to reflect the personal and professional characteristics of the founder and his agents. T h e Carnegie trusts, for instance, in the mobility and directness of their relatively limited personnel, seem to mirror the business habits of Andrew Carnegie. In a like manner the impersonal procedures of the fully staffed Rockefeller philanthropic trusts seem to reflect the business methods of the elder John D. Rockefeller. President Keppel declares that Andrew Carnegie's philosophy of "find the efficient man and enable him

Foundation Organization

77

to do his work" is still a cardinal principle in the operating policy of the Carnegie Corporation. The Rockefeller business strategy of harnessing economic currents to private purposes seems transferred, in his philanthropic undertakings, to harnessing social forces "for the well-being of mankind." The operating machinery of a foundation as frequently reflects the donor's motives for establishing it. For example, because of an individual experience of the founder, the Leopold Schepp Foundation sought to develop character in boys from thirteen to fifteen years of age by having them sign a pledge to abstain from narcotics, intoxicating liquors, and gambling for a period of three years. T h e reward was $200. This motive determined the administrative organization of the trust, and it is only in recent years that the trustees have been able to direct the program away from its initial limitations. Such limitations are equally evident in the administrative organization of other foundations, especially those granting scholarships and aiding special causes, such as workers' education and education for underprivileged groups. Of course to those who subscribe to the "tainted money" theory the philanthropic inclination is attributable to only one motive: "the desire to salve his conscience and secure divine forgiveness for the unholy acquisition of such wealth"; or, in the language of a current critic, such giving is motivated by "the beginning of a rudimentary social consciousness on the part of those who accumulated the large fortunes, or, if a less polite phrase is wanted, the beginning of a guilt feeling." 1 John T . Flynn is much more generous in evaluating the motives of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.,2 and Keppel, while declaring that the motive for giving may be sheer egotism and the desire for the publicity attending the gifts, believes that the dominating reason is a recognition of the obligations involved in the stewardship of surplus wealth, abetted by a reverent faith in man and his possibilities for progress.3 The very catholic mo-

78

Foundation Organization

tives expressed in the charters establishing most of the betterknown foundations are more in keeping with the Flynn and Keppel appraisals. T h e administration of these trusts has reflected this catholicity by keeping the endowments free from hampering restrictions and idiosyncrasies like the one cited in the preceding paragraph. 4 It is easy to understand the dominance of the founder's influence when it is remembered that a foundation not only receives from him its initial impetus, but at first is little more than his personal giving, incorporated. T h e origin of the Carnegie Corporation illustrates the point. It is natural that as Andrew Carnegie passed from personal to corporate giving he should wish to continue with the same advisers and operating personnel. Therefore it causes no surprise to learn that the original board of trustees of the Corporation consisted of himself and eight personal friends: Elihu Root was legal mentor, Franks was financial agent, Bertram was personal secretary, and the five other trustees were presidents of the philanthropic foundations previously established by Andrew Carnegie. T h e incorporation was little more than a legal fiction; the actual business of the Corporation was conducted by an executive committee consisting of Carnegie and his two personal aides. The history of the Corporation illustrates also the donor's influence on the choice of causes to support. Carnegie gave approximately $15,000,000 to practically unknown "freshwater" colleges throughout America. He gave church organs and library buildings as generously. There was no "concentration" or "system building" in his giving. He was not interested in the substantial and well-established colleges; he refused a plan for making the Carnegie Institute of Technology a college, and agreed to put the initial $6,000,000 into it only when the plan called for an industrial and trade school.6 He turned a deaf ear to requests from the great universities and educational institutions with long lists of wealthy alumni, but was

Foundation

Organization

79

moved to consider favorably what was known as "the fresh-water college," where he could help students drawn from the poorer classes, eager for a college education.® From the standpoint of the donor the origin of the other major foundations is not greatly different. John D. Rockefeller, Sr., simply transferred his personal giving to colleges from the American Baptist Education Society to a more broadly incorporated plan administered through the General Education Board. His son and personal staff were dominant on the Board, and the first report records that " T h e Board adopted the main principles and practices of the Baptist Education Society. . . . The Board adopted, too, the manner in which the Baptist Society had made its contributions, and even the precise form of pledge that had been employed." 7 The personal power of the two Rockefellers over the Board's program is further emphasized in a letter from John D. Rockefeller, Jr., in 1907, transferring to the Board an additional $32,000,000. Of the use of the sum he says that two-thirds was to be "applied to such specific objects within the corporate purposes of the Board as either he [Rockefeller, Sr.] or I may from time to time direct." 8 In the Rockefeller Foundation the donor and his son reserved the right to designate the disposition of $2,000,000 of the annual income, and frequently used the privilege up to July 17, 1917, when the right was voluntarily relinquished. 9 Through the first two decades of its history the Foundation was potentially if not actually dominated by the founder and his son. When the Foundation was investigated by Congress there were only two members of the Board of Trustees who were not either on the Rockefeller payroll or in the "official family." 1 0 Rockefeller, Jr., was the president; Jerome Greene, business manager of the Rockefeller Institute, was the executive secretary; these two and Starr J . Murphy, a Rockefeller business associate and adviser, constituted the Finance Committee; and these three and Simon Flexner and Wickliffe Rose, both Rocke-

80

Foundation

Organization

feller employees, constituted the all-powerful Executive Committee of the Foundation. T h e 1936 report indicates an improved situation for the Board as a whole and for its important committees. A majority of the Board is now independent of the Rockefeller official family; it is uncertain, however, whether the Executive Committee is still dominated by it, and the Finance Committee is still clearly within the official family. T h e power of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., to control seems reasonably established, but there is little evidence to show that he has ever actively exercised it. On the contrary, one observer declares, " T i m e and again Mr. Rockefeller, Jr., has been outvoted on the boards of his father's foundations." 1 1 T h i s donor is a man of such catholic and impersonal interests and of such statesmanlike qualities that it is not here contended that the Rockefeller trusts have suffered from his influence; rather the reverse is believed to be true. T h e Julius Rosenwald Fund is another example of personal giving evolving into corporate philanthropy. Until Rosenwald's death the Fund continued his personal program of cooperating with public authorities in the South in building schoolhouses for Negroes. T h e rapid evolution of the program since his death is surveyed in a Review of Two Decades, 1917-1936, issued by the Fund. T h e origin of the Commonwealth Fund shows a similar history. It evolved out of extensive personal giving to colleges and other institutions by several members of the Harkness family. From the beginning of the Peabody Fund in 1867 to the present, the development of foundations from the donor's personal philanthropy is the rule. George Peabody had personally given more than two million dollars to American colleges and related educational agencies before the establishment of his Fund. 12 In most of these cases the donor or his family has continued to be an important factor in administering the corporate trust. Many donors have so organized their foundations that they

Foundation

Organization

81

are scarcely more than tax-exempt incorporations which continue the family charities. T h e organization and operation tends to be as private as any other business of the donor. This type of foundation usually does not publish a report of its activities. Some of them act as if an inquirer had committed an indiscretion in asking for data; others are more courteous but just as firm in refusing information. T o cite only one, the Presser Foundation, which contributes to colleges through grants for music buildings and scholarships, officially declared: " I t is the policy of the Presser Foundation to give no financial data to the public." 1 3 There is no machinery provided through which higher education can cooperate with this type of philanthropic agency. These "family foundations" tend to adopt a more socially valid program if they remain active after the death of the donor. Representative of this trend is the history of the Leopold Schepp Foundation and of the Edward W . Hazen Foundation. T h e significance of the trend lies in the fact that many of the currently wealthy are now administering their gifts through the "family foundation" channel. T h e latest to join the group is Edsel Ford: "Edsel Ford's large gifts to charity will be handled hereafter by a corporation known as the Ford Foundation, Clifford B. Longley, attorney for the Ford Motor Company, announced today. . . Burt J . Craig, secretary and treasurer of the Ford Motor Company, was listed with Mr. Ford and Mr. Longley as a director." 1 4 A perennial complaint against donors has been that they do a great disservice to the foundations they create through too narrowly restricting the trust instrument. Andrew Carnegie avoided the dangers of overrestriction, by declaring in his letter of gift: Conditions upon the earth inevitably change; hence no wise man will bind Trustees forever to certain paths, causes, or institutions. I disclaim any intention of so doing. On the contrary, I give my Trustees full authority to change policy or causes hitherto aided,

82

Foundation

Organization

from time to time, when this, in their opinion, has become necessary or desirable. They shall best conform to my wishes by using their own judgment.18 The same broad discretion was given to trustees by such donors as Peabody, Slater, Rockefeller, Rosenwald, Harkness, and others. But there is a large group of donors, beginning with Benjamin Franklin and extending to the late J . B. Duke, who have crippled the effectiveness of their foundations through too narrowly prescribing their benevolent intentions. T h e classic examples of such weakness are the Franklin bequests, those of Stephen Girard for Girard College (orphanage) in Philadelphia in 1831, and Captain Thomas Randall's bequest of a twenty-one-acre farm "a little way out of New York City" as a home for old sailors to be known as Sailors' Snug Harbor. 18 The modern examples of such shortsightedness are just as evident. Carson College for Orphan Girls, established in 1918, limits admission to "poor white healthy girls both of whose parents shall be deceased, not under the age of six years nor over the age of ten years," and specifically outlines the subjects to be taught. In the face of the trend of modern social theory toward placing orphans in separate homes, Milton Hershey, the candy manufacturer, established in 1923, a foundation with assets of $60,000,000 to provide a central home and school for orphan boys of one county in Pennsylvania. During 1936 he established the M. S. Hershey Foundation with assets of $400,000 for the collegiate education of a very limited group of highschool graduates, those of Derry Township, Pennsylvania. 17 Such donor restrictions often defeat the purposes they most earnestly desire to further. Abraham Flexner, who served more than a quarter of a century with the Carnegie and Rockefeller philanthropic enterprises and who is an ardent supporter of the foundation idea, cites the Duke Endowment as an example of an indenture that not merely is too narrowly conceived by the donor but also

Foundation Organization

83

deliberately mixes private commercial interests with philanthropic declarations: One finds instances where something like private rapacity has cloaked itself under a philanthropic garb. . . . A conspicuous example of the abuse of private power under the guise of rendering a public service is furnished by the so-called Duke Foundation. The Duke Foundation supports the Duke Endowment, the income of which goes to maintain education and public health in certain of the Southern States; the Doris Duke Trust, the income of which goes to an individual; and certain other beneficiaries. In 1933 the Duke Power Company paid out in dividends about four million dollars. Of this sum less than half a million dollars went to the philanthropic purposes of the Duke Foundation, a little more than half a million went to the beneficiary of the Doris Duke Trust, and something upwards of three millions went to other persons or institutions.18 T h e accusation of mixing private and philanthropic interests is corroborated by Ernest Seeman's statement that: " B u c k Duke reserved for his family 125,904 shares of Duke Power Company stock as against 122,647 shares for all endowment philanthropies combined. T h e endowments help to guard the family wealth." 1 9 T h e author has not been able to find that the Duke interests have denied that these facts are substantially correct. A study of the legal indenture of the Duke Endowment shows the founder responsible for certain other debatable provisions. T h e first is a too close affiliation of the source of income and its management with the organization and operation of the philanthropic trust. Contrary to general expectations, Duke did not make his world-wide tobacco investments the prime source of the Endowment's income, but rather his water-power investments which are concentrated in North Carolina and South Carolina—the geographical area to which the Endowment is restricted. Louis Graves who is generally favorable to the Duke Endowment has described a native Carolina physician friend of his as:

84

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Organization

. . . shaking his head mournfully over the power of the Duke Endowment. Insidious, sinister, dangerous—these are three of the adjectives he used. . . . What chance do you think there is of the water-power interest ever being interfered with when it is tied up this way with the Methodist Church? And not only the Church but with education, and with scores of hospitals and orphan asylums scattered all over the two States? Of course, the profits of any water-power concern are vitally affected by the character and degree of public regulation. . . . T h e theory of persons who see danger in the water-power influence is that public, and therefore governmental, friendliness is stimulated by tying up of the interests of religion, education, and charity with the prosperity of the Duke Power Company. 20 D u k e justified his act in a different way, but he was very positive in insisting that his trustees keep the t w o interests tied together. In the trust indenture he declared: My ambition is that the revenues of such developments shall administer to the social welfare, as the operation of such developments is administering to the economic welfare of the communities which they serve. With these facts in mind, I recommend the securities of the Southern Power System [the holding company for the several Duke power interests] as the prime investment of the funds of this trust; and I advise the trustees that they do not change any such investment except in response to the most urgent and extraordinary necessity.21 H e further guaranteed the success of his intention by designating as members of the original board of trustees only individuals affiliated with D u k e water-power, tobacco,

banking,

and legal interests, supplemented by faculty members of the chief beneficiary, D u k e University. H e even went the length of specifying in the indenture that his daughter, Doris D u k e , should be made a member of the Board w h e n she attained the age of twenty-one years. T h e Trustees, in turn, have promoted the close affiliation of the D u k e commercial and philanthropic interests by placing the administration of the permanent funds

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in the hands of Duke Power Company officials, and by actually housing the Endowment in the same New York offices with the Power Company. In Duke's plan for the advancement of education, hospitalization, and religion in North Carolina and South Carolina, nine projects were to be aided, each receiving specified percentages of the income from the trust. But before the income was thus apportioned the charter allowed the socially questionable privilege of deducting twenty percent of the income for the purpose of increasing the principal of the trust ($40,000,000) until it be doubled in amount. Economists and philanthropists from the time of Turgot have doubted the wisdom of allowing the principal to be held in perpetuity, much less of granting the right to "snowball" it to double the original amount through failure to spend all of the income for current philanthropic purposes. T h e Duke provision for increasing the capital fund seems to have the immediate justification that it assured assets to provide for the mature needs of its enterprises. T h e indenture permitted six million dollars of the principal of the Endowment to be used for the physical plant of Duke University. After a deduction of 20 percent of the income as above indicated, the balance of the income is being distributed to nine projects in the following proportions: 32 percent to Duke University, 32 percent for hospital maintenance, 10 percent for white and colored orphans, 6 percent to build Methodist churches in the rural areas of North Carolina, 4 percent to maintain this type of church, 2 percent for its superannuated preachers and their widows, 5 percent for Davidson College (Presbyterian), 5 percent for Furman University (Baptist) , and 4 percent for Johnson C. Smith University (Negro). These restrictions on the use of income leave little to the discretion of the trustees. For better or for worse the dead hand of the founder has left an unchanging trust pattern to operate in a rapidly changing social order. James B. Duke was so con-

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cerned with projecting his will into the future that he closed his declaration for the guidance of the trustees with these words: " I therefore urge the trustees to seek to administer well the trust hereby committed to them within the limits set, and to this end that at least at one meeting each year this Indenture be read to the assembled trustees." 22 T h e purpose of this discussion of donors has been to show something of their vital role in launching a foundation, especially to show how their shortsightedness may hinder the effective operation of foundation machinery. T h i s has meant stressing only the negative aspect of founder influence. A n account designed to present the whole of their influence w o u l d give a more favorable picture of some of the individuals here discussed, and of founders as a group. THE

TRUSTEES

Of what sort are the officials who assume the responsibility for distributing grants of money among the agencies working for cultural progress? In the minds of many who ask the question there is a suspicion that the control of these great funds is concentrated in the hands of a few money-minded, culturally static, and socially reactionary individuals who may use their power for limiting the progress of thought and action. T h e power that trustees wield in the actual operation of a foundation is great enough to make it important to have at least a survey knowledge of their economic, social, and cultural backgrounds. T h i s knowledge

is supplied

by

two

cross-section

studies of the social composition of foundation boards, made in 1930.28 T h e most obvious fact that these studies reveal about the composition of foundation boards is the predominance of men. Lindeman's group contained only fourteen women and Coffman records that while seventy-seven women were serving as trustees they were concentrated in a very few foundations, and

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that biographical data were available for only seven of the seventy-seven. In this respect foundations and privately endowed colleges are not greatly different. In a 1930-31 study of the composition of college boards, McGrath found that since 1920 less than one percent of all private college board members have been women, and that before that time the percent was too small to register. 24 T h e dominance of a few occupations is as noticeable. 25 A knowledge of vocational status is usually one of the most significant sociological indices of the characteristics of any unanalyzed group. A man's occupation is a powerful determiner of the social, cultural, and ethical values to which he subscribes. One expects different points of view and theories of value in artists, bankers, and farmers. T h e three studies just mentioned show that private college and foundation trustees are nearly identical in occupational status, the dominant viewpoint being that of the banker, broker, corporation official, capitalist, lawyer, and manufacturer. In the foundations these groups make up 68 percent of the trustees and in the colleges they account for 73.6 percent. Age, education, religion, and politics are probably other important determinants of social outlook. Three-fourths of the foundation trustees were found to be over fifty years of age, and forty percent of them over sixty years of age; therefore most of the formative years of their lives were lived in the nineteenth century. Of those who were graduated from college forty-one percent attended Harvard, Yale, Columbia, or Princeton universities, and sixty-six percent of the group were graduates of some privately endowed college in the Eastern states. Fifty-five percent of those indicating church affiliation named the Episcopal or the Presbyterian church; eighty-seven percent of the trustees resided on the North Atlantic seaboard and a majority lived within the environs of New York City. The political affiliation indicated is in the ratio of three Republicans to one for all other political parties.

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Lindeman concludes his study of the social composition of foundation boards by describing the composite trustee: . . . it seems fair to state that a typical trustee of an American foundation is a man well past middle age; he is more often than not a man of considerable affluence, or one whose economic security ranks high; his social position in the community is that of a person who belongs to the higher income-receiving class of the population; he is, presumably, "respectable" and "conventional" and belongs to the "best" clubs and churches, and he associates with men of prestige, power, and affluence. . . . He receives his income primarily from profits and fees. In short, he is a member of that successful and conservative class which came into prominence during the latter part of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the class whose status is based primarily upon pecuniary success.28 Few alterations of the composite picture would be necessary to make it fit the mature leadership of most American business or social institutions. Unless one is out of sympathy with the dominant capitalist organization of American life one can have little objection to foundation trustees when viewed en masse, certainly little more objection than one would express toward city school boards or toward the trustees of state universities, privately endowed universities, hospitals, and museums. A study of individual boards gives a better picture than does a mass survey of the influence of trustees in giving direction to foundation spending. T h e tendency of donors to appoint either close relatives or intimate business associates to help administer the trust often provides the key for understanding the actual functions they perform. During his active lifetime they tend to agree with his views but when the founder has relinquished active control or died even these close associates begin to vote differently. For example, in 1917 by resolution the trustees of the Carnegie Corporation discontinued making appropriations for public library buildings and for church organs.27 T h e trustees indicated their growing freedom also in a series of amendments to the Constitution which increased the Board from eight

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to fifteen, the coopted portion of which they gradually increased from none to nine. 28 These accretions, however, did not change the Carnegie character of the Board. It is only since the recent death of Elihu Root, legal mentor, and the passing of Franks, Bertram, and Poynton of Andrew Carnegie's personal staff that the trustees may be said to be free of the founder in charting a course of their own choosing—and even now the founder's daughter is by sentiment and courtesy a member of the Board. A majority of the Carnegie Corporation trustees have come into service since 1931, three of them entering on the duties of their office during 1936. Such a rapid turnover provides students of foundations with as novel a situation as would be provided students of government by a similar change in the personnel of the United States Supreme Court. T h e question immediately arises, to what degree are these new members liberal or conservative? In what direction will they seek to modify our cultural institutions? Despite a certain general validity in the picture of a composite foundation trustee, one may well be skeptical of judging individuals by such a pattern. That age, education, wealth, and business and social affiliation do not in themselves indicate the degree of an individual's liberalism or conservatism has recently been made evident to the country in its scrutiny of members of the Supreme Court. It may as readily be true of those who as solemnly administer a private trust for the well-being of mankind. What is the best conjecture as to the probable direction this new group will give the Carnegie Corporation program? Through just enough telescoping to bring out contrasts and similarities without distorting the picture, it becomes evident that the new Carnegie Corporation trustees are a representative group of American citizens. T h e formative years of three were lived in rural Indiana and West Virginia, of one in Pennsylvania, of one in North Carolina, of two in New York City, and of one in Switzerland. Some of them were born to wealth,

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but the majority are "self-made" men. Southern, mid-Western, and Eastern colleges are represented in their undergraduate training; state, church, and privately endowed colleges were attended. By occupation one is a corporation lawyer, and one a lawyer and public servant of national prominence. T w o are corporation executives, but one of these spent most of his working life to date as an editor and publisher. T h r e e are educators who have come up through the ranks to presidencies of the state universities of Minnesota and Iowa and the deanship of a medical college; two of this group have recently become foundation executives. One is a mother, one is a bachelor, and the other men are fathers of three-child families. T h e average age of four of them is fifty-five years, of the other four, sixtyone years. T h e y are Methodist and Baptist as well as Episcopalian and no-church in their religious outlook. Politically they are Democrats, Republicans, and of no known party interest. Each of them is broadly educated and widely traveled, and has vitally participated in one or more significant cultural fields of American life. 29 There is every reason to expect a culturally progressive policy from such trustees; only official actions will reveal the actual pattern of their influence. T h e Carnegie Corporation provides an excellent situation for the assertion of trustee initiative. It is now relatively free from the influence of the founder, is unhampered by income pledged too far in advance, and has as its executive one of the most social-minded professional leaders in the circles of corporate philanthropy. He has been developing his program since 1923. T h e organization provides an unusual opportunity for the principals to demonstrate to the country how a foundation should be conducted, and their efforts merit the closest study on the part of students of such trusts. T h e General Education Board provides an excellent example of a foundation in which trustee history has developed in a manner opposite to that of the Carnegie Corporation. Before

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1902 the eleven original trustees of this Board had directed four separate educational philanthropies: the American Baptist Education Society, the Peabody Education Fund, the Slater Fund, and the Southern Education Board. J . L. M. Curry and Wallace Buttrick were executive directors of the Peabody and Slater funds; Walter Hines Page and Albert Shaw were editors of national repute and were seasoned foundation trustees. Robert C. Ogden and George Foster Peabody were merchants of an order comparable to John Wanamaker and Marshall Field and, through the Southern Education Board, each of them had been a personal crusader for improved educational conditions in the South. Daniel C. Gilman brought to the Board the qualities that made Johns Hopkins a great university, and also his experience as a trustee of the Slater Fund. Morris K. Jesup was a retired financier and philanthropist with sound experience as a foundation trustee; William H. Baldwin, Jr., was a corporation lawyer and Slater trustee. Frederick T . Gates, the elder Rockefeller's mentor in his earlier giving, and John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who was then being initiated into the art of corporate philanthropy, were on the original board. As a group they inspired public confidence in the motives of the General Education Board and amply justified its statement that " T h e membership of the Board has from the outset been selected with distinct reference to the varied and weighty responsibilities involved" and justified the praise accorded "the competency and disinterestedness, the high order of capacity and experience of those charged with its direction." 30 J . L. M. Curry died within the first year and was replaced by Starr J . Murphy, a Rockefeller business associate and adviser. During the following year Baldwin died and was replaced by President Harper of the University of Chicago. As the size of the Board was increased or as replacements were made necessary by the death or resignation of the original trustees, Rockefeller employees were added to the list: Wicklilfe Rose, Jerome

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Greene, Abraham Flexner, George E. Vincent were added before the first report in 1914. 8 1 T h e announced standard of "competency" was still being maintained but with this influx of Rockefeller employees the Board could scarcely claim to be observing its early standards of "varied" viewpoints and "disinterestedness." By 1935 the concentration of Rockefeller-connected personnel totaled eight of the seventeen members of the Board, counting Rockefeller, Jr., Rockefeller, 3d. and the former's brotherin-law, W. W. Aldrich. In addition there were on the Board three presidents whose colleges had received large Rockefeller grants, and whose independence of judgment might conceivably have been influenced by the expectation of a continuance of this generosity.82 As was pointed out in the discussion of donors, this trustee policy is characteristic also of the Rockefeller Foundation. Either members or employees of these two boards constitute a strategic minority on the boards of the two other Rockefeller funds, the Spelman Fund and the Davison Fund. In an attempt to secure coordination among these four boards there has resulted an interlocking group of trustees who constitute a majority in each of the important standing committees. The boards are composed of three groups: corporation executives and lawyers, Rockefeller-connected individuals, and presidents of privately endowed colleges. T h e boards no longer have an independent merchant, a public school or college educator, or a representative of the other groups prominent on the original General Education Board. Certainly varied viewpoints and disinterestedness are vanishing characteristics. Between current Rockefeller and Carnegie patterns of board composition will be found the board types of most other foundations. The chief exceptions are the American Fund for Public Service and the Twentieth Century Fund, whose boards reflect their liberal-to-radical tendencies. In reference to the selection of trustees, foundation critics

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frequently complain of the stagnation and clique-forming tendencies inherent in self-perpetuating boards. Various procedures for securing a more representative group have been tried but these substitutes have produced about the same board personnel as the device of cooption. 33 The truth is that no ideal or even "best" method of selecting laymen for boards has yet appeared. In an attempt to secure a variety of interest on the board in his first foundation, the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, Andrew Carnegie ended with one of the most unwieldy and poorly functioning of foundation boards; in the Carnegie Institution of Washington he desired certain high federal officials to serve by virtue of their office, and in the Carnegie Foundation he originally stipulated that each college should have one vote in electing the trustees.34 Regardless of the manner of selecting the trustees, the foundation experiences the same difficulty as the college in finding desirable board members. Persons who have prestige with the public are generally so sought after that they run the risk of becoming figureheads because of the multiplicity of their directorships. Often the type of person who could serve effectively is already very busy and is not willing to assume additional responsibility. There must be a rather intimate knowledge of the prospective trustee in order to avoid the person who, though otherwise eligible, has "an ax to grind" of either a personal or an institutional nature. President Pritchett has indicated some of the qualifications essential in trustees, and also the difficulties of finding and using such individuals: T h e trusteeship for great accumulations of money devoted to general purposes presents by no means a simple problem. Such a duty is far more complex than the obligation of trusteeship in the administration of a fund assigned to a specific and definite purpose. T o find men of sound judgment, of wide experience, of imagination, of discrimination, who will give time and thought to the duties of a trusteeship of this nature has never been easy. . . . T h e best that officers can expect from their trustees is the inspiration

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of their association and their discriminating judgment upon the proposals that may be made.85 Sound judgment, wide experience, imagination, and discrimination are indispensable qualities in a trustee, but in addition a successful board member must have what President Eliot used to call the capacity for cooperative thinking. Board work is team work, and many otherwise able individuals do not have the conciliatory attitude, emotional steadiness, and broadmindedness essential for concerted group action. In short, not only are progressiveness, diversity of background, and varied points of view needed among the individuals who control a foundation, but there must be the qualities of a unified team which operates in the knowledge that the future of the trust is probably longer than its past. Of the importance of a lay board so constituted Keppel has declared: It is needed to insure a sense of proportion in all things, to balance the vaulting ambition of the specialist, and, it may be, to mitigate his intolerance. It is needed to see that administration, while competent, is kept at a minimum, something no administrator can be relied upon to do for himself.36 In addition to the function of acting as a check-and-balance against the professional staff, such a board should perform the vital function of "exercising an intelligent layman's judgment as to which of many competing fields of activity should be continued, which have reached the area of diminishing returns, and which new fields should be entered." 3 7 Trustees themselves have been responsible for initiating many useful activities. 38 It is increasingly clear that the effective functioning of a foundation is conditioned by the proper blending of personal qualifications and fundamental viewpoints in the team of laymen who compose the board of control. Even where such blending may not immediately affect particular policies and programs, astute foundations are learning that it has an important effect in in-

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creasing public confidence, which after all is a major trustee function. From time to time trustees have impaired public confidence through questionable actions as a group or individually. The earliest example is that of the trustees of the Peabody Fund, dedicated to the service of "the stricken South," in withdrawing for a period of eight years aid to schools in Mississippi and Florida in an effort to collect from these states nearly $1,500,000 of their repudiated internal improvement bonds, which were among the assets given the Fund by George Peabody.39 The Duke Endowment supplies a current example of trustee tactics which have been publicly criticized. In the Atlantic Monthly and the New Republic, respectively, Abraham Flexner and Ernest Seeman question the action of the Endowment trustees in joining with the Duke Power Company to prevent Greenwood, South Carolina, from securing PWA funds to construct a publicly owned electric power plant to serve the county. Endowment beneficiary spokesmen admitted privately that it was in response to trustee influence that, at the Washington hearings, they supported the Power Company's contentions. While he would not be accepted as an unbiased witness, Seeman, who formerly managed the Duke University Press, criticizes Duke's actions in the publication of a paper on "Tobacco Beetle Control" and Duke's alleged connection with the Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company. He avers that In the Medical School, important discoveries, principally by Dr. Ivan A. Parfentjev, have been made in the field of serums. Such discoveries, however, are not for the public but for the profit of the American Cyanamid Company—three of the officers of that Company, including President William B. Bell, being trustees of the Duke Endowment. The Lederle Laboratories, Inc., and the Davis and Geek Company, surgical and medical-supply corporations owned by American Cyanamid, are able, through this tie-up, to derive a steady income from the Medical School and other charitable institutions of the Endowment.40

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President William P. Few says that Dr. Parfentjev had left the employ of the University and was at the time of the research an employee of the Lederle Laboratories, which was extended the courtesy of using the Medical School's research facilities. Without examining the records of the Endowment, which have not been available to the author, he is not in a position to comment on Seeman's allegations. It is not known, however, that anyone has taken the trouble publicly to deny his statements, though Duke University professors denied that any of the incidents noticeably interfered with academic freedom. 41 These episodes should, however, not be taken as representative of the activities of the Duke Endowment officials. T h e donor specified that the permanent funds of the trust be kept in the holdings of the Duke Power Company, but the trustees have shown commendable judgment in diversifying the holdings. They are free under Article Three of the Indenture to change or eliminate any or all of the beneficiaries except Duke University, and the exercise of this power may at any time greatly modify the work of the Endowment. T h e abuses complained of should not be allowed to obscure the salutary advancement the Duke Endowment has given higher education in the South, nor its timely aid to noncollegiate agencies in the Carolinas. The Endowment's contribution to American higher education promises to exceed that of any of the newer foundations. Foundation trustees are in danger also of misunderstanding their function. President Keppel rates this the greatest danger facing the trustees of all social institutions, including foundations: In my opinion, the real danger lies, not in the concentration of wealth, or in conservatism or radicalism, but in the misunderstanding of function. Danger arises whenever any group with power in its hands, whether it be the state legislature, or the board of a university or of a foundation, believes it to be its business to direct public opinion. Any such group is a dangerous group, regardless of the manner of its makeup and regardless of whether its action is

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conscious or unconscious, and if conscious, whether benign or sinister in purpose.42 A too-literal application of this pronouncement (made ten years ago) would stultify the initiative of trustees, but too great a disregard of it might bring again the dissension of the early days of foundation activity. Certainly the more conservative trustees would oppose the policies for the production and dissemination of material to influence public opinion now used by the Twentieth Century Fund or the American Fund for Public Service. It is equally certain that trustees who are afraid of being accused of seeking to influence public opinion run the risk of supporting sterile, academic, fact-finding, "safe and useless" projects. It is very difficult for trustees to know when they are steering a middle course between these two extremes. Most trustees now know that a foundation cannot be neutral and effective at the same time; the public itself no longer expects it. It does, however, expect an unselfish and ethical regard for the general welfare. T o steer this wise course requires socially intelligent trustees. T h e committee organization of boards for the interim operation of foundations is not a diabolical scheme for further concentrating foundation control. Here as elsewhere, boards and committees are the American method of exercising lay control of professional undertakings, and in foundations they differ not one whit from their use in colleges and other representative American social institutions. THE PERMANENT

STAFF

Officially the trustees are responsible for the operation of a foundation; actually its success or failure is much more likely to rest with the chief executive officer and his permanent staff. In this characteristic, foundations again closely parallel the colleges and universities. For example, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Michigan, Chicago, Stanford, and Columbia have always

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had trustees of distinction; but when we name the essentia] directing leadership that made these universities national institutions we think of presidents Gilman, Eliot, Angell, Harper, Jordan, and Butler. T h e Peabody Fund, the Slater Fund, the General Education Board, the Carnegie Foundation, and other foundations have had our most distinguished citizens as trustees, but it was Barnas Sears, J. L. M. Curry, Wallace Buttrick, James H. Dillard, Wickliffe Rose, H. S. Pritchett, and similar executives who really set the operating pattern of these philanthropies. Any adequate understanding of how foundations have influenced higher education must take account of this permanent professional staff leadership. From the time that Barnas Sears left the presidency of Brown University to become the General Agent of the Peabody Fund in 1867, the professional leaders of foundations have been recruited largely from among college and university officials. Undoubtedly this fact, as has previously been indicated, greatly accelerated the spending of foundation funds through university agencies. It may be assumed that such individuals possess in a reasonable degree the honesty, fair-mindedness, intelligence, and executive capacity required for any responsible administrative position. But almost every position makes special demands in personality and technical qualification. In describing these special demands as they apply to the chief executive officer of a foundation, President Keppel asks: What does he need in addition for this particular job? Well, he needs patience and good humor. No matter how trivial any proposal may seem to another, it is never trivial to the person making it. He must be immune to cajolery, for it is a sad fact that many of the people with whom he has to do are convinced that the righteousness of their cause justifies any means short of murder to advance it. He must be what is called a "good waiter." He must practice what President Butler calls the art of being well-informed, and he must see that his colleagues practice it. This applies concretely to the specific proposals presented, where often the best

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that can be hoped from the proponent is certain selected aspects of the truth. More significantly it applies to general information regarding the fields in which his foundation is working. Nor is this all; he must be ready to recognize new opportunities when the evershifting scene of modern life makes a change in policy desirable. T h i s means for himself and his colleagues much reading of reports, a watchful eye for the words of men with creative minds, the assurance of personal contact with the people that count, and the seeing of things worth seeing. And he must accomplish and direct all this without so complicating his existence that he loses the power to see the forest rather than the trees. It is a rather large order and one that is not likely to be filled to every one's complete satisfaction this side of the millennium. 43 T h i s is probably the most adequate description extant of the demands foundation leadership makes on the individuals who undertake it. It is not easy to find this ideal foundation executive in the flesh. T h e author has met the patronizing and pompous individual, the unseasoned executive, and the suave

individual

who never had, or who has lost, contact with the kind of human beings to whose needs their trusts were intended to minister. H e has also met each of these unsatisfactory types of persons in college administration and in other walks of life. T h e y are not peculiar to foundations. H a r o l d J . Laski gives an excellent description of such a foundation executive and shows how his environment accentuates these o b j e c t i o n a b l e characteristics: Usually the director gives the impression of considerable complacency and a keen sense of the power at his disposal. He has not often himself engaged in the serious business of research. He travels luxuriously, is amply entertained wherever he goes (he has so much to give), and he speaks always to hearers keenly alert to sense the direction of his own interest in order that they may explain that this is the one thing they are anxious to develop in their own university. When you see him at a college, it is like nothing so much as the vision of an important customer in a department store. Deferential salesmen surround him on every hand, anticipating his

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every wish, alive to the importance of his good opinion, fearful lest he be dissatisfied and go to their rival across the way. The effect on him is to make him feel that he in fact is shaping the future of the social sciences. Only a very big man can do that. From which it follows that he is a very big man.44 By a designed selection of their utterances and acts one can show foundation officials to be benign and sagacious, malicious and sinister, or just drab and colorless nonentities. A judicious selection tends, as has already been indicated, to picture them as heirs to about the same degree of human frailties as other mortals. Abraham Flexner may be considered representative: . . . some of the foundations are very fortunate in their personnel; when one thinks of a man like Abraham Flexner, with his insight, his wisdom, his humility, one wonders why, long ago, one of the great universities had not implored him to lend it the aid, as its president, of his creative imagination.45 President Keppel writes of "Abraham Flexner's far-ranging mind, his detective's capacity for pouncing upon the significant detail, and his rare powers of dramatization." 48 T h e 1910 report on Medical Education in the United States and Canada for the Carnegie Foundation is a vivid expression of the Flexner personal qualities described by Laski and Keppel. These same qualities, applied in ways that other contemporaries considered deplorable, brought the most bitter criticism to him and to the General Education Board. Along with Raymond B. Fosdick of this Board, Flexner became a member of the New York City Board of Education, and as one critic said, "politically speaking they were the Board of Education." Flexner admits that they dominated it to the extent of carrying out their intention to change the personnel of the Board and reduce its size.47 Among his activities on the city Board of Education Flexner vigorously promoted the introduction of the Gary plan into New York City schools. His motives and his tactics in the fight were bitterly attacked by

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the New York Slate Federation of Labor, by committees of the legislature, and by the local educational and political opposition. They joined in declaring that his creative imagination and detective capacities were being spent in "questionable political meddling"; that his claims for the Gary system were based neither on insight nor on the essential facts. He was declared to be the agent of predatory tax-dodging wealth which was trying to force on the city a "cheap factory system of schools for the common working people." 4 8 Flexner's personal qualities provided the real leadership which enabled private wealth to develop, under university auspices, a new order of American medical colleges. It was his commendable influence on the administration of foundation money that not only gave these schools their institutionally controlled hospital facilities but enabled them to meet most other standards of the best European medical colleges. His predilection for a "full-time clinical staff" was not acceptable, however, to leading American medical teachers. He pursued this idea with such vigor and tenacity that both he and the Board were frequently criticized for the control they were exercising over medical colleges by making its acceptance a condition for receiving aid. In describing the effect of Flexner's opinions on university policies, a world-famous bacteriologist and Harvard Medical College professor said: T h e expert and his board have opinions. They also have money. The universities, too, have opinions; but often no money; never enough. The trustee-experts with the money—in all honesty, we are convinced—disavow the desire to impose their own views upon the organization of the medical schools. But if they do not approve of such organizations, their methods, or intentions, how can they conscientiously give the money? The universities may have convictions, may believe a certain procedure is peculiarly suited to their traditions, locality or what not. But the temptation is great to adjust in the direction that will lead to the needed assistance. - . . The tendency is most apparent in the clinical departments of

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almost all the schools that have received support, and our impression is that leaders in many of these schools—wisely, we admit, but none the less significantly—look to the foundations for advice and guidance at least as much as to their own university councils and colleagues.49 So powerful are the philosophy and opinion of one resolute personality when he has the support of millions of dollars. T h e critical faculties of this far-ranging mind stirred up another hornet's nest by frequent attacks on the worth of the classical languages in the curriculum. His convictions and opinions were attacked by the classicists as "more imaginative than creative or substantial." Through the lay and professional press they began to bombard his pronouncements, and this tended to undermine the prestige of the General Education Board. 80 Aside from the merits of the contention, the point here is that a personality had modified the role open to foundations. Wallace Buttrick, long the leader of the staff on which Flexner served, provides a distinct contrast in personality and working methods. He was described as a rather typical New York State Baptist preacher, who owed his connection with the General Education Board to earlier philanthropic work and to another Baptist preacher, Frederick T . Gates, who was truly Rockefeller's almoner, business confidant, and long Chairman of the General Education Board. Buttrick's beginnings with the Board were simple; he and an office boy were the staff. It is easy to see in the following description of the Buttrick personality the contrasts with the one we have just sketched: His absolute honesty and modesty of purpose, his ready insight into local problems, his obvious desire to help others rather than to promote ideas of his own, his irrepressible humor, his sanity, his wholesomeness—these and other qualities quickly won confidence for him. Men who found it hard to work with one another found common ground in working with him. He possessed, as few leaders possess, the peculiar gift of stimulating his associates and subordinates, putting them at their ease,

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throwing responsibility on them, encouraging and developing initiative. . . . He was so self-effacing, so modest, so kind, so wise, and yet so shrewd and sagacious that not even an expert in a subject with which Dr. Buttrick was unfamiliar would be apt to ignore his judgment; and he had an almost uncanny way of rapidly getting at the heart of the new problems that arose in the Board as, under his cautious control, its scope extended.51 Each foundation's program and atmosphere are reflections of some personality or personalities. Without the forthright courage and driving force of Henry S. Pritchett, the Carnegie Foundation would have been a far different institution, and its successes and mistakes would have been of another order. The programs of the Slater, Jeanes, and other funds interested in Negro education are greatly indebted to the personality and statesmanship of James H. Dillard. He charted a socially acceptable course and attracted foundation funds that a less astute leadership would have missed.52 That the personalities of the leaders largely determine the program may be illustrated again from the Carnegie Foundation. In the administrations of President Henry Suzzallo and President Walter A. Jessup the activities and studies have reflected the philosophies and experiences of two seasoned state university presidents. T h e confidential advisory and consultative service for those engaged in college teaching, research, and administration has so increased under their leadership that Dr. Jessup declares it "has bulked large in the work of the Foundation officers and staff members." 58 Even in a foundation interested in pure science research the personal qualities of the leader tend to be reflected in the program: " T h e Carnegie Institution was a great institution under Dr. Woodward, and lias remained a great institution under his successor, Dr. Merriam, but the two administrations when compared reflect clearly, and I think quite legitimately, the different personalities of the two presidents." 54

i4

Foundation

Organization

T h e fifteen years of President Keppel's administration of the Carnegie Corporation exemplify the merit of an educationally informed, publicly accessible, and socially sensitive leadership. He is generally given credit for advancing a more vital college and public library program, for pioneering in adult education and building a program in that field, and for an emphasis on the fine arts as essentials in a liberal education (in contrast to the creator or collector interest). In the larger foundations, which make most of the grants to higher education, the lesser executives and field staff members are often important in giving tone and direction to the program. Jackson Davis and Leo M. Favrot of the General Education Board and S. L. Smith of the Rosenwald Fund are representative foundation "circuit riders." These three men, skilled, unobtrusive, sympathetic, alert, have for twenty years gone u p and down the land into the largest universities and the plainest country schools studying conditions and people. The reports of their findings have quite often been the forerunners of later programs of the foundations. T h e passing years, however, have brought need for a different kind of interpretation—an interpretative history of past action as a guide to future action. T h e "audit of experience," invaluable to trustees of a foundation and illuminating to the general public, seems to have originated with Carnegie Corporation. 85 Certainly its Secretary, Robert M. Lester, has produced a series of historical studies of Corporation activity which in clarity and conciseness are probably unequaled in foundation records. His perspective is based upon twelve years of dealing with the intricacies of foundation operations, and preceded by successful experience as school and college administrator. Already extending through two large volumes, his reviews constitute a historical guide in the light of which the trustees may study current programs and procedures and give enlightened consideration to future policies. T o the interested public, they

Foundation

Organization

105

reveal the history of the Corporation—and the history of a great trust is a matter of more than passing interest. T h e specialists of the permanent staff are also important personalities in the operation of a large foundation, by virtue of the nonfinancial services they perform for the recipients of grants and also for the cultural agencies not seeking grants. In the history of foundations T r e v o r A r n e t t is more likely to b e remembered for his advisory services in college accounting than for his contributions as President of the G e n e r a l Education Board. T h e effect of his counsel is indicated by the following: From the very outset the officers of the Board have cooperated with institutions in improving their systems of accounting. T h e number of institutions desiring to reorganize their accounting system was so large that it proved impracticable to cooperate with them one by one. T h e officers therefore arranged two conferences during the summer sessions at the University of Chicago. Forty colleges have sent their financial officers to these conferences, and the results of these discussions have been very beneficial. Over 5,000 copies of Mr. Arnett's book on College and University Finance have been distributed, and as a result marked improvements have taken place in methods of fiscal administering and accounting. 56 T h i s instance of service by a staff member can be matched in any of the larger foundations. Dr. W i l l i a m S. Learned's advisory and leadership services in surveys and special studies as a staff member of the Carnegie Foundation are well k n o w n throughout the college world. Advisory and conference services of a more personal nature are among the daily staff duties in both operating and nonoperating types of foundations. College officials seek such interviews without ulterior motives w h e n the staff members are professionally competent. OUTSIDE

ADVISERS

T h e outside professional adviser is another factor in foundation influence in higher education. Such advisers substitute for

io6

Foundation Organization

or supplement the permanent staff specialists of the foundation. Usually they are university professors on leave of absence and, for the time being, on the payroll of the foundation, or they may be specialists called into consultation for brief periods in special fields of foundation interest. Frequently they give advice on a voluntary basis as members of committees of their learned associations and societies. For these clearinghouse functions foundations are now extensively using such professional organizations as the Social Science Research Council, the National Research Council, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the American Library Association. In making use of some such advisory agent the foundation hopes to exercise its stewardship more intelligently and to overcome its tendencies to inertia, isolation, insulation, and conservatism. And the adviser, whether an individual or a committee, attempts to insure an unbiased and socially significant choice of projects to be supported. That both foundations and receiving agents have confidence in the merits of grants made on the recommendation of impartial advisers is shown by Coffman's tabulation of the opinions of sixty foundation officials and of a like number of child-welfare directors who were actual and potential recipients of grants. 57 Fifty-seven welfare directors favored the practice and two opposed it; forty-six foundation executives approved, seven were undecided, and four opposed the use of outside advisers. There was no such unanimity of opinion on any other policy concerned with the determination of grants. A single foundation's growth of confidence in this procedure is illustrated by President Keppel's statement: The first two million dollars distributed by Carnegie Corporation in 1911 and 1912 was all voted in direct response to applications. Of the two million voted in 1928, 68% involved consultation with some representative organization. . . . From one of our recent annual reports, that for 1925, I have checked up the number of such individuals whose advice regarding the program for that year was sought by the Corporation. There were 287 in all; 81 in adult

Foundation

Organization

107

education, 60 in the arts, 26 in library matters, 38 in connection with a modern language study, and 24 for other questions.68 Foundations vary all the way from this liberal use of advisers to the use of none at all. Coffman reports that "In the case of more than half of the foundations studied, that is, in 35, there is no indication from their reports of the use of any advisers." 59 Some trusts do not need advisers because of the nature of their undertakings, as, for instance, the Cambridge Foundation, which grants all of its income in a lump sum to Harvard University for scholarship purposes. Trustees often feel that the use of advisers invades their prerogatives and at the same time destroys the semiprivate nature of the trust. It is alleged that sometimes the trustees and permanent staff do not ask for outside advice because they might not want to take it, and because in such circumstances it might prove embarrassing to have the weak spots in their program exposed. Dr. Keppel maintains that foundations should welcome honest criticism: "In its process of seeking advice, the foundation must put itself in the way of receiving frank and, not infrequently, unpalatable comment as to what it is doing, as well as what it proposes to do." 6 0 This conception extends the function of an adviser far beyond the mere consideration of an immediate undertaking. It allows him to extend his recommendation to competing proposals, to suggest more desirable alternatives, and generally to point out the considered project's bearings on related activities and on the whole field of foundation interest. In other words, the adviser would have everything except a vote in the determination and application of policies. When standing committees take the place of individuals as advisers they too act as middlemen between the producer and consumer of foundation grants, and are as often criticized as producers' agents, special pleaders for consumer-customers, and expensive luxuries. T h e Commonwealth, the Milbank, and the Macy funds are among the foundations that use standing

io8

Foundation

Organization

committees of specialists as advisers. W h e n the Medical Society of New York County said in reference to the Milbank Fund, " T h e physicians who sit on its technical and advisory councils are selected by itself and in no way represent the profession at large," it was criticizing these advisers not as incompetent but as unrepresentative. 81 T h e control that such advisers may exert is suggested in a comment by Dean Willey of the University of Minnesota; in discussing their influence in approving personnel and methodology for a university project which their foundation was aiding, he said, "Foundation advisers visited the institution for conference. Following this the proposed program was returned twice with suggestions for revision. Both times these suggestions were incorporated." It is contended not that the suggestions failed to improve the project, but that the foundation could probably have achieved the same results through using disinterested outside advisers, and could have saved itself the implied criticism of undue control. In the early 1920's, for grants to research in education, the Commonwealth Fund had a relatively permanent advisory committee that just as definitely represented the consumers of the grants. Anyone who will take the trouble to compare the distinguished personnel of this committee with the persons and universities receiving aid from it will see that it not only represented particular and closely affiliated consumers but that it actually allotted most of the money to its own members or their universities. 62 While the recommendations of this particular committee were highly commendable, yet does it not, as a type of advisory service, leave itself open to criticism? Of the paid type of adviser, whether temporary or permanent, Professor Laski says, " T h e cost of the panoply of investigating the claim, deciding upon its merits, and allocating the sum decided upon is greatly in excess of anything necessary. Most of it could quite as easily be unpaid work done by other scholars for the love of their subject." 6 3 Obviously, however,

Foundation Organization

109

the professor, like other men, lives in an economy that demands a cash return for each job done; consequently it seems impractical to expect a return to the frontier neighborly simplicity suggested by Professor Laski. Of course it must be recognized that the use of paid advisers may lead to divided responsibility. The adviser owes loyalty to his professional group on the one hand and on the other hand to the foundation that pays him. T h e Social Science Research Council, for example, is professionally responsible to seven national groups of scholars, but it is financially responsible to the nine foundations which, in the decade since its organization, have appropriated $4,197,605.91 to its purposes.64 From the nature of their support such individuals and groups may not always be unbiased or independent in their recommendations. Foundations are likely to consider them as their private general planning staff.65 These are representative of the difficulties in what is on the whole a satisfactory means for professional participation in foundation spending. T h e general staffs of the learned groups are aware of the risk and have taken precautions to make clear a policy of their relationships to the foundations. That of the Social Science Research Council, for example, is as follows: In relation to the foundations the Council serves as an agcncy for assembling the best thought of the scientific world on problems common to the foundations and the Council. It considers and reports on proposals referred to it by the foundations, and it presents to the foundations recommendations arising from its own strategic planning.68 More than any other group, advisers are open to pressure in discharging their duties. Foundations may make demands on them, and applicants certainly will try to secure their favorable recommendation. In addition, they may become the victims of professional, institutional, and personal prejudices. They

no

Foundation

Organization

certainly are as likely as trustees or permanent staff members to have intellectual and emotional biases and other personal limitations that need to be counteracted. Because of the very nature of the relationship it has not been possible to evolve an ideal technique for making use of them. BENEFICIARIES

T h e final group of persons that have a part in shaping foundation organization and the operation of administrative machinery is one that President Keppel has rather bluntly designated "the grant-consuming public." It is composed of the administrative officials of colleges, universities, and medical and other professional and technical schools, and of the executive directors of learned societies, child-welfare organizations, and other cultural agencies. One of the bitterest contemporary critics of foundations very judiciously points to the tactics of grant-seekers as constituting the seamy side of philanthropy: "It is what we are willing to do for foundation money, not what foundations want or ask us to do, that makes foundation giving a social and governmental menace." 67 A catalogue of the questionable practices that applicants use in promoting their requests would range from mild wheedling to, as Dr. Keppel says, "anything short of murder." It is the testimony of competent witnesses that the list includes cajolery in its varied forms; the influence of strategically located individuals is shamelessly called into play; and the wholesale pressure-group methods common in the promotion of causes before national and state legislatures are freely used. These practices continue to be used because, with the requisite finesse, they succeed. When they are too blundering, obvious, or crass, they may defeat their own purposes: . . . a word may be said as to the device, which seems to be growing, of bombarding a foundation with letters and telegrams of endorsement when some particular proposal is up for consideration.

Foundation

Organization

»• i

Bona-fide support from those who have first-hand knowledge is always welcome and frequently very helpful in reaching a decision, but it is no compliment to the intelligence of foundation trustees to assume that they cannot distinguish between such communications and the wholesale product of pressure-group methods. 68 But when used with the astuteness of an effective lobbyist these practices may be the determining factor in securing a grant, as witness the following example: There exists a record of two appeals presented to the same foundation at approximately the same time and on behalf of projects almost identical in conception and purpose. One appeal was granted and the other denied. In one case the applicant had taken the pains to enlist the support of influential sponsors; this successful applicant had been formerly associated with another foundation and consequently must have been aware of the methods by which foundation officials and trustees are influenced; and, finally, the unsuccessful applicant was known to have at least one avowed opponent on the advisory committee through whose hands these appeals passed before recommendations were presented to the trustees. In this instance, the factors which influenced the final decision were extremely subtle and certainly bore little if any relation to the validity of the claim of either the successful or unsuccessful applicants. 69 It has already been pointed out how excessive adulation a n d other grant-seeker behavior tend to make foundation officials feel that they are both omniscient a n d omnipotent. T h e hope of receiving grants may have an equally unfortunate effect on the scholarly leadership of college presidents. Dr. Pritchett has said: There can be no doubt among those familiar with the facts, that the wholesale college giving and the consequent wholesale college begging of the last twenty years have gone far to transform the American college president into a soliciting agent. Scholarly men today hesitate to take the place of college president . . . many find themselves in circumstances very much as the ass with the bundle of oats held just far enough in advance of his nose to keep him perpetually seeking to reach it. Many a college president

112

Foundation Organization

spends his best years in the hopeless endeavor to grasp such a reward that has been dangled before his eyes, with the kindest intentions, by one of the endowed foundations.70 T h e illustration of the ass and the oats can be appreciated when one recalls, as stated in Chapter III, that in 1934-1935 the Carnegie Corporation carried over for further consideration 618 of the 2,090 applications received, granting 275 and rejecting the balance. While the delay was probably unavoidable, these 618 applicants continued to have dangled before their eyes the possibility of a reward. In such tantalizing circumstances it would indeed be a temptation for an applicant to use the wiles of both saints and sinners. T h e clash of interests in such grant-seeking frequently produces what both college and foundation officials recognize as undesirable outcomes, but each attributes responsibility to the other. T h e attitude of directors of child welfare agencies is probably representative of that of grant recipients: The personal relationship between directors of foundations and directors of child welfare organizations is an important factor in determining the nature and amount of foundation support to child welfare. Many leaders of important child welfare agencies and institutions feel themselves to some degree obligated to foundations. In some instances it is close to slavish subserviency. The development of this attitude might be expected when a foundation takes the position that organizations receiving money from it should not be critical toward the foundation. As one director of a foundation expressed it, "Why shouldn't this child welfare organization be grateful to our foundation? We have given them large grants during the past few years." In the interviews with directors of child welfare agencies it was discovered that there was a wide range of attitude toward foundations. It ran all the way from praise to outspoken hostility. In many cases they were very cautious in regard to expressing an opinion about foundations and did not want their statements quoted.71 A glimpse of the other side of the picture comes from foundation officials who do not consider all applicants for grants as

Foundation Organization

>13

"sincere culture-seekers who are tempted to abandon their integrity," but as persons of rather more common clay: Each of these is convinced that the cause which he represents is essential and important. Men can sincerely believe this even when the chief function of the cause which they represent is to furnish salaries for those who conduct it.72 Often it is assumed that foundations are a source of refuge and relief. One day a college president accompanied by the chairman of his board of trustees paid me a call. They had decided to (ire the college librarian. Would I please dictate a letter in the name of the Corporation recommending such action? Then my visitors would not be held responsible. I had never set foot on the campus, and didn't even know the librarian's name.73 Instead of pitying, censuring, or praising either set of officials it is probably wiser to recognize that each influences the other, and to interpret their actions and opinions as normal reflections of their vested interests. It is "normal" for Laski, Lindeman, and Coffman to lay the blame at the door of the foundations; it is equally "normal" for Pritchett, Keppel, and Lester to attribute the unsatisfactory situation to the college officials. The comparison in Table II of the expressed opinions of approximately sixty foundation officials and sixty grant-seeking childwelfare executives on five policies useful in the determination of grants tends to substantiate the idea that each is only seeing the problem in the perspective of occupational self-interest. Approximately twice as many foundation executives as welfare directors are of the opinion that grants should be made on the basis of the underlying philosophy of foundation executives, the vote being 25 to 14; conversely, 34 welfare directors disapprove of such a policy as compared to 18 foundation executives who disapprove. This is about what one would expect. It is equally "normal" to find twice as many welfare directors as foundation executives who think grants should be made on the requests of applicants, the actual ratio being 20 to 1 1 .

»14

Foundation

Organization

Table

II

A STUDY O F OPINIONS A B O U T FOUNDATION POLICIES «

Strict adherence to the terms of the will or wish of the donor T h e outlook or underlying "philosophy" of the trustees or board of directors The outlook or underlying "philosophy" of the director T h e requests from seeking assistance

applicants

Strong Disapproval

Approval

Undecided

Dis-. approval

32 29

0 7

4 10

11 20

'7 11

1 3 18

8

7

7

4 7 0

«5 3*

12 IO

'3 4

4 4

>4 21

IO

4

'3

»9 10

5 8

4 0

16 11

9 8

'9 22

7 '3

Strong PtumUlitn Grants Skonld Be D U i r n u l hj:Approval The outlook and opinion of impartial experts or committees «5 of experts '7

I 1

« Adapted from Harold C. Coffman, American Foundations, p. 166. In each pair of figures, the upper is the vote of child-welfare directors, the lower is the vote of foundation directors.

T h e two groups of officials express an almost unanimous opinion when they vote on policies serving their occupational self-interests similarly. Thus, as has already been mentioned, the desirability of using impartial expert advisers is disapproved by only two welfare directors and by only four foundation executives. T h e advisability of determining grants according to the underlying philosophy of the trustees is more debatable, foundation officials proving to be considerably influenced by the criterion. T h e will and the wishes of the donor of foundation funds seem to be twice as influential with foundation executives as with those who seek these funds for translation into cultural influence. Seekers of grants, advisers, and foundation officials are, in the last analysis, of the same piece of cloth in the matter of the human and personal qualities that influence foundation grants. The conflicts in the use of these qualities arise out of opposed institutional or occupational interests. If the groups should exchange positions, in time they would probably exchange tactics and philosophies.

CHAPTER

V

General Summary of Part One

I

T HAS been the purpose of Part One of this study to bring together from varied sources the ephemeral material necessary for an understanding of the origin, evolution, policies, and practices of corporate philanthropy. Only with a knowledge of the history and philosophy of foundations as social institutions can one expect to understand or appraise their specific actions.

From the individual viewpoint the spirit of philanthropy is as old as the civilization that made man his brother's keeper. Actually such endowments are possible only in a civilization that permits the accumulation of surplus wealth. When these two forces unite in one or more persons who contrive through a legal incorporation to benefit the general welfare rather than a designated beneficiary, we have the modern foundation. Its historical forerunner was the ecclesiastical foundation of the Middle Ages. T h e basic principles of law governing such trusts in the United States rest on the English charitable trust statutes. T h e economic conditions of frontier America did not provide the surplus wealth necessary to implement such incorporations; therefore the rise of the philanthropic foundation in the United States came only after the industrial and commercial development of the last half of the nineteenth century provided the surplus wealth. In America it is largely an institution of the twentieth century. In its origin each foundation was little more than the incorporation of the personal giving of the founder. It follows that the fields of interest, the philosophy of giving, the organi-

116

Summary of Part One

zation and procedure—in short, the policies of the foundation—largely exhibit the strength, the weakness, and the idiosyncrasy of the donor. T h e trustees he chooses to aid him in administration tend to have ideals and occupational status similar to his own. T h e y tend to perform a function in foundations very similar to that performed by trustees of privately endowed colleges, and in fact the membership of the two groups has usually about the same economic, cultural and social background. Probably the person next most influential in shaping the policies and practices of these trusts is the paid professional executive officer, who actually manages the appropriation of funds. He usually comes to real leadership after the death of the founder, though there are such notable exceptions as the Barnas Sears leadership of the Peabody Fund during the life of the donor. T h e permanent staff and its professional advisers have about the same responsibility for a foundation's program that a college president and his faculty have for the activities of a college. T h e policies of most foundations are little more than the survivals of trial-and-error experiences that continue to secure the desired results. For the most part, policies are discernible only in retrospect. In nearly all cases they are the resultants of divergent forces. One of the most consistent forces in producing and changing foundation policies is the varying social pressures incident to a rapidly changing civilization. Much of what foundations have and have not done in a given period has been determined by public sentiment. Aside from the fact that most foundation officials have shared the common American belief that education is the sovereign remedy for most of our ills, their reason for so largely using universities as a channel of influence is the ideals common to the two types of institutions. Many of the conservative grants to higher education are reflections of status quo attitudes of the colleges as much as of foundations. As a matter of fact, interested foundations have from the beginning desired to reform higher educa-

Summary of Part One

i17

tion in ways they believed would promote the general welfare. In the early days the conservatism of the colleges coupled with the suspicion and distrust of philanthropic motive forced these foundations to seek their influence by indirection rather than by direct frontal attack. T h e reforms sought through grants to pensions and grants to general endowment were indirect, and well embedded in direct benevolences. Today a more liberal attitude permits foundations to seek to effect cultural change in a more direct manner. Those who seek foundation grants or those who want to understand such grants must become acquainted with the operating machinery of these trusts. It is not enough to have an abstract understanding of their emergence in a capitalistic society and of their policies. One cannot understand the concentration of the bulk of foundation money in a few institutions and for a few purposes without knowing the definite philosophy and working policy on which this concentration is based. Any reasonable judgment of foundation grants must take cognizance of the wisdom or lack or wisdom of such basic policies. But in addition to these fundamental considerations, a true appraisal demands an understanding of how foundation machinery is operated. This understanding comes from a knowledge of the trust agreement, the trustees, the permanent professional staff, and the outside advisers. T o appraise grants one must have some knowledge of the biases, vanities, idiosyncrasies, and other human limitations of the persons who administer foundations, and a similar knowledge of the characteristics of the grantconsuming public. In short, Part One has tried to explain the foundation as a social institution in its origin, evolution, policies, and personalities. T o interpret the foundation one must know it at least as well as he knows schools and colleges. If this objective has been even approximately attained, the reader is ready to turn to an analysis of the influences foundations have wielded in the development of American higher education.

PART TWO

Foundation Activities for Higher

Education

C H A P T E R

VI

Foundation Contributions in General view of current foundation spending in all fields will provide a desirable basis of comparison for considering grants in the single field of higher education. It aids perspective to see what funds other undertakings receive as compared with the grants to education and in particular to see how higher education fares among all educational and cultural interests. T h e most obvious fact in a cross-section picture of philanthropic giving is that a few foundations control a very large part of the total assets of corporate philanthropy. Despite the probability that there are more than 573 foundations, not more than 125 supply data which can be analyzed. Twenty of the largest of these have 88.6 percent of the capital assets; 8 of the 20 are Rockefeller and Carnegie trusts and these together control 64 percent of foundation assets. T h e Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation alone hold 44.4 percent of the assets of the 125 leading foundations. Furthermore, 73.4 percent of this corporate philanthropic capital is centered in New York City. Most of all known foundation assets were in existence before 1915, and were accumulated in the oil and steel industries. Despite the fact that since that time foundations have multiplied annually almost by geometric progression, more than three-fourths of the known assets are still in the group established before 1915 by Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, Sr. PRELIMINARY

This concentration of capital leads to an even greater concentration of disbursement activities. Of 95 leading foundations

122

Foundation

Contributions

for which data were available in 1934, 20 disbursed 90.5 percent of the $30,968,778 total grants, and 7 Rockefeller and Carnegie trusts provided 72.8 percent of that total. T h e Rockefeller Foundation and the General Education Board alone disbursed 50.6 percent of all money spent by the group in 1934. The Commonwealth Fund, which appropriated 5 percent was the only other foundation that granted as much as 2 percent of the total. 1 There was as marked a concentration in the number of colleges receiving grants as in foundations giving them. Between 1923 and 1935 the Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Commonwealth funds disbursed 78.5 percent of their higher-education grants to 15 colleges.2 Table I I I indicates that in a decade of grants from 100 foundations 90.9 percent of the $528,420,034 was concentrated in the fields of education, health, and social welfare, with the greatest amount going to education. It is significant to note that at the peak in 1928 education received nearly twice as much as in 1921, and whereas it received 41.5 percent of the total 1921 foundation budget, in 1930 (see Table IV) its share of the total budget increased to 53 percent. Even under a less inclusive definition of education, health, and social welfare the Twentieth Century Fund study for 1930-34—the depression period, when the total of foundation grants dropped 53 percent —showed that these three fields received 67.6 percent of the total foundation grants for those years, with education still in first place.8 Table IV shows the distribution of foundation grants during a single year, as measured by several standards. With a few explanations the two distributions of Table IV indicate again that education is dominant in the three major fields of foundation giving. Lindeman places under education all of the grants to the physical and social sciences and part of the grants to aesthetics and health while these are individual categories in the Twentieth Century Fund allocation. With this adjustment and

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Student and Faculty STUDENT

Welfare

LOANS

T h o s e w h o fear that the student may be pauperized by gifts of scholarships and fellowships, and those w h o believe that education is a marketable commodity for which the student should pay individually, have sought to aid "deserving but financially

needy students" through providing loan funds. In

the philosophy of many philanthropists the value of making loans is further enhanced by the fact that the principal of his gift, at least theoretically, is a permanent f u n d that rotates to help many students instead of a gift consumed by the first individual receiving it. Possibly a score of foundations subscribe to this philosophy of student aid; the Harmon Foundation has been for a decade its leading exponent. In 1926 the H a r m o n Foundation declared: Four years of experimentation by the Division of Student Loans leads to the conclusion that scholarships in American universities and colleges should, in most instances, be supplanted by properly administered systems for student loans. T w o major results to be obtained from such action are: first, to put students, whose eventual earning power will be enhanced as a result of their education, in a self-supporting position instead of making them dependent on the semi-charitable practice of scholarships; and, second, to help institutions now running at a deficit to balance their budgets by charging the educated the cost of their training through the medium of deferred tuition obligations. In addition to the above, it is the feeling of the Division of Student Loans that a loan system, administered in accordance with strict business practice and ethics, is a medium for practical training of undergraduates in business obligations. 33 Foundations are as confused as the colleges concerning what constitutes an effective administration of loan funds. A s yet there is no u n i f o r m practice as to the amounts to be loaned to an individual, the rate of interest and the time it should start, the security required, or the time and manner of repayment. Equally variable is the relative weight attached to scho-

Student

and Faculty

Welfare

>»7

lastic standing, character, and financial need as determinants of whether an individual is a "good financial risk." Many of the foundations avoid these administrative problems by placing the income from their funds at the disposal of certain colleges. Since 1916, for example, the Cambridge Foundation has placed its entire annual income of $15,000 at the disposal of Harvard University's student aid committee; the du Pont Fund likewise utilizes the University of Virginia. 84 Other foundations assume the full responsibility for administering their funds, but discharge it in a variety of ways. Since 1922 the Harmon Foundation's revolving fund has loaned $1,000,000 at six percent interest, deducting and pooling seventenths of one percent of each loan as a guarantee for all loans made in that year. A careful character investigation is the basis for the loan, which is limited to $300 per year, and a thorough follow-up on a strictly business basis has secured payment with a loss of less than two percent.35 The $1,000,000 Whitney Benefits lend only their income and require no interest payments by the borrower.36 The Charlotte Schmidlapp Fund spends only a fraction of its income in loans and adds the balance to the principal. This $250,000 loan foundation was created in 1907; by 1928 it had more than doubled its principal fund by "snowballing" and in that period had lent $148,000." The trust agreement permits a continuation of regulated "snowballing" until the principal fund amounts to $2,000,000. The $1,000,000 Feild Cooperative Loan Fund, established in 1925, requires the borrower to carry a $1,000 term-life insurance policy as a guarantee of payment in the event of his death.38 Examination of the loan fund plans of seventeen of the community trust foundations shows that they do not differ greatly from the plans already mentioned, except for their laxity in enforcing collections, which is apparently caused by the particular stipulations of individual trusts. The amount of money available for student loans has never

188

Student and Faculty

Welfare

been determined, and probably is not susceptible of determination. Many individual philanthropists are careful to conceal their grants in order to avoid being swamped with requests for aid. Loan funds administered directly by foundations are seldom included in tabulations of loan fund aids because they are small and are limited geographically and otherwise, and because the foundations usually do not readily give information concerning them. An official survey by the federal Office of Education brought usable replies from only 282 college-administered loan funds. These 282 colleges reported loan funds aggregating $4,000,000, and eight pages were required to list the foundations, associations, clubs, and private individuals discovered to be offering loans to some class of student.39 The survey of the land-grant colleges showed that they had $653,430 available for student loans.*0 From these facts and from a study of the catalogues of a considerable number of the more than 1,600 institutions of higher education listed in the federal Office of Education Directory the author estimates that the total amount of college-controlled loan funds approximates $10,000,000. These funds have been accumulated largely since the World War. The University of Chicago Survey, for example, shows that before 1920 the University's loan fund was negligible; in 1921 it was $5,498; in 1925, $24,321; and in 1932, $ 1 1 1 , 3 6 5 . " When loan funds are administered by outside agencies it is often difficult to determine from available sources whether the agency is legally a foundation, the committee of an association or club, or an individual administering the residue of an unincorporated gift or bequest. Examples of such confusion are the $1,560,000 loan fund of the Knights Templar, the Sterling Fund at Yale, the scholarship foundation of the Methodist Church which has lent college students $2,276,407, and the Elks National Foundation which now has a $1,000,000 student loan fund that is rapidly being increased toward a goal of

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$20,000,000. Including incorporated and unincorporated loan funds, but excluding those of individuals, the author has found sixty-eight loan fund organizations having combined assets of $16,550,000, and has learned of the existence of other funds whose assets could not be discovered; thus it seems safe to believe that the total of the nonpersonal, independently administered funds is not less than $20,000,000. Bona fide foundations account for at least $8,638,500 of funds available for student loans. Even this compilation gives little idea of the amount of money actually available for loans in any one year. Most of the foundations and unincorporated trusts lend only the income of a principal fund that is held inviolate, and a few of them even use a part of the income to augment the principal. Probably only four to eight percent of the principal and accrued interest of such funds is available for loans in any one year; in terms of dollars foundation loans probably assist students to the extent of $400,000 to $700,000 annually. If these trusts followed the Harmon Foundation practice of using both principal and income as a revolving loan fund they could serve five times as many students as are now aided. 42 Since most of the college and individual loan funds are operated on the revolving fund plan, and since normally from two to six years elapse before a loan is repaid and the sum is available to another student, it is probable that the total of loan funds available to students each year approximates $9,000,000. If this inference is a fair approximation we may conclude that foundations are supplying around five percent of the available student loan funds. Only a few foundations have improved the method of administration of student loans. In fact it is often implied that most foundations, by their method of operation, have impaired it. The fact that the interest only is loaned lessens the necessity of insisting upon repayment, as the principal is not endangered by the loss, thus a premium is put on negligent methods. The

»9°

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information received from both colleges and organizations indicated that several million dollars is being lost yearly through default, and in addition to this there is the much greater loss in character disintegration of the individual who is carelessly allowed to slide out of his first business obligation.43 T h e Harmon Foundation established its student loan division primarily for the experimental work necessary to put the selffinancing of education on a basis of sound business and character education. By direct work and by cooperation with college officials studying the operation of their own loan funds the Foundation has been one of the most constructive forces in the field of student loan administration. 44 T h e $700,000 Hattie M. Strong Foundation and the Foundation for Education of the American Bankers Association are also among the agencies attempting improvements in making awards. After outlining some corrective proposals the latter admits that "even with the best of judgment it has not always been possible to estimate correctly either the desire or the ability of the student to repay his obligation to the Foundation." 4 5 T h e effect of the depression on the repayment of loans and on the income from invested funds has forced many scholarship foundations to revise their loan policies. FACULTY

WELFARE

In contrast to the large number of foundations which have shown an interest in scholarships and loan funds for student welfare only a few foundations have shown any sustained interest in directly promoting the welfare of college teachers. From 1906 to 1935 the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching paid $29,936,655 in pensions and allowances to college teachers, and assumed obligations to them which actuaries estimate it will require $69,000,000 to liquidate. 46 T o aid the Foundation in discharging its pressing pension obligations the Carnegie Corporation has from time to time made grants to the Foundation that total $12,017,382. T h e General

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Education Board has granted $44,220,035 to provide endowment for increased salaries of college teachers so that their income might keep pace with the advancing cost of living that came in the wake of the World War. 47 These grants were so conditioned as to produce a total endowment for teacher welfare of over $120,000,000. The influence of such huge sums cannot be estimated without a more detailed examination, made against the educational and social backgrounds of the period. One may expect to find some disadvantages interspersed with the dominant advantages of these contributions, especially since the Carnegie funds sought to reform the educative process as well as to promote the welfare of professors. Even aside from their reforming influences the pension activities of the Carnegie Foundation were not generally considered an unmixed blessing. T h e desire to get something for nothing stimulated most of the colleges in America to visions of free pensions far greater than anything ever contemplated by Andrew Carnegie and his agents. T h e early working plans of the Foundation apparently encouraged such expectations.48 When these visions were found to be illusions, a large group of "unaffiliated" college leaders became disgruntled or openly antagonistic toward the Carnegie Foundation in particular and toward corporate philanthropy in general. Especially the church college and the Foundation admonished, rebuked, and reviled each other. But, paradoxical as it may seem, the most acrimonious and unrelenting critics of the free-pension administration were among the professors admitted to expectations of Carnegie pensions. They charged the Foundation with moral abrogation of agreements, misrepresentation with intent to deceive, and general bad faith toward college teachers; the Foundation as plainly stated the shortcomings of the professors.49 Through its lack of actuarial experience and its failure to exercise conservative business judgment the Foundation had

»9«

Student and Faculty Welfare

set up rules for administering the free pension system which it could not carry out even by bankrupting itself. By the rules the affiliated institutions could retire on the bounty of the Foundation any professor who had served for twenty-five years and could increase salaries or add to the faculty without consulting the Foundation. Pensions were proportional to salaries paid. Between 1900 and 1910 salaries were raised and faculties were increased to take care of a sixty-two percent increase in college enrollment. In this period the rule permitting retirement after twenty-five years of service had added several times as many pensioners as were expected. Since pension costs depended on these variables which were entirely beyond the control of the Foundation, the affiliated colleges held the power to bankrupt their benefactor. Bankruptcy was avoided by what the professors described as repudiations, and what the Foundation explained was the exercise of powers it had reserved to itself in offering the gift. The Foundation had begun in 1906 with more than 2,000 professors in fifty colleges, and by 1910 the number of affiliated colleges had grown to seventy-one. The first step in charting a new course was to defer the admission of additional institutions and to discontinue allowances to teachers in unaffiliated colleges. Grants to the latter were costing the Foundation $150,000 per year. The pension for twenty-five years of service was arbitrarily discontinued as inimical to the welfare of the professors and of the Foundation. Several studies of pensions were initiated by the Foundation, and in 1915 President Pritchett announced what amounted to a repudiation of the Foundation's initial philosophy of pensions. The new philosophy declared that free pensions were harmful to the beneficiaries, could not be financed by the Foundation, and were not fair to the great majority of college teachers outside the affiliated institutions.60 This change of policy brought the Foundation stinging rebukes from the lay and professional press; it prob-

Student

and Faculty

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193

ably heightened in the public mind the distrust of foundations that had led to the Congressional investigation of the Rockefeller and Carnegie trusts. The audit of experience that led to this new declaration of policy had revealed that at the end of the first ten years of paying pensions to professors in seventy-four affiliated institutions, one-third of the money had gone to four of the institutions, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Cornell; and one-half of it had gone to ten institutions, the four already named and Tulane, California, Minnesota, Stevens, Princeton, and Amherst.51 Despite the limitations it imposed, the Foundation found itself beset with free-pension obligations that it could neither repudiate nor pay. In 1917 it was estimated that it would be seventy-five years before the obligations to 6,593 P r o " fessors would be liquidated, and that the next forty-five years would require $37,000,000 in excess of the probable income of the Foundation.52 On the Foundation's promise not to incur further free-pension obligations the Carnegie Corporation agreed to provide an $ 11,000,000 reserve fund to assist in meeting the obligations already incurred. The Foundation still had no control over the rising salary to which the pension was to be proportional, and in the face of its desperate financial situation it continued to add individual professors from unaffiliated colleges to the pension list—203 being added between 1918 and 1931, when this variable was finally eliminated.53 In 1929 the salary variable was eliminated by basing pensions on the individual's income between 1917 and 1926. Also, pensioners were classified into groups according to the year when they would reach the retirement age of seventy; the maximum annual pension expectation for those reaching this age by 1929 was $3,000 and this was graduated down to $1,000 for those reaching the retirement age after 1931. T o make up for the greatly reduced expectations of the 2,968 persons in the $1,000 class, the Carnegie Corporation again

194

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came to the rescue by providing for each of them at the age of 70, a $500 additional annual income from annuities set up independent of the Foundation. In order to accomplish this purely benevolent act the Corporation set aside a reserve fund of $5,400,000 to provide the annuities through the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America. 54 With the variables at last in its control the Foundation made other actuarial studies from 1933 to 1935 which indicate that about twelve years hence the pension load will again be greater than the income of the Foundation. T h e Foundation Executive Committee is exploring the idea of borrowing money from the Corporation to meet these obligations, with the expectation of repaying it as the pension load lightens after 1955. 55 Thus finis cannot yet be written to the checkered attempts of the Carnegie Foundation to provide free pensions to a selected group of professors and their widows. From 1906 to 1920 these expenditures exerted a powerful and stimulating influence on the course of higher education, as well as serving the immediate welfare end. From 1920 until the final obligation is settled toward the close of the century these enormous grants for pensions will be pure benevolence. As the pension load recedes the surplus income from the Foundation's permanent funds will be available for such educational work as it then considers desirable. In the meantime the Foundation will contribute to the solution of current educational problems through its separately endowed Division of Educational Enquiry and through its position as operating agent for educational studies financed by the Carnegie Corporation. In 1915 when the Foundation decided to abandon its free pensions, it proposed to provide money for the overhead expense of a contractual annuity and insurance plan and to administer it, funds for the annuity preferably to be contributed jointly by the professor and the institution in which he worked. 58 Those who had expected a free pension bitterly op-

Student and Faculty

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posed the contributory annuity idea and declared there was little philanthropy and great risk in the Foundation's entering the insurance business. Nevertheless a commission representative of the four leading associations of college professors, under the leadership of the present Mr. Justice Harlan Fiske Stone of the Supreme Court of the United States, accepted the invitation of the Foundation to cooperate in devising an acceptable annuity and insurance plan. A compromise report was agreed to in May, 1917; a year later the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America was duly chartered under the insurance laws of the state of New York, and in March, 1919, the first contracts were issued under the new plan for promoting faculty welfare. The Foundation was unable to provide the Association the necessary capital and surplus required by insurance laws. The Carnegie Corporation filled the breach by voting the Association $1,000,000 for this purpose. The current overhead expenses were soon too large for the Foundation to underwrite and the Corporation provided the necessary annual supplements. T o encourage the affiliation of other colleges under the contributory plan, the Corporation made grants which aggregated $1,644,000. In 1936 these annual grants of the Corporation were terminated through a grant to the Association of $6,700,000." From the year 1918 to date the Foundation has granted to the Association for overhead approximately $500,000 and has supplied considerable personnel for administration and supervision. Since these grants apply only to contracts written before 1936, subsequently written business will "load" the premiums to make each policy provide its own overhead, thus lessening the original philanthropic contribution of the Association. The effect of the grants from the Corporation and the Foundation has been to make the Association an independent philanthropic organization for the continuous promotion of the welfare of college teachers. In surveying the $8,483,136 contribution of the Corporation

i96

Student and Faculty

Welfare

to faculty welfare through the Association, the latest annual report records: In looking back over the whole history of its relations with the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, the Corporation may now fairly regard its very large participation in this enterprise as a substantial contribution to the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding. In terminating its responsibility towards the Association, the Corporation was solicitous to assure itself that the settlement should not only put the Association in a position to discharge all existing obligation, but should enable it to proceed to a normal development of its steadily expanding service to the academic world. 58 Secretary Robert M. Lester provides the best review of the total contribution of all Carnegie agencies to the promotion of faculty welfare: Mr. Carnegie, in his first letter of gift, said, " I hope this fund will do much for the cause of higher education and to remove a source of deep and constant anxiety to the poorest paid and yet one of the highest of all professions." In 1906, there were eight colleges and universities in the United States with pension systems. These were uncertain actuarily and insecure financially. No pension plan so far as known was strictly contractual. In 1933 there were sound and contractual plans in 183 institutions. In 1934, there were 14,798 policyholders in the Association alone, representing 841 institutions. In the Foundation, on June 30, 1934, 1,127 pensions and allowances averaging $1,557.58 were in force. In all, the Foundation had distributed $27,145,734 to 2,201 persons, and still has of course its capital of $15,000,000 intact and available for future help. The closed list of the Foundation now contains 2,647 names of persons yet to receive allowances, sup plemented by Corporation annuities. In the generation which has elapsed since the establishment of the Foundation, the economic and social status of the college professor has immeasurably improved. It can hardly be doubted that the experiments, studies, requirements, failures, and successes of the Carnegie agencies in dealing with professors' retirement problems have had much to do with the change.58

Student and Faculty Welfare

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T h e work of the General Education Board in promoting faculty welfare can be more succinctly related. Its gift of $44,220,035 for the increasing of salaries was largely in the form of special endowment, so conditioned as to add $120,000,000 to this class of permanent funds. But in addition to its quantitative effect, the action of the Board served to focus the attention of the country on the seriousness of the college teachers' financial plight. Its studies showed that between 1 9 1 4 and 1920 professorial income increased only 25 percent while living costs increased 82.2 percent. 60 Those conversant with the situation are of the opinion that the influence of these nonfinancial activities has been but little less powerful as a stimulant than the actual grants, yet it is too intangible to measure objectively. T h e official report of the Board gives the history of these grants so concisely that there is little reason for doing more than quoting it: Mr. John D. Rockefeller brought relief and encouragement to those wrestling with the problem, when, as announced on Christmas Day of 1919, he gave the General Education Board fifty million dollars to be used, principal and income as far as the Board deemed wise, in cooperating with institutions of higher learning in securing funds for increase of teachers' salaries. In allocating this sum to institutions, the Board took into consideration the teachers themselves, rather than institutions. This consideration led to the inclusion of many smaller colleges, as well as the stronger and richer, in the distribution of the fund in order that persons in the profession might be retained and others encouraged to enter it. During this period the principal fund and its income were appropriated to 203 institutions in forty different states, and to thirty-six institutions for Negroes located in sixteen states. Practically all of the appropriations required the raising of supplemental funds, the combined contributions adding approximately a hundred and twenty million dollars to college endowment. A recent study made by the General Education Board (Occasional Paper No. 8, published in 1928) shows that while teachers' salaries have been increased since 1920 by 29.8 percent, they have barely

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kept pace with the increase in the cost of living. It is perhaps not too much to say that the stimulus afforded by Mr. Rockefeller's timely gift is in a large measure responsible for the result, inadequate though it be, which has been achieved.61 Professors in six state colleges and universities %vere aided to the extent of $310,000, and the balance of $44,000,000 was allocated to endowed colleges. About forty nondenominational institutions were assisted, and among the denominational colleges receiving grants there were about forty Methodist, thirtyfive Baptist, thirty Presbyterian, fifteen Congregational, and thirty-seven institutions with sundry religious affiliations. 62 Many of the weaker of these institutions received from the Board unconditioned gifts for salaries in addition to the sum necessary to match the conditioned endowment offer. Despite this liberality about $10,000,000 of the principal and interest of the $50,000,000 gift for salaries reverted to the general funds of the Board because colleges did not meet the conditions specified for receiving it. Many colleges were in such stringent financial circumstances that they were forced to bend every effort toward securing current support for salaries and other operating costs rather than towards endowing these items.

C H A P T E R

X

Activities for Endowment and Capital Outlay

T

HE circumstances that originated the policy of general endowment grants have been discussed in Chapter I I I . As indicated there the qualitative influence of these early grants is veiled in the informal discussions and conversations that took place between officers of the foundations and officers of the colleges. W e may be sure, however, that most foundations made grants to general endowment or for buildings only after a meeting of minds, and not indiscriminately and without regard for the program being promoted by the college. T h e opportunities for qualitative influence were further enhanced by the fact that the foundation was usually the largest single contributor and by the expectation that it would continue to be a stable source for additional gifts. T h e lack of any available record of the informal understandings that probably preceded these grants makes an attempt to draw inferences a futile undertaking.

A quantitative estimate of foundation influence in building college endowment during the first quarter of this century can be undertaken with more certainty though not with mathematical accuracy. During this period colleges frequently undertook a "drive" to secure a total sum for the general purposes of the institution, roughly estimating an allocation for buildings, equipment, and endowment. T h e foundation, like all other donors, made its gift to this group of purposes and cannot now say what part of the gift should be charged to capital outlay and what part to endowment. Even where the grants were made specifically for one purpose or the other, foundation bookkeeping practices have tended to lump

200

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them into a single category.1 Confusion results also from the practice of making a grant originally for general endowment and later by mutual consent designating the gift for special endowment or current support.2 Finding the total foundation grants to endowment is also frequently blocked by the difficulty of determining whether a gift was the personal act of the donor or the corporate act of his foundation.3 Except for nominal grants from the Peabody Fund and the Slater Fund, the $165,000,000 of college endowment in existence in 1900 had come from the efforts of religious education societies and from the direct benevolence of a long list of individuals, led by such men as Johns Hopkins, Matthew Vassar, Ezra Cornell, Charles Pratt, George Peabody, Leland Stanford, Andrew Carnegie, and John D. Rockefeller, Sr. Most of this endowment had been contributed in the last third of the nineteenth century; President Thwing estimates that all college endowment in 1800 aggregated not more than $500,000.4 Three philanthropists—to the extent of $1,800,000 for Peabody,® $15,000,000 for Carnegie,8 and even larger amounts for the Rockefellers (as individuals they have contributed $50,000,000 to the University of Chicago alone) —have continued into the twentieth century their personal gifts to higher education. The initial decision of the General Education Board to concentrate gifts to higher education in the form of conditioned grants to general endowment conformed to the ideals of introducing business principles in giving. An investigation had convinced the Board that colleges could not operate efficiently on the hand-to-mouth financial basis then prevailing.7 It also convinced the Board that college endowment could be increased to supply from forty to sixty percent of the current operating costs. In 1900 the total income of higher education was $31,676,572, and endowment income was then supplying $6,110,655, or roughly twenty percent of the total.8 What could be more simple than doubling or tripling a

Endowment

and Capital Outlay

201

mere $165,000,000 in endowments by stimulating matched gifts from the vast accumulations of surplus wealth? This wealth was already supplying more than one-third ($10,840,084) of the total current income of higher education in 1900. The increase in the cost of higher education from 1872 to 1900 had totaled scarcely $18,000,000 and in the same period the wealth of the nation had risen from thirty to eighty-nine billion dollars; a population increase from thirty-eight to seventy-six million had not overflowed the existing colleges, and indeed the foundations doubted that it could. 9 If in the quartercentury following 1900 the financial needs of higher education continued the rate of growth of an equal period before igoo, as apparently the investigators expected, the ambition of the General Education Board and the Carnegie Foundation to endow and improve a system of higher education was capable of realization. By 1914 the General Education Board had appropriated $10,582,591 to the endowment of 102 colleges. The conditions of these grants had assured the colleges a $50,384,323 increase in their endowments. 10 By 1919 the Board's endowment grants totaled $15,700,000 and had extended to 120 colleges in thirtyseven states. At the time it was discontinuing grants to endowment the Board was able to record: Between 1902 and 1925, the General Education Board has appropriated approximately $60,000,000 to the endowment funds of 291 colleges and universities, not including appropriations to schools of medicine. When the institutions in question have obtained the requisite supplemental sums, they will thus have added a total of $200,000,000 to their permanent funds. 11 By 1929 the Board's appropriations to medical education totaled $78,277,858, of which probably $70,000,000 was earmarked for endowment and capital outlay on terms similar to those previously described. In brief, the grants of the Board must have directly stimulated endowment gifts aggregating

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and Capital Outlay

over 1400,000,000, to say nothing of the indirect stimulation they gave the endowment movement generally and the necessity they created for state institutions to secure increased appropriations in order to keep pace with the endowed colleges. Despite the millions of dollars poured into college endowment by the foundations and benevolent individuals, the colleges were relatively poorer in 1925 than they had been at the beginning of the century. The General Education Board declared "our endowed higher institutions of learning in the United States have, despite their greater wealth, less per student, when their funds are measured in purchasing power, than they had a quarter of a century ago." 1 2 It declared that less than eight percent of college students were enrolled in institutions having as much as $250 per capita income from endowment, and that half of the endowment funds of the nation were concentrated in Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, and Pennsylvania. 13 Even the techniques of corporate philanthropy had failed to forecast or encompass the college endowment problem. T h e first quarter of the twentieth century had shown little that could have been predicted from the experience of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Of these unexpected developments the Board records: During the period 1 9 0 0 - 1 9 2 4 the population increased approximately 5 0 percent. Attendance in the elementary and secondary schools increased nearly 40 percent, in colleges and professional schools about 2 5 0 percent, and in the graduate departments of universities and colleges attendance increased nearly 400 percent. 1 4

The expense of such increases and also of the improvements in higher education easily outran an endowment income which rose from $6,110,655 i n ' 9 ° ° t o $36,000,000 in 1924—and this in spite of the fact that income from tax sources rose from $4,386,040 in 1900 to $70,000,000 in 1924. 15 The General Education Board frankly acknowledged that the problem was too big for its funds to make a significant contribution, and it left

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the field reiterating its faith in endowment as the ideal means for financing a major part of the costs of higher education. By 1932 the General Education Board had experienced a change of mind as to the wisdom of its tenaciously held philosophy of an inviolate endowment f u n d held in perpetuity. T h i s radical and sensational change of policy declared that: During the past year, the Board took significant action with regard to the liberalization of the conditions of its gifts to institutions for endowment . . . . The action taken by the Board this year provides that the income of each future gift shall be used for a period of ten years for the specific purpose for which the gift was made; that thereafter the income may be used for any other purposes, related as closely as possible to the original purpose, that may prove desirable; and that after a lapse of fifty years the principal also may be expended. A conviction that the future needs of an institution cannot be predicted with any degree of certainty led to this action on the part of the Board. 16 In 1937 this policy was further liberalized to apply to the $51,000,000 of general-endowment funds given by the Rockefeller Foundation and to the $148,000,000 of similar funds given by the General Education Board. T h i s liberalization makes it possible for five percent of an endowment principal to be used annually after the fifth year and for the residue to become available for current purposes after the lapse of twenty-five years. At any rate, less than a third of a century's experience in college philanthropy had apparently brought the Board back to an acceptance of the principles of giving that prevailed when it entered the field and which it had then condemned as "too precarious to sustain the elaborate organization of a modern institution of learning." 1 7 As late as 1920 the Board was defending endowment grants by declaring that gifts for current support were at best only temporary relief, likely to lapse, and merely postponing the evil day. 18 Evidently it was during the

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Endowment and Capital Outlay

following decade that the Board lost its faith in permanent endowment as the ideal means for financing higher education. T h e General Education Board was both the pioneer and the pace-setter among that small group of foundations which more or less consistently sought to influence the development of colleges and universities through conditioned grants to endowment. The other Rockefeller philanthropic trusts and the Carnegie Corporation so nearly followed the same pattern that no useful purpose would be served by recounting the details of their activities, and save for them it would be hard to discover a foundation that regularly and purposefully followed the effective policy of the Board. This small group has probably supplied nearly three-fourths of the special and general endowment contributed by foundations to higher education. T h e Carnegie Corporation is the second largest contributor, granting between 1 9 1 1 and 1936 approximately $29,051,000 for the general and special endowment of 246 American colleges, and $7,410,000 for capital outlay purposes. 19 T h e Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial appropriated more than $5,000,000 to the combined capital outlay and endowment purposes of American universities; while the reports of the Memorial do not separate the items, it is known that about half of this total was for endowment: the University of Chicago receiving $1,000,000 for its Chapel and Spelman College in Atlanta receiving a like sum for endowment. While the bulk of the enormous capital expenditures and special endowment grants of the Rockefeller Foundation were made outside the United States, and hence are not within the scope of this study, many millions were granted to colleges and universities within the United States. The schools of public health at Johns Hopkins and Harvard alone received $10,623,372, and in aggregate an equal sum for endowment and capital outlay was given to Vanderbilt, Washington University, and the medical department of the University of Chicago. Yale re-

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205

ceived a $1,000,000 endowment for its school of nursing, and the Graduate School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago was endowed by the Foundation with $1,000,000. Other departments at Chicago have received from $100,000 to $500,000 in endowment from the Foundation. T h e Columbia University and Iowa State University medical schools each received a capital outlay grant of $ 1 »ooo.ooo.20 Since the reorganization of the Rockefeller philanthropic trusts in 192829 the Foundation has had an increased interest in promoting the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities in the United States. These interests have frequently called for capital outlay and endowment grants. While no exact figure can be stated, a careful calculation indicates that these grants were so conditioned as to add approximately $125,000,000 to the assets of American higher education. Most of the smaller foundations seem to have had no conscious policy for endowment and capital outlay giving, and apparently engaged in it only intermittently and in response to the exigencies of the moment. Frequently these sporadic grants were limited to the college in which the founder had some personal interest, and there is reason to believe that such foundation contributions were often made in lieu of a personal gift. Many such endowment grants were as small as $500, but $3,000 was more nearly the rule, and the upper range extended as high as the $300,000 gift of the Surdna Foundation to the endowment of Wesleyan University. Even with access to foundation records it is often quite impossible to tell the purpose for which a gift is made to a particular college. College accounting, on the other hand, lists the purpose to which gifts are allocated but often omits specific sources in order to protect the donors from a deluge of requests for grants. Between the two practices it is doubly difficult to discover the total amount of endowment grants that have come from foundation sources. A diligent cross-reference checking of the two types of records

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Endowment and Capital Outlay

convinces the author that the total of capital outlay and endowment grants of this group of small foundations totals about $70,000,000, with $40,000,000 of it belonging to endowment. It is not necessary to attempt a detailed enumeration of these sources. T h e dissolution of the Peabody Fund in 1 9 1 4 accounted for $2,318,000 of the total, $1,500,000 of this going to the endowment of George Peabody College, $468,000 to Peabody education buildings in fourteen state universities, and $350,000 to additionally endow the Slater Fund for its work with Negro colleges. 21 For Negro education the Rosenwald Fund and Mr. Rosenwald personally have given approximately $8,000,000 since 1913. The Slater and Jeanes Funds have appropriated about $5,000,000. The total from philanthropic foundations is probably $34,000,000. This amount has stimulated at least $100,000,000 more from governments and private gifts for the advancement of every phase of Negro education.22 Since 1920 the bulk of foundation grants to Negro colleges has been for endowment and capital outlay purposes, and more than three-fourths of the $34,000,000 has been contributed since that date. 23 Since 1905 the Milbank Memorial Fund has contributed $71,500 to the endowment and capital purposes of ten American colleges, the Dodge Foundation $150,000 to seven such colleges, and the Wieboldt Foundation $730,000 to Chicago and Northwestern Universities. T h e Rackham Fund has contributed $5,500,000 to the graduate school of the University of Michigan; thirty-six percent of the income of the $40,000,000 Duke Endowment is for support of Duke University, and fourteen percent of the income is for the support of three other colleges in the Carolinas. T h e Duke Endowment has added $6,000,000 to the large funds made available under the Duke will for buildings and other capital purposes of Duke University. T h e Cleveland Foundation, Keith Fund, Littauer Foundation, Penney Foundation, Buhl Foundation,

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and Capital Outlay

207

Markle Foundation, and probably a dozen others have intermittently contributed to the estimated $70,000,000 endowment and capital outlay grants by the smaller foundations. For purposes of reconnaissance enough has been said to indicate the contribution of this group of foundations to the endowment and capital outlay purposes of higher education. Calculation and estimation place at approximately $220,000,000 the philanthropic foundations' contribution to the $1,365,635,282 that the 1936 World Almanac lists as the endowment of American colleges, universities, and professional schools in 1931-32. 24 Since eighty-five to ninety percent of this total came into existence after 1900, one may infer that foundations have been the largest single influence in its accumulation. With matching conditions that usually secured two to four dollars for each dollar the foundations contributed, it is probable that the foundations directly stimulated the giving of $660,000,000, or two-thirds of the one and one-third billion dollars that constitutes the endowment fund of American higher education. In other words, through gifts aggregating about sixteen percent of the endowment total, the foundations have directly stimulated the production of two-thirds of it. T h e contribution of the foundations to college buildings and other capital outlay purposes, while significant, does not approach the proportions of the endowment contributions. College buildings and improvements are valued at $1,370,680,333, and it is probable that foundations have contributed not more than $50,000,000, or less than four percent of the total. If such grants had been made under the same matching conditions as endowment gifts, as apparently they were not, they would still have been a minor though significant general influence. Even as unconditioned gifts, foundation grants for buildings were major influences in certain cases, such as Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Chicago.

C H A P T E R

XI

Activities for Professional

T

Education

HE four preceding chapters have discussed foundation activities influencing higher education in general. This chapter and the following one will be devoted to an attempt to survey the effects that foundation activities have had on the major special fields of higher education. When the four hundred percent increase in the demands for higher education that took place in the first quarter of the century made it necessary for the foundations to abandon general endowment support they turned to noncontroversial special fields, such as medicine, and continued there the accepted policy of limiting grants to endowment and capital outlay purposes. As higher education further expanded it became necessary for foundations to abandon special endowment grants in favor of current support for research and the diffusion of knowledge in specified undertakings. Since foundations continued to grow in the confidence of the professional and lay public it was comparatively easy to make this shift that encouraged a program to take root in indigenous sources of support. Foundation interest in professional education has taken several forms. Contributions have been made for special studies of the several professional fields, conducted either independently or jointly with national and regional associations of teachers and practitioners, and for disseminating the findings of these surveys. Grants have been made to carefully selected professional schools of college and university rank for support, research, and publication. T h e foundations have also expressed an interest in training professional personnel through scholarship and fellowship grants and grants-in-aid of specific re-

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Education

209

searches, administered both directly and through sundry professional organizations. 1 This participation in professional education has frequently been pronounced among the most successful of the efforts of the foundations to promote the development of American higher education. MEDICAL

EDUCATION

T h e earliest, most persistent, and most successful of the foundation ventures in professional education was in the field of medicine. It got under way in 1910 through the survey of Medical Education in the United States and Canada by Abraham Flexner, then of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. 2 Flexner described the representative medical school of the period as "a casual association of local physicians lecturing and occasionally demonstrating to a nondescript body of medical students." T h e laboratory facilities were shown to be meager or nonexistent, the clinical provisions wholly unsatisfactory; the curriculum was only two years in length, repetitious and ungraded, and there were no entrance requirements worthy of the name. T o add to the discouraging picture it was discovered that nearly all of the 161 so-called medical schools then in operation were proprietary ventures, run for the private profit of the physicians associated with them. Quite often such ventures were cloaked, if not masked, by being permitted by a reputable university to use its name for diploma purposes. T h e university's reason for attempting to add to its prestige in this manner was usually a desire to have a medical school which it could not otherwise afford, but occasionally the purpose seems to have been merely to share in the "fee-grabbing" with the medical practitioners. 8 For the past quarter of a century foundations have sought to improve these conditions in medical education by bringing them to public attention and by financially assisting a few strategically situated medical colleges.

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T h e unequivocal evidence concerning individual schools was so devastating that 20 of them voluntarily closed rather than have the findings concerning them published in the Carnegie report. In the light of this report economic, social, and professional pressure continued to be exerted on the most disreputable of the remaining schools until by 1914 there were in operation only

100 of the original

161, and by

1924 the

number was further reduced to about 75 institutions. 4 C i t i n g the fact that the number of students enrolled in medical schools had dropped from 28,142 in 1904 to 18,412 in 1912, President Pritchett declared:

T h e internal improvements that have been made in the medical schools which survive are more remarkable and significant than the mere reduction in the number of medical colleges or medical students and graduates since 1904. T h e erection of new buildings, the construction of new laboratories, the installing of libraries and museums, the noteworthy extension of medical research, the employment of expert teachers, the improvement of the medical curriculum, the lengthening of the medical school year from twenty-six weeks in many schools to thirty-four or thirty-six weeks, the raising of entrance requirements and the greater strictness and intelligence in their enforcement, the improvement in the keeping of wards, the increased facilities for the student's individual work at the bedside, the closer relation between medical schools and hospitals—all these things constitute a marvelous record of progress in the past seven years. . . . I venture one word further concerning the work of the Foundation in this field of education. Its immediate connection with the subject dates from the publication of the Fourth Bulletin in June, 1910. In cooperation with the educational council of the American Medical Association and the Association of American Medical Colleges, both of which had for some years previously been effectively engaged in the work, it has sought to define the principles to which sound educational organization in medicine should conform at this time, and practically to assist in embodying these principles wherever opportunity offers. In particular the Foundation has sought to assist positive and constructive effort by frank publications on medical education which aim to describe actual

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Education

211

conditions, and to stimulate by a critical discussion the appreciation of things to be done and those to be avoided.8 T h e two concluding sentences of this quotation succinctly describe both the "what" and the " h o w " of Carnegie Foundation influence on medical education. T h e General Education Board exerted its influence on medical education through grants to develop the general or special undertakings of carefully selected medical schools. T h e first grant, of $1,370,874, was made in 1913 to enable Johns Hopkins University to reorganize its departments of medicine, surgery, and pediatrics on a so-called "full-time" basis, which meant that the teachers in these departments would no longer be part-time practitioners but would concentrate their energies on full-time teaching, research, or the direction of a clinic. T h e Board was so strongly of the opinion that the practitionerteacher impeded progress in the clinical subjects that until 1925 it conditioned its medical grants with the requirement of fulltime professors in these branches. Washington University, Yale, Chicago, Vanderbilt, and other schools reorganized their clinical departments to meet this requirement and became recipients of liberal General Education Board grants. Some schools were opposed to the idea on principle; others hesitated because the increased cost of full-time clinical instruction was greater than any grants that might reasonably be expected from the Board. Aside from the general merits and demerits of the fulltime principle, its early use by the Board exerted a powerful and salutary influence in improving the quality of medical instruction. Evidently the Board considered it either unsound or unadapted to current needs, for the colleges were released from a further observance of the principle after 1925. In connection with the action cited above, it may be mentioned that in 1925 and subsequent years the Board notified universities that the conditions with respect to full-time staffs imposed by its gifts for their medical schools need not, as far as the Board is

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concerned, be adhered to in the future if, in the judgment of the authorities of the university, educational and scientific progress would be better served by a change in the plan of organization. 6 T h i s declaration stopped the reiterated complaints that the Board was exerting an undue influence on medical education through enforcing its ideas of how instruction should be conducted. A f t e r nearly two decades of varied effort at the direct promotion of medical education in the United States, the Board decided to withdraw from the field. Its own summary in 1929 rather judiciously appraises its accomplishment: The Board has appropriated for medical education $78,277,856.61. What has it accomplished? It has stimulated progress throughout the whole field . . . The Board has added to the financial resources of American medical schools directly and through gifts from other sources, and through such steps as bringing about sound relations between hospitals and medical schools, many times the sum it has itself given—the total amounting to several hundred million dollars; it has indirectly encouraged benefactions to institutions which it has not itself aided at all. Operating in an opportunistic manner, it has had to wait upon favoring conditions—viz., the presence of the right man, the willingness of the university to cooperate, the possibility of enlisting local aid . . . Immense progress has been made in fifteen years: the general level has been raised; training is better; contributions to medical science have increased in volume and improved in quality. Foreigners who knew conditions in 1914 and revisit the country now are amazed at the progress.7 T h e depression that began in 1929 made it expedient for the Board to continue emergency grants to medical education in order to protect its earlier investments. T o J u n e 30, 1936, these grants had swelled the 1929 total to $90,519,709. Except for approximately $790,000 that was devoted to general agencies for fellowships, surveys, and publication, this entire sum went to twenty-four medical colleges, with seven of them receiving an aggregate of $64,155,485, or over two-thirds of the

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213

total; Cornell, Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt, and Washington University medical colleges averaged above $10,000,000 each.8 The Board's grants are not recorded in a manner to permit a definite allocation of the total by purposes, but the best estimates list $60,000,000 to endowment and capital outlay (largely given before 1925), $15,000,000 to current support, and the balance to research, dissemination, and fellowships. Before their consolidation and reorganization in 1928-29 the Rockefeller philanthropies had tended to leave medical education in the United States largely to the care of the General Education Board. Since 1913 the Rockefeller Foundation had spent over $150,000,000 in supporting medicine, medical education, and related health work here and throughout the world, but it had spent slightly less than $15,000,000 in the United States for medical education at the university level. Except for health and medical fellowships this sum was devoted largely to the endowment and capital outlay purposes of medical schools; $7,096,000 was allotted to the school of public health of Johns Hopkins, $2,488,000 to that of Harvard, and more than $1,000,000 each to Chicago and Yale. In the first six years after it became an active participant in American higher education the Rockefeller Foundation appropriated to medical education and research alone a sum nearly equal to that granted in the previous fifteen years.9 It has been equally active in advancing the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Between 1 9 1 1 and 1936 the Carnegie Corporation granted to nine medical schools the sum of $8,330,000 for endowment and capital outlay, current support, and research purposes.10 Johns Hopkins and Vanderbilt each received above $2,000,000, and Columbia and Tulane together were awarded a similar sum. Both the Carnegie Corporation and the Rockefeller Foundation have actively promoted medical education through nonteaching professional agencies, as is illustrated by grants to the New York Academy of Medicine of $1,626,000 from the

214

Professional

Education

former and of $1,408,000 from the latter. There is scarcely a professional committee or association in any of the special fields of medical education that has not had the benefit of aid from the Carnegie and Rockefeller philanthropic trusts, but it is not feasible to give any further analysis of their grants. Nor is it possible within the scope of a general survey to analyze the grants of the host of foundations which have come on the scene since the World War. Next to student aid, medical research has been the favorite field of the newer foundations. Most of them have had small capital endowments and have wisely limited their activities to some specialty, such as mental hygiene, diseases of children, cancer, or tuberculosis. Some of them have further limited their major activity to demonstration, publication, or research. Many foundations have limited their activities to the borders of a single city, a county, or a state at the most. None of them is directly interested in improving a medical college as a whole, and very few of them have any abiding interest even in improving the teaching and research facilities in such specific fields as mental hygiene, maternal care, nursing, endocrinology, tuberculosis, and diabetes. Quite often the sole interest in a limited field is a particular research project looking primarily to the advancement of knowledge rather than to the immediate promotion of medical education. In fact, many of these smaller foundations conduct their own research or engage in activities which make local applications and demonstrations of existing medical knowledge, and therefore do not immediately influence medical education in the universities. This group of newer foundations numbers about eighty, fifty-three of them being of the general pattern and twentyseven of the community trust type of foundation. In terms of their influence on medical education at the university level they fall into three roughly defined groups: larger foundations with an abiding and important interest in several fields, smaller

Professional

Education

215

foundations with a narrowly defined specialization, and a large number of foundations which have only a casual and transitory interest in any part of the field. Representative of the first group, which is growing in relative importance as the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations restrict and withdraw their activities, are the Commonwealth Fund, Milbank Memorial Fund, Cleveland Foundation, Children's Fund of Michigan, Josiah Macy, Jr., Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, Buhl Foundation, Duke Endowment, Rosenwald Fund, Markle Foundation, and nearly a dozen others with slightly less well-defined interests in medical education. The foundations named expend annually about $6,200,000 and, excluding the first three, have been operating for an average of seven years. Careful calculation indicates that approximately 60 percent of the grants from this group of foundations are allocated to medical interests, and that these are about equally divided among universities, general agencies, and self-administered projects. Grants have been made by this group to fifty-four universities for research in or basic to medical education. Each of the recognized medical schools of the East has received teaching or research grants, with Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, and New York University leading the list. Mental hygiene has been the cause most largely and consistently aided, the Commonwealth Fund alone making it grants that total $7,259,000 and furnishing it pioneer professional leadership. Public health has been the second largest field, the Milbank and Commonwealth Funds alone contributing about equal parts of a $12,000,000 aggregate and the former supplying professional leadership in the field since 1905. Research in tuberculosis, dentistry, maternal care, children's diseases, ophthalmology, optics, and thirty-eight other such fields is now being promoted by this group of foundations. 11 Altogether the twenty or so foundations discussed in this paragraph annually spend nearly $7,000,000 in medical education and research, and during their

216

Professional

Education

whole period of operation have spent approximately $70,000,000 for these purposes. About one-third of this sum has gone through university medical channels.

T h e second group, about twenty foundations, concentrate activity in a narrowly defined field; they contribute little financially to university medical centers, but their professional stimulation and cooperation are a powerful and salutary research aid. While individually restricted, as a group they cover almost as wide a range of medical activities as is promoted by the foundations discussed in the preceding paragraph. T h e latter group shows a pronounced tendency to increase directly conducted activities and decrease grants to outside agencies, and the foundations in the group now being discussed have carried this trend to the point of themselves using eighty to ninety percent of their income. In this respect they are only a short step from the position of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, which is a very powerful influence in medical education but outside the scope of this study because it makes no grants to outside agencies. 12 All of the grants made to outside agencies by this group of foundations would not total over $200,000 a year, and less than half of this sum is expended through university medical channels. Representative of the foundations one would examine for more detailed information on these grants are the American Foundation for Mental Hygiene, Brush Foundation, International Cancer Research Foundation, Purdue Research Foundation, Hyslop Foundation, Pediatric Research Foundation, M. and L. Guggenheim Foundation, and the Lifwynn Foundation. In the third group of newer foundations which have contributed to the development of medical education are forty or more agencies whose effort has been intermittent, casual, and either unrelated or subsidiary to their main objectives. Most of the community trust type of foundation and many of the scholarship foundations are in this classification. T h e Leo-

Professional

Education

217

pold Schepp Foundation is a good example of the latter. Scholarship and loan grants to medical students, now averaging $ 112,300 annually, are the main items aided by the forty foundations. T h e primary interest of many of this group is in ministering to the immediate welfare of some age group, race, or sex. When their welfare efforts are hindered through the lack of adequately trained personnel or the inconclusiveness of research in a given field, they occasionally make grants to institutions for medical education. For example, in the decade 1921-30 the foundation called the Federation of Jewish Philanthropic Societies made grants aggregating $1,399,535 t o nursing education, primarily as a means of promoting welfare work to which it was devoting in the same period $39,644,959.13 T h e New York Foundation, which spends three-fourths of its $90,000 annual income on the welfare of Jewish people, occasionally allots to university medical centers from $2,000 to $10,000 for specified research in diabetes, mental hygiene, joint diseases, or some such field. T h e minor position of medical education among the interests of many of this group of foundations is indicated by the fact that during 1921-30 the Chicago Community Trust granted but $250 for mental hygiene and $1,650 for nursing education, out of a total expenditure of $766,433. T h e story is much the same for all of the forty foundations. Perhaps altogether they spend $1,400,000 annually on health and medical education projects, of which about $360,000 may be considered as devoted to the improvement of medical education and research at the university level. In summary, the total contribution of philanthropic foundations to American medical education and research at the university level has probably been about $154,000,000, and the current annual contribution may be placed at $5,500,000 but is probably decreasing each year. T h e pioneering nonfinancial influence of the Carnegie and Rockefeller agencies, the Commonwealth Fund, and the Milbank Memorial Fund was both

218

Professional

Education

salutary and powerful, but, apart from the survey studies, it does not lend itself to analysis. Most of the newer foundations are devoting their funds to research projects and to the training of personnel for research. Since it takes almost a decade for such work to reflect itself in medical education an appraisal of the influence of these newer foundations cannot yet be made. But even now one student declares, "Nothing accomplished by foundations, in my belief, approaches in significance the consequences attained through their appropriations in the sphere of medical research." 14 DENTAL

EDUCATION

Dentistry is the leading branch of the healing art that is neither legally nor professionally included under medical education. Medical teachers have belittled or ignored dentistry, and it was not until 1900 that all of the states had laws requiring a modicum of professional training as a basis for licensing. Until 1921 most dental schools required no academic college work before admission, and at that date many schools did not require even high-school graduation. 15 Dental schools were largely proprietary institutions, the advanced courses were frequently taught by salesmen from dental supply companies, and the dental journals were largely the "house organs" and advertising media of commercial interests. As late as 1920 only four dental schools had any income from endowment and the total amounted to $41,520. This in brief was the status of dental education when philanthropic foundations entered the field in 1921. In that year the Carnegie Foundation, with the cooperation of the Dental Educational Council, began what was to be practically an eight-year study of dental education in the United States and Canada. With a total expenditure of $64,525, and with immeasurable professional energy, a report was completed which at least brought the problems of dental education to the

Professional Education

219

attention of university officials and set in motion machinery for remedying gross weaknesses. By 1930 there was not a single proprietary school in the field, entrance requirements had been raised to two years of college work, the number of schools had been reduced to thirty-eight, and each school was an integral part of some university or medical school. The number of dental schools having endowment funds had doubled and the amount of such funds had increased nearly four-fold; those affiliated with state universities were receiving stable current support equivalent to a substantial endowment income. The course of study no longer consisted in acquiring the mechanical "tricks of the trade"; rather, the curriculum was more nearly equivalent to that for physicians. Teachers and research workers had come to full professional standing during this decade. While probably not the major influence in effecting these advances, the Carnegie Foundation certainly was a strategic and vital contributor to the progress. General Education Board and Rockefeller Foundation grants increased the facilities for dental education by at least $2,000,ooo.16 These came chiefly through combined medical-dental appropriations for capital outlay and endowment purposes, of which those to the University of Rochester and to Yale are outstanding examples. For similar purposes the School of Dentistry at Northwestern University has received a $4,233,000 grant from Montgomery Ward philanthropic funds, which also contributed $4,000,000 to endow teaching and research at the same institution. In 1936 the Carnegie Corporation gave $350,000 to the endowment of the Harvard Dental School. For the past decade many of the smaller foundations have been making grants toward the support of dental clinics connected with hospitals used for teaching purposes. Since 1924 the Heckscher Foundation has so granted $67,094; the Hofheimer Foundation, New York Foundation, Detroit Community Trust, and a half-dozen other small foundations have made

220

Professional

Education

minor and irregular grants to dental clinics. Since 1929 the Murry

and

Leonie

Guggenheim

Foundation

has

devoted

$1,127,000 to establishing a free dental clinic for economically underprivileged N e w Y o r k City school children; in the operation of this clinic the Foundation spends upwards of $90,000 each year. In addition to its service function the G u g g e n h e i m clinic has made an appreciable contribution through training dental hygienists, and promises to be equally useful in promoting and demonstrating dental research. T h r o u g h a grant of $74,000 in 1929 the Carnegie Corporation greatly stimulated the development of dental college libraries in twenty-one schools; $31,000 of the sum was allocated to the University of Michigan, and the remainder was distributed in sums ranging from $1,000 to $5,000. T h e A m e r i c a n Association of Dental Schools was convinced, by 1930, that it should survey dental education and bring the Carnegie Foundation study u p to date. T o make this possible the Carnegie Corporation granted the Association $20,000. Grants for research and for the training of personnel received only $294,019 of the $1,283,018 allocated to dental education in 1921-30, and the Carnegie Corporation alone granted $105,000 of the total. 17 Since 1930 these purposes have received more than three-fourths of all of the dental education grants. From 1930 to 1935 the Children's Fund of Michigan granted $485,000 to dental research, and it is now devoting to this purpose approximately $120,000 annually. T h e Rockefeller Foundation, Kellogg

Foundation,

Commonwealth

Fund,

and

Rackham

F u n d are the other large donors to dental research and fellowships, together contributing approximately $120,000 per year. A b o u t twelve other foundations make irregular grants to either research or scholarships in annual amounts from $200 to $3,000, which in the aggregate amount to $34,500 per year. T h e B u h l Foundation, Detroit C o m m u n i t y T r u s t , Indianapolis Foundation, Schmidlapp Fund, and N e w Haven Foundation are the

Professional

Education

221

most representative of the latter group. Altogether some seventeen foundations are now contributing approximately $324,000 annually to the purposes of dental education. In making these grants the foundations not only accelerate the development of their special interest in dental education, but as frequently advance the prestige of all dentistry. T h i s fact is excellently illustrated in the dental-medical research activities of the men working under Rockefeller Foundation fellowships. LEGAL

EDUCATION

Law schools have developed largely outside the university tradition, and without the benefit of m u c h financial aid from the philanthropic foundations. T h e Carnegie Foundation is alone among the foundations in exhibiting an a b i d i n g interest in law schools. A study of legal education in 1913 was the first undertaking of its newly created Division of Educational Enquiry, which continued under the same director until the Foundation withdrew from the field in 1935. In the intervening twenty-two years the Foundation was instrumental in advancing the standards of law schools and bar examinations. D u r i n g this period it spent $222,350, about twenty-one percent of the income of the Division, in producing and distributing f o u r basic studies and an annual review of developments in the field of legal education. 1 8 T h e s e studies were undertaken at the request and with the cooperation of the American Bar Association and the Association of American

L a w Schools, whose leaders made

many valuable professional contributions to the Carnegie undertaking. T h e first of the studies dealt with ways of improving the quality of legal instruction, scholarship, and research. Its most specific effect was to popularize the case method of teaching law, which Langdell had introduced at Harvard as early as 1870. Justice and the Poor was an attempt to find out how far the actual administration of justice secures equality before the

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Professional

Education

law for the poor and otherwise inarticulate citizen. It revealed appallingly low ethical practices and ideals among lawyers. T h e remaining two studies presented the American law school in a historical perspective and in a cross-section survey of current practices. T h e annual reviews of the status of legal education stimulated the schools to remedy indicated defects in order to secure listing in one of the two higher classifications of law schools or to improve their rating within a classification previously attained. The series of studies provided the necessary information and indicated how the American Bar Association and the Association of American Law Schools could use it in formulating and periodically revising their accrediting standards. These bodies did not have the money to carry on the series of studies, and in addition were hampered by professional dissension among practitioners, bar examiners, and teachers of the law as to how the work should be conducted. T h e Carnegie Foundation brought to the study of legal education an independence and disinterestedness which gave its findings wide acceptance within the profession and which performed the almost indispensable function of focusing the attention of university administrators on the problems of the law school. The unsatisfactory condition the Foundation tried to remedy was that of practitioners dominating licensing machinery and thus holding at a low level the educational practices of the law schools. The Foundation survey indicated that as late as 1922 the bar examinations in only thirteen of the most "advanced" states required any specified amount of general and legal education, that "three American jurisdictions required some specified amount of general education but no definite amount of law study," and that "twelve required a study of law but not general education." 19 Not one of the thirteen advanced states exacted more than high-school graduation and three

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Education

223

years of law, and many of them required no more than a grammar-school education and one year of professional work. In the four most "primitive" states the possession of "good moral character" was the only requisite for taking the bar examination. T h e practices of the other states varied between the extremes described. T h e only law schools that could thrive under such conditions were those which "crammed for bar examinations," and when the Carnegie Foundation entered the field they constituted 53.9 percent of the 102 law schools, and enrolled 37.7 percent of the law-school students.20 A t this time only two law schools met the present-day standard of five years of general and professional college work for the first law degree. One cannot place the credit where it belongs among the complex of forces that have produced the progress in legal education during the past quarter of a century. It is certain, however, that in any such attempt the work of the Carnegie Foundation would be shown to be important. By 1935 the bar examination requirements in all except seven states had come to include reasonable amounts of general and professional education, and the National Conference of Bar Examiners (with the aid of Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundation grants) is inaugurating a plan to lessen direct political pressure on examining boards and to give more equitable representation to law-school teachers, to judges, and to general practitioners. T h e proprietary and other schools of the "cram" type in 1935 constituted only 5.7 percent of the 193 schools and had only 2 percent of the enrollment, while the "full-time" schools requiring five or more years of work after high-school graduation had increased to 40.9 percent of the total and enrolled 38 percent of the students. A l l except nine of the 111 "part-time" and "mixed" law schools had a three-year professional curriculum, presumably based on two years of academic work, but because of various deficiencies only eleven of them maintained the standards re-

224

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Education

quired for approval by the American Bar Association. They have made great progress, however, and are being stimulated to continue until they are fully accredited. Foundations have made very few and, with one exception, very limited grants directly to law schools. T h e exception is three grants totaling $880,000 from the General Education Board, beginning in 1925-26, to the Harvard Law School for the endowment of professorships, scholarships, and library activities. T h e Division of Legal Research of the Commonwealth Fund has granted to various groups interested in legal education a total of $326,000 for research projects, and their findings were early reflected in law-school teaching. T h e group of Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations and the Commonwealth Fund have granted to law schools, chiefly for research, an aggregate of $231,000, a large part of which advanced undertakings in other fields where these foundations were working. T h i s group has granted about $309,000 for graduate fellowships, six foundations providing the bulk of it and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace alone accounting for $165,000 of the total for fellowships in international law. A t the undergraduate level the sixty or more foundations interested in the field of student aid have made grants for law scholarships that total possibly $60,000. T h e remaining foundation efforts at influencing the development of legal education have been more indirect but have been very quickly reflected in the practices of the law schools. A n outstanding example is the definitive synthesis and restatement of the common law, now in preparation by the American Law Institute, for which the Carnegie Corporation to 1937 made grants totaling $2,120,196, supplemented by $175,000 from the Rockefeller boards. Twelve volumes of these restatements have been published, arranged according to subject, the latest being The Law of Restitution. Both the proponents and the opponents of the series of studies believe (hence their differ-

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225

ence) that it will be influential enough to dominate the curriculum, courses, and textbooks used in law schools for the next score of years. T h e American Institute of Criminal Law, the National Conference of Bar Examiners, the American Institute of International Law, and at least half-a-dozen lesser "institutes" constitute the remaining indirect agencies whose work, is quickly reflected in law-school practices. T o these the foundations have contributed about $418,000, most of it coming from the Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations and the Commonwealth Fund. ENGINEERING

EDUCATION

T h e first foundation influence in the professional education of engineers came from the Carnegie Foundation between 1913 and 1918. During this period it spent $41,801 in conducting a study to determine the situation and the means for improving education in the several engineering professions. T h e Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education had invited the study and exerted more influence in planning and conducting it than had been customary in other Carnegie Foundation surveys. T h e cataclysmic changes brought about by the World War rendered many of its findings obsolete before they were even in print, and made unnecessary a determination of the moot question of whether the profession would have used them as a basis for reconstructing engineering education. T h e mood following the war was unfavorable to a calm appraisal of the still usable findings, and certainly it forbade taking the risks of progressive measures of readjustment. T h e attitude was that what was immediately usable should be quickly salvaged from the prewar program. A t least the Carnegie study had given the Society its bearings for a future study which was to be conducted by the profession. T h e second influence of foundations on engineering education came through their support of the 1923-29 studies con-

226

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Education

ducted by the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education. T o these the Carnegie Corporation granted $178,000, and the engineering and the chemical foundations approximately $5,000. The balance of the sum supported a comprehensive six-year study of American engineering education at the university, college, and technical institute (less than college) levels, and permitted an evaluation of the undertaking through comparisons with European practices in comparable fields. About $30,000 was used to conduct a unique and successful series of summer schools devoted to improving the instructional methods of engineering professors. It was discovered that American industry could absorb three men having the technical-institute type of training for each one it could use with the college type of engineering training, and that in the United States training for such skilled workers was both quantitatively and qualitatively deficient as compared to Europe. American institutions were shown to be trying to give students technicians' training along with college engineering, and failing to do a good job of either undertaking. It was therefore recommended that the college level of work be so restricted and revised that "Engineering education should be a unified process in which scientific, technological, and humanistic studies form an orderly whole; a self-contained branch of higher education, under unity of supervision." 21 T h e cooperative solidarity of the teachers and practitioners of the profession has so implemented this recommendation that engineering schools are being accredited no longer as a whole but in terms of the adequacy of particular curriculum organization and facilities. 22 " T h e survey," declares a summary of this foundationsupported study, "clarifies many relations within the individual schools and many inter-relations between schools; also between educational institutions and industry, and the professional societies. A better appreciation of these relations tends to a unity

Professional Education

227

by welding together the elements which enter into engineering." 2 3 Apparently the study is only approaching the peak of its positive influence. Student aid and research are the only other means through which foundations have sought to influence the development of engineering education. Undergraduate engineering students are given scholarship and loan grants by most of the sixty foundations operating in the field. They do not keep records that permit an analysis of grants by subjects studied. The best guess is that these grants do not total more than $5,000 to $10,000 a year, and that they do not constitute more than five percent of such funds available to engineering students through Industrial and commercial firms and individuals. The Engineering Foundation, established in 1915, is the only philanthropic endowment devoted exclusively to engineering. Most of its annual income of some $28,000 is spent in research to increase knowledge; it has granted $5,500, however, to the study of engineering aptitudes and interests and to other personnel investigations, $11,000 to the Engineering Division of the National Research Council, and $25,000 to publication activities.24 The Chemical Foundation has made minor grants intended to advance chemical engineering education. T h e Purdue Research Foundation, now spending $9,500 a year on engineering research, is representative of those foundations which are closely affiliated with universities and are exerting an increasing influence on the education of engineers. But as a whole foundations play so minor a role in engineering that Lindeman could find only $272,000 that one hundred of them had given to engineering research in the rich decade of 1921-1930. Practically all of the approximate $22,000 a year spent for engineering research through the National Research Council derives from private industry. More than 60 percent of the $1,401,000 that 1 1 8 engineering colleges annually spend in research is received from

228

Professional

Education

industrial and commercial sources; the G e n e r a l Electric C o m pany and the Bell T e l e p h o n e

Laboratory

each spend

more

a n n u a l l y for research than all the colleges and f o u n d a t i o n s p u t together. 2 8 THE PROFESSION The

OF

EDUCATION

far-flung and amorphous nature of the profession of

education, especially at its lower levels, makes it very difficult to determine what f o u n d a t i o n grants should be i n c l u d e d in this classification and w h a t grants should be left to history or biology or the other nonprofessional categories of higher education. A case illustrative of the point is the C a r n e g i e

Corporation

grant to the A m e r i c a n Historical Association for a comprehensive i n q u i r y into the teaching of the social studies. Since the profession of education deals with the teaching or the educational applications of practically all of the arts a n d sciences it necessarily sprawls itself over the entire field of

learning,

and we need not expect the clear-cut picture presented by law, dentistry, architecture, and other professions. Departments and schools of education have b e e n j o i n t beneficiaries with the other divisions of the colleges in the

large

capital outlay and e n d o w m e n t grants f r o m f o u n d a t i o n s

that

were discussed in C h a p t e r X . I n addition they have received independently Peabody

a few such grants. A t

Education

Fund

in

1914

the dissolution

fourteen state

of

the

university

schools of education were given $460,000, and the G e o r g e Peabody C o l l e g e for T e a c h e r s received $1,500,000. For the same purposes the G e n e r a l E d u c a t i o n Board "has given t o the School of E d u c a t i o n of Harvard University $500,000, to T e a c h e r s College of C o l u m b i a University $1,000,000, to L i n c o l n School of T e a c h e r s C o l l e g e $5,969,638, and to the G e o r g e P e a b o d y College for T e a c h e r s $ 3 , 1 7 7 , 2 3 1 . " 2 8 Aside from the generous grants from the

Rockefellers,

individually

and

corporately,

to

the

School of E d u c a t i o n of the University of C h i c a g o , n o other

Professional

Education

229

schools of education are known to have received from foundations any endowment or capital outlay grants that are worthy of mention. In the undifferentiated field of teacher training the General Education Board has appropriated $1,078,426; for the work of professors of secondary education $940,406; and for training personnel for the profession $1,489,461.27 T h i s Board has given additional sums to the training of personnel for the advancement of knowledge in education, and to the training of Negro teachers at the secondary-school level. T h e Slater and Rosenwald Funds have each contributed slightly over $1,000,000 to similar teacher-training purposes for Negroes. T h i s group stands alone among the foundations in consistently trying to advance the profession of education by immediately providing for the training of its personnel. Some sixty other foundations make occasional and incidental grants to these purposes while promoting some special project or merely seeking to aid some worthy individual. So great a portion of educational research funds has been granted through, rather than to, schools of education that it takes more than the usual insight to discern whether the school and the profession received the primary benefit or were merely agencies in the promotion of some more comprehensive undertaking. At the lower levels the profession is so inarticulate and inclusive that grants allotted it can scarcely be distinguished from those to the broader general purposes of elementary and secondary education. Inextricably a part of all of the fields of learning, the profession seems to assume that it advances itself when it advances these fields. In contriving and perfecting intelligence and achievement tests, guidance devices and techniques, and other means for predicting and measuring the quality of the educational process, professional educators have used foundation funds as much to secure prestige for and to expand their own profession as to advance the causes immedi-

230

Professional

Education

ately studied. Similar results have accrued from most of the research in administration, curriculum, and methods of instruction, regardless of the branch of learning immediately considered. In the broader and more inclusive undertakings the outcome has been as satisfying to schools of education. The foundationsupported general surveys and special studies, which were shown in Chapter VIII to have influenced the development of all higher education, were particularly significant in promoting the growth of schools of education. State school surveys in Vermont, Maryland, Kentucky, Indiana, etc., were followed by improved economic and professional status for the rank and file of teachers, and this in turn accelerated the rapid growth in both the quantity and quality of schools of education. Possibly more, and certainly more rapidly, than in any other vocation, the students of the educative process have built themselves a recognized profession through research activities. It has been a cumulative process, however, and one cannot point to any specific research or type of research as being the chief force. It should be noted that the philanthropic foundations have supplied most of the money for this research. The development of professional education through research and studies is indebted to foundation funds for at least $30,ooo.ooo.28 Not more than half of this sum has been granted to or through schools of education; in fact, a third of it has been for causes that technically are not education at all. But when professors of, say, educational administration, educational methods, educational psychology, and tests and measurements, worked through the national, regional, and state associations to which the grants had directly been made they were none the less enhancing and advancing the school of education. When they served as teaching experts for studies in such fields as the fine arts, library education, adult education, and the curriculum and teaching problems of Latin, German, the sciences, the

Professional Education

231

social studies, professors of education were most effectively promoting education as a profession. Within the more technically defined field of professional education itself the aggregate of foundation grants approaches $16,000,000. Almost every foundation not restricted by charter to some specialty has at one time or another made grants for research or study in the education of teachers. Despite the fact that the field is favored by nearly a hundred foundations, seven philanthropic trusts have granted nearly $13,000,000 of the total. T h e Carnegie Corporation has given $4,000,000; the General Education Board, Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, and the Rockefeller Foundation have each given $2,000,000. A little more than half of these grants were made to national and regional associations of educators rather than directly to schools of education, but since most of the studies and researches were made by the professors of education, and in their institutions, it does not greatly matter to whom the grants were directly made. It was, for example, only in the interests of efficiency that the foundations granted to the American Council on Education the huge sums for developing intelligence and achievement tests, rather than allotting them to the schools of education where these tests were actually devised. There is no need to attempt a detailed factual analysis or synthesis of this multitude of over a thousand grants. The composite pattern of their purposes is well represented by the grants of the Carnegie Corporation, which allocated 48 percent of its $4,000,000 to surveys and practical studies aimed at immediate improvement, 24 percent to research intended to advance educational knowledge, and 28 percent to the general and promotional expenses of the organizations acting as the "professional middlemen" between the Corporation and the actual workers.29 Illustrative of the aggregate of grants to the first of the three purposes just cited are $516,000 for survey studies of ancient and modern foreign languages, $340,000 for

233

Professional Education

a social studies investigation, $638,000 for studies in the professional fields, and $1,250,000 for twelve state-wide school surveys, the current New York State study alone receiving $500,000 of foundation funds. Examples of grants for research intended to advance educational knowledge are $841,000 for the creation of standardized tests, $319,000 for vocational guidance, $200,000 for the Educational Finance Inquiry, $360,000 for college level adult education, and $117,000 for research in child-parent education. The chief recipients of some $4,000,000 of support grants to "professional middlemen" have been the American Council on Education, National Research Council, Social Science Research Council, American Council of Learned Societies, Institute of International Education, American Association for Adult Education, the National Advisory Council on Radio in Education, and the American Library Association. Foundations provided funds also for studies concerned with the functions of teacher-training institutes. Examples are Edwin A. Alderman's study of The Functions and Needs of Schools of Education, made through the General Education Board; Learned and Bagley's survey of teacher training in Missouri, supported and published by the Carnegie Foundation as The Professional Preparation of Teachers for American Public Schools; and Education at the Graduate School Level and five or six closely related studies which have been financed by the Carnegie Corporation. There has been liberal foundation support also for studies of other college and university departments or of the institution as a whole, but the number of these is too long for listing. All in all, possibly no other professional field is today receiving from foundations so large a proportion of its total budgets for research, studies, and the support of professional organizations as that accorded to the profession of teaching. President Keppel has said of research in education:

Professional

Education

233

Basic rcscarch in education deserves a special word. I know many crimcs have been committed in its name, that many claims have been based upon it (though seldom by the worker himself) which cannot be substantiated; but after all allowances are made, I should personally place the genuine accomplishments high in the list of our national achievements since the turn of the century, and look forward to even richer opportunities in the future.80 THE ARTS AND OTHER

PROFESSIONAL

FIELDS

Considerably less than half of the foundation grants in the graphic, pictorial, and practical arts, in architecture, music, drama, museums, and library science have gone into what may be designated as the professional phases of these fields, in contradistinction to the creator's or collector's interest. In a decade 100 foundations have contributed $13,322,490 to the arts, and the best calculations from these tabulations indicate that not more than $4,152,800 may properly be allocated to professional purposes. 31 T h e latter sum would be increased by possibly thirty percent if some fifteen small foundations (and a few large ones) would make available to investigators a record of their grants. As a result of this aversion to publicity the above total for professional grants does not include those of the Juilliard, Eastman, Presser, Atwater Kent, and Bok-Curtis Foundations, much less the numerous smaller foundations. Otherwise the decade of grants indicates the entire history of foundation interest in these fields, since few such grants were made before 1920. An analysis of current grants to the arts indicates that in 1934 the total was $2,286,898, and if professional interests received about the same proportion as for the decade, their annual foundation support is now about $750,ooo.82 T h e Carnegie and Rockefeller groups of foundations and the Commonwealth and Rosenwald funds have expressed the largest, most catholic, and most persistent interest in the arts; the Carnegie Corporation, in particular, has been outstanding in the leadership it has exercised. A brief outline of its grants for

234

Professional

Education

the professional aspects of the arts in American universities and colleges will probably best reflect foundation interest in these fields. Since 1 9 1 1 the Corporation has granted $875,000 for endowment in fourteen universities, $1,214,000 for support, and $528,000 for art teaching equipment in 102 colleges.88 Approximately $126,000 has been devoted to the maintenance of summer classes for training college art teachers at the Sorbonne, Harvard, Chicago, and Oregon; $195,000 has been granted to college art teachers and museum curators in fellowships for professional study. For a study of architectural education by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture the Corporation has granted $23,000; and for a study of art in the colleges by the Association of American Colleges it has to 1937 granted $10,000. In the field of music education, which the records of the Corporation separate from the other fine arts, $100,000 has been granted for endowment at Northwestern, $56,000 for experiments at six colleges, $50,000 for support and equipment at five colleges, and $45,500 for the support of the national professional organizations of college music teachers.34 All of these professional grants at the college level have consumed less than half of a $5,000,000 total of grants from the Corporation; the balance has been devoted to the arts and music at the other educational levels and in nonschool channels, but much of this expenditure has had a somewhat immediate influence on collegiate professional activities. Carnegie is by far the most powerful name in library philanthropy. Before the Carnegie Corporation was formed in 1911 Andrew Carnegie had personally given $43,000,000 to libraries, of which nearly $4,000,000 was for college library buildings. 85 Since 1 9 1 1 the Carnegie Corporation has given approximately $26,000,000 to all library purposes, or about one-sixth of its total income. An analysis of its grants indicate that $10,000,000 of the total has been allocated to American college and university purposes, $6,000,000 directly to the colleges, and

Professional

Education

235

$4,000,000 indirectly to their purposes through professional and learned societies, of which the American Library Association has been the chief channel. Strictly professional library education received $4,331,860 of the $10,000,000 allocated to higher education. Of the $6,000,000 granted directly to the colleges $3,503,800 went to professional schools for training librarians and $1,000,000 to endowing the graduate library school of the University of Chicago; the bulk of the remainder was for support and special projects at the library schools of Chicago, Columbia, Emory, North Carolina, and Hampton Institute, and the balance was unevenly granted to the purposes of eleven other college library schools. T o enable American college librarians to take advantage of these facilities the Corporation has from time to time provided fellowships which now add up to $96,200, and it has provided $10,000 for other types of grants-in-aid. T o add further to the prestige of the professional librarian the Corporation, as a demonstration, granted $750,000 to endow in equal amounts librarianships at Lafayette, Oberlin, Mt. Holyoke, Swarthmore, and Wesleyan. For various surveys and studies of professional library education and closely related problems the Corporation has now made grants that aggregate $131,860; the American Library Association was the agency through which $73,950 of this was spent, and the remaining $57,910 was routed through such professional channels as the Association of American Universities and the National Research Council. For the less specifically professional purposes college libraries have received $2,738,896 from the Carnegie Corporation, of which $639,146 was for buildings at fourteen institutions, $495,000 for endowment at eight institutions, and $1,221,000 for general development, chiefly the purchase of books, at ninety-five institutions. Professional libraries in dentistry, medicine, law, and engineering received grants for books that

236

Professional

Education

aggregated $159,000, and $174,750 was devoted to developing specialized libraries in seven universities. Studies of college and university library problems by national professional associations consumed $120,590. Colleges have received their share of general service from the American Library Association, to which the Carnegie Corporation has contributed $2,000,000 for endowment, as well as over $1,000,000 for the support of its general program of service to public and college libraries. The Corporation's powerful influence in this field derives from the stimulation given to professional groups. T h e Corporation merely cooperates with other foundations and does not own, control, supervise, administer, or advise any library or library board. Concerning misconceptions on these points the Corporation makes the following statement: Many persons—even librarians—seem to labor at times under the impression that the Corporation and the American Library Association have set up some kind of informal monopoly, or combination in restraint of trade, as it were, in the library field. As a matter of fact, it is a pleasure to record that other foundations, notably the General Education Board and the Rosenwald Fund, and scores of benevolent citizens have found the public and academic library a suitable outlet for energy and money. The Rosenwald Fund has expended $786,685 on library interests. The Rockefeller funds have granted many times that amount for library buildings, library schools, development of libraries, and similar interests.36 Possibly a half-dozen other professional and semiprofessional fields have had financial assistance from foundations in the study and promotion of their work. Agricultural education, forestry, schools of social work, and schools of public administration lead the list. But foundations have not achieved in these fields the lasting results recorded for other professions, partly because of ineffective leadership and partly because their interest was too brief and the grants too meager for the scope of the projects undertaken. The classical illustration of this weakness is the declaration of the General Education Board on

Professional Education

237

initiating its forestry study: "For the purpose of enabling the National Academy of Sciences to make a thorough study of the entire subject in this country and abroad, the Board, on the application of the Academy, made an appropriation of $50,000." 37 The sum appropriated was so small that any "thorough study of the entire subject in this country and abroad" was practically impossible. For the much less ambitious undertaking of a survey of the professional schools of forestry in the United States the Carnegie Corporation appropriated $30,000 to the Society of American Foresters in 1928. The $30,000 voted by the General Education Board for a study of agricultural education about completes the interests of foundations in this cluster of professions and semiprofessions. These three studies have had a beneficial though certainly not a marked influence; it will take a great deal more money and time to produce results comparable to those which followed the studies in medicine, law, or education. Aside from the support of existing programs, the influence of foundations in the remaining professional and semiprofessional fields has been too minor to be outlined in the broad sweep of the present study.

C H A P T E R

XII

Activities for Nonprofessional Education

T

HIS chapter will deal primarily with foundation contributions to the instructional and research activities of the university or graduate schools in contrast to those of the college and professional schools, but the distinction cannot always be maintained. A contribution for research in the chemical nature of insulin, for example, could be considered as a grant to professional medical research or as a grant to basic research in chemistry; likewise it requires an arbitrary decision to put such a study as Justice and the Poor under legal education rather than under social science research, or a grant to drama under the humanities rather than under professional education in the fine arts. The division of the field of learning into mutually exclusive categories is as artificial and arbitrary within the university itself, and as certain to produce a crop of exceptions. Dr. Waldo G. Leland of the American Council of Learned Societies has suggested that foundation grants at the university level can be separated at least into the natural and physical sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities, observing the distinction that "the natural and physical sciences deal with man's environment, the most remote as well as the most immediate; the social sciences with man in his association with other men; while the humanities concern themselves with the manifestations of his spiritual existence." This convenient classification will be followed here, with expansion of such divisions as have received significant foundation grants. But it must be remembered that such disciplines as psychology, history, geography, and anthro-

Nonprofessional

Education

239

pology overlap and that grants in them are not given the same allocation by different agencies and investigators. In the decade following the World War the amount of money that Americans devoted to scholarly inquiry in these basic fields increased tenfold, reaching an estimated total of $217,000,000 annually by 1927. 1 Of this obviously large sum industrial and commercial corporations supplied ninety percent, most of which the corporations used in their own research organizations; the latter increased from about 300 in 1920 to 1,575 in 1933. 2 Private business has probably contributed little, if any, less than the philanthropic foundations to universities and other noncommercial agencies for research in the sciences, but its influence does not come within the scope of this study. Before the World War, except for such endowments as the Smithsonian and Carnegie Institutions, foundations were not active in promoting research in any of the sciences. T h e practical necessities incident to the war heightened scientific interest and produced a public attitude which permitted foundations to participate wholeheartedly in the physical and natural sciences, and to enter the fact-finding, noncontroversial areas of the social and humanistic sciences. Moreover, this was a practical next step in promoting the medical and other professional education programs to which the foundations were committed. By 1920 the support and endowment of basic "pure" research was receiving $2,000,000 a year from foundation sources. The grants since that time are shown in Table VI. Between the first and the last year of this decade of lavish foundation giving the combined purposes of these fields received nearly a four-fold increase in contributions, and a hundred percent increase in proportion to the total given for all purposes. Roughly, these four fields received eight percent of the 1921 total of grants, sixteen percent of the 1930 grants, and twenty-five percent of the 1934 grants, the latter figure indicat-

240

Nonprofessional

Education

Table VI FOUNDATION GRANTS TO NONPROFESSIONAL EDUCATION Field igai • '93°* 1921-30* 1934* Grants to all purposes $36,344,505 $61,704,783 $528,420,034 $40,861462 Natural and physical sciences Social sciences Humanities Education and psychology TOTAL

$1,312,120

$3,771,265

$22,677,544

$1,760,167

182,171

5,275,050

27,313,715

4,238,133

45.88*

477>365

4.'55.554

7*8,178

1,258,348

807,61.4

10,873,377

3,662,026

$2,798,521

$10,331,294

$65,020,190

$10,388,504

«Compiled from Eduard C. Lindeman, Wealth and Culture, pp. 6 8 - 1 3 5 . Compiled from Twentieth Century Fund, American Foundations and Their Fields, ¡9)4, pp. 4 5 - 6 0 . Differences in the bases for the two tabulations, as discussed in the Introduction, should be kept in mind.

ing that the rate of acceleration for the current decade is keeping pace with that of 1921-30. Only the physical and natural sciences were receiving any appreciable foundation grants in 1921; before the W o r l d W a r their grants had been negligible and those to the social and humanistic sciences practically nonexistent. Since

1921

the

natural and physical sciences have continued to receive about the same proportion of the expanding philanthropic budget, but the social sciences have received an ever-increasing proportion and are clearly the dominant foundation interest for the 1921-30 decade, as well as for the succeeding half decade. Grants to education and psychology were discussed under professional education, b u t since they are so frequently classified with the social sciences they are included in T a b l e V I to show that they are not here included in the large and rapidly mounting social science grants. Contributions since

1921

to the

scholarly purposes of the humanities, while small when compared to the totals for the natural or social sciences, have accounted for an increasing proportion of the total of foundation gifts. A t the present rate of growth these cultural undertakings will soon be receiving $1,000,000 a year from foundations. In the following pages foundation grants to the natural, social, and humanistic sciences will be further analyzed to show the

Nonprofessional

Education

241

sums devoted to such purposes as departmental support, fellowships, research, associations, publications, and conferences. PHYSICAL

AND N A T U R A L

SCIENCES

Possibly the Smithsonian Institution, dating from 1846, should be considered the first foundation consistently to express an interest in this group of sciences; certainly it and the Carnegie Institution of Washington, dating from 1902, and having assets of $35,000,000, and the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research were almost alone among the foundations promoting advanced research in these fields before 1918. During this period the Carnegie Institution spent $15,000,000 in research and $700,000 in publishing some 400 volumes of research findings. Aside from the fact that much of this new knowledge soon found its way back into university channels of research and instruction, this pioneer foundation made progress toward resolving the professional conflict between such operating foundations and the universities themselves.8 " T o work out a fundamental theory of administration for this new type of educational enterprise, and to help in popularizing scientific method and the use of the results of research will constitute no small part of its total contribution," is Sears' appraisal of the Carnegie Institution, which he concludes with the declaration that " T o the universities of the country it not only has furnished a great stimulus to research, but it has also given much direct assistance by financing important pieces of investigation and by publishing finished pieces of research." 4 T h e Institution continues to spend over $1,500,000 a year in scientific research aimed primarily at extending the boundaries of knowledge, but it now makes only occasional grants to outside agencies and has lessened its active cooperation with individual universities to less than a half dozen. T h e World War made evident the necessity for cooperation

242

Nonprofessional

Education

between pure-research men in the universities, government bureaus, and elsewhere and experts engaged in applying research in industry. As a measure of national preparedness, essential research had to be coordinated and focused. As the agency to accomplish these purposes the President of the United States created the National Research Council which was jointly supported during the war by philanthropy, industry, and the government itself. T o preserve its useful function after the emergency had passed, the Carnegie Corporation in 1919 appropriated $1,450,000 for a permanent headquarters building and I3.550.000 for an endowment fund. During the war the Corporation granted the Council $250,000 for support, and it has since devoted $1,485,569 to the same purposes. For science research in various universities and institutions the Corporation has granted through the National Research Council $160,763 —a grand total of $6,896,332 from one philanthropic foundation for the promotion of the natural and physical sciences through a single administrative agency.5 The Council annually administers above $800,000 for research and the training of research workers in this group of sciences; over $600,000 of this comes from Rockefeller and Carnegie funds, and the balance about equally from other foundations and from industrial sources. Of this budget about 44.4 percent is for fellowships, 43.6 percent for research projects, and 12 percent for general maintenance.6 Since 1919 the Council has administered $4,022,275 for fellowships in physics, chemistry, mathematics, and the biological and natural sciences. Since the National Research Council is composed so largely of university professors and is so largely a clearinghouse for university scientific work, at least 90 percent of its expenditures may properly be considered as directly promoting the scholarly purposes of the natural and physical sciences in colleges and universities. The current interest of foundations in the physical and

Nonprofessional

Education

243

natural sciences may be considered an outgrowth of the remedial and preventive health programs that the foundations earlier undertook as a means of alleviating human suffering. At first support was given to the recognized medical sciences of anatomy, physiology, and pathology in the belief that they could provide the needed "remedies." When the latter were not forthcoming the foundations extended support to include such newer sciences as bacteriology, embryology, biochemistry, and genetics, and these researches have led back to the fundamental study in the basic fields of biology, chemistry, and physics. It is only little more than a decade since leaders in medical education were convinced that further general advances in medicine must await the findings of pure research; representative of these views is the declaration of Professor Lawrence Henderson that "medicine has to stop now; we can't go any farther until physics and chemistry and certain phases of biology are ready to answer the questions which we are now asking; they must catch up to the point where they can really support medicine." From such cues almost a score of the newer foundations have included basic natural-science research among their activities. In the last decade and a half the foundations have contributed steadily and, except for the depression years, increasingly to pure science research. T h e distribution of grants to the natural and physical sciences for the decade 1 9 2 1 - 3 0 is shown in Table V I I . Table VII A D E C A D E OF G R A N T S F R O M 100 F O U N D A T I O N S T O T H E N A T U R A L AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES« Purpose Departmental and general support Fellowships Research Associations Publications Conferences TOTAL

19*1 10,767 49,808

1921-30

1 .245913

'93O 9'.745 334.055 3,263,752

4.782 850

198 81,515

5*-793 37'.975 20.000

$ 1 ,312,120

$3,771,265

$22,677,544

9

1

»Compiled from Eduard C. Lindeman, Wealth and Culture,

t

534.587 1,698,189 20,000,000

pp. 68-135.

244

Nonprofessional

Education

T h e large proportion of the total grants devoted to actual research is explained by the fact that the foundations had previously assisted in developing and supporting science laboratory facilities. Most of the departmental grants were for additional facilities for new research projects. A n attempt to analyze by departments the natural and physical science grants for 1921-30 leaves $9,153,211 unclassified, and roughly allocates to biology $4,474,580, to physics $4,466,875, to astronomy $2,866,400, to botany $1,117,720, to chemistry $342,000, to geology $293,000, and to mathematics $41,000. T h e purposes of foundation grants are interesting—the 100-inch telescope at Mt. Wilson, for example, or the 200-inch one now being constructed at Mt. Palomar, California, under the supervision of the California Institute of Technology—but the immediate aims of this study would not be furthered by an analysis of departmental grants. T h e only available figures for the years since 1930 are those from American Foundations and Their Fields for 1930, 1931, and 1934; these show that even during the lean years of the depression the physical and natural sciences continued to receive a proportionate share of the total grants, with the money going most largely to chemistry, mathematics, and biology. T h e Rockefeller and Carnegie philanthropies continued to give approximately ninety percent of the total, the Buhl Foundation being the only other fund to give over $100,000 annually. Apparently scientific inquiry may count upon continuing to receive as large a share of the income of foundations as it has had for the past decade, and when supplemented by university funds, gifts from individuals, industrial and commercial corporations, this type of research should be able to continue its way without curtailment. Science is established in the public confidence by what it has already done on the one hand to relieve suffering, to promote comfort and convenience. and to lighten toil, and on the other hand to increase

Nonprofessional

Education

245

dividends, to create new sources of wealth, and to stimulate further technological advances. SOCIAL

SCIENCES

Chapter III, in showing the development of policies for participating in controversial problems, pointed out that whenever foundations get into trouble, as they do from time to time, it is practically always because of something they have done in the social field, or in the application of questioned social theories to education, business, or industry. T h e Congressional investigation of the Rockefeller and Carnegie philanthropies is a case in point. This investigation overthrew the comprehensively planned studies of industrial relations which W . L. Mackenzie King had initiated for the Rockefeller Foundation in 1914; in fact it put a damper on foundation activities in the social studies that lasted well into the 1920's. T h e vague but significant uneasiness of the conservative mind when faced with proposals involving the possibilities of profound social change has been well described by Keppel: We are all greatly concerned with what may be called the end products of economics, of social and political behavior, of education. How could it be otherwise? But when it comes to probing beneath the surface, down to the underlying problems of the distribution of wealth, of social and antisocial conduct, of good or bad government, of good or bad education, then we hesitate. I am not sure whether many of us have a definite suspicion that such activities may threaten the existing order, or whether the difficulty is not rather a vague sense of lurking danger in any meddling with our folkways, but certainly the average man is far from comfortable in the presence of any deep-lying social problems, and in no mood to contribute towards their solution by supporting the very steps he extols when they are applied to problems in the natural sciences.7 Many university professors of the first two decades of the century had both the preparation and the courage to undertake

246

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fundamental research in the social sciences, but many of them were prevented from doing so not only by a lack of funds but also by the suspicious attitude of the public which Keppel describes. The privately endowed universities, where most of this research would probably have been done, occupied a particularly vulnerable position: certain important financial supporters might construe important research in the social sciences as inimical to the capitalistic system and to other fundamentals of the existing social order, while the progressives might interpret such undertakings as disguised attempts to defend the status quo and hinder the normal acceleration of social change. T o avoid both horns of the dilemma the universities apparently tacitly pursued a previously quoted policy of the Carnegie Institution: " . . . it appears to be the part of wisdom to pursue chiefly those researches which meet with approval, rather than opposition, from contemporary society." The net effect has been both to delay social science research and to establish it outside the universities, chiefly in independent institutes, councils, and societies largely supported by foundations and conducted by college professors.8 The "independent institute" in social science research probably arose from the necessity for an agency in which contemporary society would consider it had no vested interests and through which the foundation could consequently participate with the professor in studies that neither of them could with wisdom pursue under official auspices. Often the institute was little more than an administrative device to conciliate public opinion; the university tacitly cooperated and the professor did the same research off the campus or unofficially that he now more largely does in his own laboratories. The controlling boards were and are composed of at least one-third college professors, and the officers and research directors are eminent university scholars, such as Joseph H. Willits, Wesley C. Mitchell, and Howard G. Moulton. In the National Bureau of Economic Research:

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The research staff has included men from the faculties of Amherst, Buffalo, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Minnesota, Michigan, New School for Social Research, New York University, Pennsylvania, Rutgers and Wisconsin. For briefer periods we have had the collaboration of men from still other universities. . . . Most of our "permanent" staff have been at the same time teachers in the receipt of salaries from some university. In effect the universities have been subsidizing the National Bureau's investigations—to this no objections have been raised.9 Lacking only the organic connection, the institutes are essentially joint university research departments, largely supported by philanthropic foundations. Many of them, as for example the Food Research Institute at Stanford University, are housed on the university campus, provide the usual graduate training facilities and are now being organically assimilated into the university. 10 T h e Brookings Institution is an example of the consolidation of associated institutes into a type of research organization with the legal power to grant graduate degrees. 11 Clearly there is little reason for the present study of foundation influence on higher education to distinguish between the pur poses of grants to institutes and grants to universities. Despite the difficulties described, the flow of foundation funds to the social science fields increased so rapidly after 1921 that for the decade they surpassed the combined grants to the natural sciences and the humanities. T a b l e V I I I distributes these grants according to major purposes: Table VIII A DECADE OF GRANTS FROM 100 F O U N D A T I O N S T O T H E SOCIAL SCIENCES " Purpose Departmental and general support Fellowships Research Associations Publications Conferences TOTAL

192»

•93°

1921-30

181471

$3,025,836 270,156 1,684,100 14,887 268,343

$11,550,724 2,092,280 12,876,604 146.163 585466 62478

$

500 200

11,728 $182,171

$5-275.05° $«7.3'3.7'5 o Compiled from Eduard C. Lindeman, Wealth and Culture, pp. 68-135.

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T h e Carnegie Corporation and the Carnegie Institution together supplied $145,000 of the comparatively meager 1921 total, the Commonwealth Fund being the only other foundation making an appreciable grant. After 1922 the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial aggressively entered the social science fields, and since its consolidation with the Rockefeller Foundation in 1928-29 the latter has made considerably more than half of all the foundation grants to social science activities in the United States. Because foundation policies in the social sciences have avowedly intended to break down narrow departmental boundaries, which they considered detrimental to fruitful research, an analysis of this decade of grants according to departments would not be very significant. Only $5,655,314 of the total social science grants was allocated to specific fields: economics $3,705,691, history $1,173,773, anthropology $600,492, and political science $175,358. The remainder, or about four-fifths of the ten-year total, was used for grants unclassified as to department. This sum includes, in about equal amounts, undifferentiated research grants, which we shall presently attempt to analyze according to function, and general support and endowment grants to universities, institutes, and councils. 12 The volume of the latter type of grant is accounted for by newness of interest, the meager research facilities in the universities, and the necessity for housing, equipping, and providing the overhead expenses of the institutes and councils. These general support and endowment grants are made up of such items as the $5,000,000 aggregate of social science grants to the University of Chicago from the Rockefeller Foundation, the General Education Board, and the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, a $1,737,100 support and endowment grant to the Food Research Institute at Stanford University from the Carnegie Corporation, and a joint grant of $3,871,106 from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Laura Spelman Rocke-

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feller Memorial for the purposes of the Social Science Research Council. Many critics of foundation-supported social science research do not admit the contention that there is little reason to distinguish between research in the institutes and in the universities. T h e y believe the support for the institutes has so largely come from single sources as sometimes to put the recipients on the defensive in establishing their independence. T h e Social Science Research Council, for example, with practically all of its income deriving from foundation sources and ninety-three percent of the $4,197,606 received during the first decade ( 1 9 2 3 - 3 3 ) coming from sundry Rockefeller funds alone, has been subjected to this kind of criticism. 13 T h e Council defends itself by saying: The exercise by social scientists in the United States of that complete freedom of inquiry which is essential to the advance of the understanding of men in their complex relationships, depends upon financial aid from private sources, to the great private endowments which, in granting financial support have fully protected the freedom of inquiry, social scientists owe an inextinguishable debt. 14 T h e sources of support of the Brookings Institution and the National Bureau of Economic Research are similar to the Council's. T h e Bureau defends the impartiality of its research, declaring that every manuscript is supposed to be read, and approved or dissented from in writing, by each member of the board of directors, who are about equally representative of private business, universities, and trade and learned associations. 15 Despite this defense and the use of university professors to conduct most of the research, a progressive and competent scholar has complained to the author that "past performance indicates that we need not expect many findings from these institutes other than those which justify and bolster status quo economic and social proposals." T h e National Bureau of Eco-

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nomic Research, admitting that Rockefeller funds currently supply three-fourths of its income, but vigorously reasserting the freedom of action it has enjoyed, admits a measure of validity in the criticism by declaring, " W e have become dependent upon one of the great foundations for too large a portion of our income." 1 6 But judged by research output, there is little to distinguish institute from university products. Since about three-fourths of the specific research grants to the social sciences cannot be classified according to departments, and since these are the fields where investigators and foundations tend to show their social-economic bias and other predilections, a brief functional analysis of representative projects is worth attempting. This task can be abridged by preceding the analysis with a statement of the errors foundations have made in promoting research. It has been well done by a discerning and experienced foundation official, whose admissions from the inner circle should carry additional weight: It must, alas, be admitted that there is a good deal of bunk connected with this whole question of research and scholarship. The foundations must acknowledge their share of the blame. Without the least intention of doing so, they have overstimulated certain fields, they have spoiled certain individuals, for your man of scholarship is a human, often a very human being. They have, I fear, been the chief offenders in forcing the techniques of research which developed in the natural sciences, where experimentation is relatively simple, where verification is usually possible, where controls are available, into the social sciences and the humanities, where conditions are very different.17 This tendency of foundations to pamper individual investigators, insist on inappropriate techniques, and overstimulate certain fields probably partially accounts for some of the innocuous, inconclusive, and otherwise invalid findings which have been produced. T o avoid perpetuating these mistakes foundations have adopted the policy of making grants largely on the expert advice of learned councils and associations, and gener-

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ally to or through them. Undoubtedly other efforts will be made to resolve these hindering influences. What major research projects have the foundations supported in the general social science fields? Representative examples range from such studies as America's Capacity to Produce and the study of Business Cycles to the publication of the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, the Social Science Abstracts, and the United States Daily; or from the studies of Social Security Problems and Credit Union Cooperatives to the study of National and International Monetary and Credit Problems; or finally, the examples would include such complex studies as Governmental Reorganization and Personnel, Government-Business Relations, the Social Studies Investigation, Recent Social Trends in the United States, Land Economics and Public Utilities, Food Economics, Southern regional and pioneer belt studies, and investigations of migration and other population questions. It is believed that this selection includes all the degrees of conservatism and radicalism and all the variations of social-economic views which constitute the focal points of controversy in the social sciences. Obviously this survey cannot comment on each of the examples; it must restrict itself to illustrating the noncontroversial, the mildly controversial, and the highly controversial projects. It must be recognized that the degree of controversy is only partly determined by the inherent nature of the project; it is determined also by the preconceptions of the interpreter. T h e millions of dollars that foundations have devoted to producing the tools for social science research and for conducting fact-finding studies have generally been pronounced valid and unbiased contributions to the development of this phase of higher education. Among such contributions one would list the J 1,000,000 subsidy for producing the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, $600,000 of it coming from the Rockefeller Foundation, $275,000 from the Carnegie Corpora-

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tion, $100,000 from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, and $25,000 from the Russell Sage Foundation. T h e Social Science Abstracts is another valuable tool which came into existence with the aid of a $500,000 foundation subsidy, largely from Rockefeller sources. Foundations have spent almost another $1,000,000 improving technique of gathering and recording the basic statistical data which form such a large part of the raw materials of social science research. T h e noncontroversial label is properly attached to the $1,737,100 study of the production, consumption, marketing, and prices throughout the world of certain basic food commodities, such as wheat, fats, and oils, which was financed by the Carnegie Corporation and conducted by the Food Research Institute at Stanford University. It likewise belongs on the $250,000 the Carnegie Institution has devoted to research in historical documents, and to the various regional migration, and population studies which foundations have supported. Practically any other of the examples of research would be classed by different interpreters as anything from mildly to violently controversial. T h e foundations, universities, and institutions may well take comfort in the fact that the projects are attacked with equal ardor from the right and from the left. "Economic royalists" condemn the findings of the Brookings Institution, the Twentieth Century Fund, the Social Studies Commission, or the Committee on Recent Social Trends as "radical" and imperiling the existing social order; socialists and other progressives in economics condemn them as heartily for being compromise measures to bolster up the existing capitalistic system and hinder the coming of an economy of abundance. T h e Rockefeller Foundation spent over $500,000 on the Recent Social Trends study and the Carnegie Corporation appropriated $340,000 to the American Historical Association to support the Social Studies Investigation. T h e conclusions and recommendations of these studies are the commonplace working

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outlines of progressive college and university courses throughout the country, yet many ultraconservative educators join a minority of the trustees of philanthropic foundations in condemning and opposing the recommendations as inimical to a continuance of the American democratic economic and social order." Possibly no other group studying economics has presented a more society-centered program than the Twentieth Century Fund, which has an annual budget of less than $250,000. Its studies on social security, credit-union cooperatives, medical economics, and stock-market control have been progressive enough to be largely incorporated into New Deal legislation for the protection of "the forgotten man." Yet the opposing political party was willing to adopt the Fund's social security views, and Wall Street itself now praises the stock-market control study.19 The research projects of the National Bureau of Economic Research and of the Brookings Institution have also been centers of controversy. The progressives join with the Bureau in lamenting its large dependence on Rockefeller support, and assert that the findings of the Brookings Institution are too often colored by gifts from the same source, citing the large and continuing gifts from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial and the Rockefeller Foundation. An average grant of $75,000 a year from the Rockefeller Foundation has continued since it absorbed the Memorial. During its history the Brookings Institution has received $1,875,000 from the Carnegie Corporation for unrestricted economic research, and since 1932 it has received annually for specified purposes about $65,000 from the Falk Foundation. The tone of Arthur Krock's comment on the Brookings publication, The Recovery Problem in the United States, is representative of the progressive-radical criticism of its projects in general. He observes that the Institution is "self-assertively impartial" and adds:

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Yet, though professedly nonpolitical and Olympian where factional specifications are concerned . . . it is asking a great deal to expect anyone to believe that even the Brookings experts are not responsive to what Justice Stone once termed "a personal economic predilection." T o this correspondent such a predilection strongly appears in the "Recovery Problem" at many points which have long been in dispute between the Hoover and the Roosevelt administrations, and it is highly favorable to the ex-President's contentions. A favorite Hoover thesis, stoutly supported by Ogden Mills, Frank Knox and the Cleveland convention orators and platform writers, is that the depression in the United States was being mastered by the administration in the Spring of 1932. In Chapter IV the Brookings Institution book pretty well supports this general argument. T h e subjoined is eloquent of an economic preference which should not be lost on the President or his predecessor: "One thing is altogether obvious—that under modern conditions governments cannot possibly escape the adoption of defensive measures . . . It is not possible to prove from available evidence whether recovery has been impeded rather than promoted by government activity, but it does not follow as a fact that the abandonment of the gold standard promoted world recovery, for it disorganized international economic relations," etc. Hanging on to the gold standard is one of the most agreed indictments against Mr. Hoover. 20 Obviously the study could not attempt to make a contribution without entering highly controversial ground and undoubtedly it will be as favorably commended as it is frankly questioned in the quotation above. America's

Capacity

to Pro-

duce is representative of controversial Brookings studies whose findings are much more pleasing to the progressives. It was produced with the cooperation of the Falk Foundation and is widely used as a source book in university classes seeking to understand how production, distribution, and the use of consumer goods can be redirected within the existing economic framework. Capitalists and corporations subscribing to a differ-

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ent ideal of income distribution do not so heartily approve what one of them privately terms its "socialistic and bolshevistic tendencies." Enough has been given to indicate what a detailed analysis of foundation-supported social science research would probably show as to the economic and social convictions of its sponsors and investigators. Probably condemnation of such research studies by both the extremely conservative and the extremely radical may be taken as an indication that they are reasonably well-balanced. It is not necessary to extend the discussion to include the National Recovery Administration research at the University of Pittsburgh, the gold standard studies at Brown, the unemployment studies at Minnesota, or similar researches at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, Chicago, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and elsewhere. In the aggregate such university studies since 1929 have cost the foundations about $500,000 a year, but as previously indicated, they are little different from those conducted by the same or similar university professors under other auspices. The point to be established is that the social sciences are undergoing a profound and rapid development, and that more than any other supporting agency the philanthropic foundations are pointing and guiding this phase of the development of American higher education. Since this research has been attacked, and as heartily supported, by both radicals and reactionaries, and since it is widely accepted and used by the "galloping gradualists" who seek to modify the economic and social order by evolutionary rather than revolutionary processes, it is probably socially desirable source material. Certainly it has served the valuable purpose of furthering the graduate training of young scholars and of helping to maintain the balance between teaching and research that is usually deemed essential in the mature scholar.

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HUMANITIES

Historically the humanistic studies have been the heart of the university, and this prestige has assured them a preferred claim on existing university funds. But as a consequence philanthropic foundations, in following their inclination to modernize higher education, have tended to neglect them and to aid instead such "infant studies" as those commonly grouped in the natural and social sciences and their professional counterparts. As these "infants" have come to overshadow and even smother the older "carriers of the essence of culture and civilization" a few foundations have begun a demonstration of how the humanities can be provided a fairer chance for development. As is shown in Table IX the humanities were receiving next to nothing from foundations in 1921, but by 1930 they were receiving about $500,000 a year; this sum would be doubled if different bases for compilation were used. Humanities is an inclusive and loosely used term. A t the center of this field concerned with the "manifestations of man's spiritual existence," to repeat Leland's phrase, there is no doubt about its distinction from the social and natural sciences. But on the periphery one is uncertain; the line separating the fields becomes more and more indistinct. For example, the different foundations classify similar grants to the Fogg Museum of Harvard University in such varying categories as the humanities, fine arts, social sciences, aesthetics, and professional education in the arts.21 "Geology, economics, mechanics, are humanities when taught with reference to the successive achievements of the geniuses to which these sciences owe their being," declares William James. "Not taught thus, literature remains grammar, art a catalogue, and history a list of dates." Even if the nature of the material permitted an exact classification of grants, foundation bookkeeping does not often record the grants specifically enough to permit such an allocation.28 T h e reader can only be warned that a tabulation of grants into

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generalized categories for the purpose of showing totals contributed to the field is a futile if not a misleading undertaking.28 Nevertheless when grants over a long period are generalized by a standard that is consistent even though inadequate, the results should show the significant trends. Lindeman's tabulation of the grants of one hundred foundations to the humanities for the decade 1921-30 covers about two-thirds of the total history of such awards. The definition he gave this category is not known, but at least it is consistent and will foreshadow foundation interest. Table I X summarizes the trends in terms of six major purposes. Table IX A DECADE OF G R A N T S FROM 100 FOUNDATIONS T O T H E HUMANITIES* Purpose 1981-30 19s 1 •95° Departmental and general support Fellowships Research Associations Publications Conferences TOTAL

$

45.88«

$45.88*

$340,857

63408 64,900 7 XX» 1400

$477>365

$3>357.® IO 73.934

656,800 47.000 17,700 8,500

$4.'55.554

• Compiled from Eduard C. Lindeman, Wealth and Culture, pp. 68-135.

The preponderance of grants for the support, endowment, and capital outlay of university departments and independent institutes reflects a trend that we have found to be associated with the early stages of each major foundation activity. The relatively insignificant percent of the total grants for the decade devoted to publications and fellowships is also an indication of the undeveloped status of the field. It is safe to predict from the experience of the more developed fields that the next decade will show a rapid diminution of support and capital giants in the humanities, and a corresponding increase in grants for research, fellowships, and publications. Since approximately ninety-five percent of the total of grants to the humanities have come from the Rockefeller and Car-

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negie funds, probably a résumé of their activities will make more meaningful the generalized picture presented by Table IX; it will also bring up to date the history of contributions to this field. Between 1929 and 1936 this group of philanthropies annually appropriated an average of $1,500,000 to the humanities (as measured by the Rockefeller Foundation's inclusive use of this term), with $1,100,000 of it coming from the Foundation alone.24 During its whole history the General Education Board has appropriated $6,615,760 (most of it since 1922) to the humanities.25 The Rockefeller Foundation, which entered the field in 1929, has since appropriated $7,516,100, and the other Rockefeller funds approximately $500,ooo.28 Using the Foundation's actual grants as a rough basis for definition, it may be estimated that the Carnegie grants to the humanities total $5,300,000, with the Carnegie Corporation having supplied $4,425,000 of the sum.27 The Carnegie Corporation and the General Education Board were the pioneers in the field, but after the entry of the Rockefeller Foundation in 1929 they so restricted and decreased their grants that today each annually appropriates less than $100,000 to the humanities. The approximately $20,000,000 which the foundations have appropriated to the humanities is only slightly over two percent of the total granted to all purposes since 1920; it is insignificant when compared to the lavish grants to medicine or education, or to the social or natural sciences. Twenty million dollars is, however, a very large sum. What has it done to develop the humanistic studies in American higher education? About $6,000,000 of it, contributed to such institutions as the American Academy at Rome, the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, and various archaeological institutes, has been used for training American university teachers and for exploration and research. Each of these institutions, though outside the United States, is doing more to advance American higher edu-

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cation than would be possible were it actually in the homeland. They are philanthropically supported training stations, located in the seed-beds of our civilization, dedicated to advancing both the personnel and the source materials of the universities. Foundation aid to the humanities often consists in building up or making available valuable collections of books and other source materials, and such undertakings are often more international than national. For example, American higher education will profit almost as much as that of England from the $2,300,000 Rockefeller gift to make usable the treasure of manuscripts and books that has been accumulating since 1610 in the Bodleian Library of Oxford University. In a like category one would place the grants to the five German and Austrian academies for completing the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, which was begun in 1893 and is being conducted along the lines of the Oxford English Dictionary. T h e $620,500 project of the American Council of Learned Societies for producing the Dictionary of American Biography, the University of Chicago's preparation of the Historical Dictionary of American English, the University of Michigan's preparation of a dictionary of early modern English, and the Virginia Historical Index which makes available a knowledge of three hundred years of American life are additional examples of foundation support for producing widely usable tools of learning. Numerous grants to the Library of Congress and the American Library Association to prepare source materials and furnish service for humanistic scholars further demonstrate the service of foundations to the humanities. T h e Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago has received the most lavish foundation support of all similar humanistic agencies in America—$8,000,000 from the International Education Board, General Education Board, and the Rockefeller Foundation, and this largely since 1923.28 A description of the Institute declares:

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Its purpose is to contribute to the understanding of human life by furnishing a fuller knowledge of the processes and stages by which civilization has evolved. This purpose involves the task of recovering the records of a great group of lost civilizations in the Near East, where Western civilization arose. Field expeditions are constantly at work to gather the source material, by excavation and purchase, while at Chicago the Institute carries on an extensive series of researches to interpret and publish the results. T h e Institute endeavors to deal with ancient civilizations as a whole; its approach involves languages, science, literature, art, and thought.29 T h i s statement of purpose and methods is characteristic of many smaller archaeological undertakings which have had considerable support from the Rockefeller and Carnegie funds; examples of these are the University of Pennsylvania excavations at Ur of the Chaldees, the Yale University exploration in Syria and Trans-Jordan and the University of Michigan expedition in Egypt. O n the American continent, such expeditions as those for studying the Maya, Aztec, American Indian, and other early American civilizations, as well as the later Hispanic-American culture, are representative and have been carried on with foundation funds by several universities and independent research groups. Except for sums named, and $3,000,000 to be discussed in the next paragraph, foundation grants to the humanities have been expended by local research councils of such universities as Chicago, Princeton, Michigan, Virginia, Yale, Vanderbilt, Johns Hopkins, North Carolina, Harvard, Texas, and Columbia. These projects include almost every conceivable phase of work in the humanities: folklore, dramatic art, phonetics, philology, early literatures of the several languages, lexicological research, art, music, religion, archaeology, etc. These grants have been continuous since about 1927, and in the aggregate range from $250,000 to $1,500,000 per institution; they have been supplied almost wholly by the General Education Board and the Rockefeller Foundation.

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About $3,000,000 of foundation funds for the humanities has gone to such planning agencies as the American Council of Learned Societies and its nineteen constituent professional associations. From 1920, when it was created, to 1936 the Council's income was $2,430,954, of which $532,500 was a loan from the New York Times for the preparation of the Dictionary of American Biography. T h e Rockefeller group of foundations have supplied $1,459,000 of the total income ($1,304,000 of it from the Rockefeller Foundation) and the Carnegie Corporation $370,300.30 During this same period the societies which compose the Council provided $17,194 of its $2,500,000 income. A distribution of this income according to uses shows that general planning consumed $985,739, special projects $449,7 >5> the Dictionary of American Biography $620,500, fellowships and grants-in-aid $375,000. T h e constituent societies have themselves received for surveys and research studies slightly over $1,000,000 of foundation funds, chiefly from the Carnegie Corporation and the General Education Board. T h e leading recipients were the American Philosophical Association, American Historical Association, Modern Language Association of America, American Political Science Association, and the Bibliographical Society of America. MARGINAL

INTERESTS

In addition to promoting the development of higher education through the traditional channels foundations have aided it by supporting activities which only marginally enter the colleges, university, or professional school. It is thus that medical education has been advanced by the public-health activities of foundations, or that the problems of international law have been publicized by peace and other international good-will movements to which foundations have contributed. Adult education is only now making itself felt in the margin of college and university teaching and research activities, and a fair share of this growth may properly be attributed to founda-

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tion grants to the field. Photoplay production and appreciation and the educational uses of the radio are being brought within the scope of higher education through foundation grants for research and demonstration. This section will deal briefly with certain of these quasi-higher-educational undertakings not yet discussed. The $54,066,401 which the Rockefeller Foundation spent in public-health activities between 1913 and 1935 was not primarily concerned with the promotion of higher education, nor was the $7,000,000 or $8,000,000 contributed to the same cause by smaller foundations. Ultimately, however, institutions of the college and university level and institutes of hygiene and public health in the United States received $10,623,372 for capital purposes, schools of nursing $1,790,060, and fellowships $3,135,451. 3 1 Likewise the $7,822,861 that foundations contributed to mental hygiene in the decade 1 9 2 1 - 3 0 was spent largely outside university circles, but the $750,000 of this sum which was devoted to research and teaching in universities has accelerated the establishment of teaching and consulting departments of psychiatry in most of the leading institutions.32 The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Rockefeller Foundation easily dominate different phases of foundation interest in international relations, and colleges and universities are considerably distant from the center of these varied activities. Of the total of $1,400,000 a year given for these purposes by some fifteen foundations (approximately $ 1,000,000 of it is from Carnegie and Rockefeller funds) only about $331,000 has gone to international education clubs, institutes and visiting professors, fellowships and research projecti in American universities, but this contribution has undoubtedly promoted the development of a sector of higher education that would otherwise have been neglected. 33 Since 1927 ten foundations, led by the Russell Sage, PhelpsStokes, and Rockefeller philanthropies, have devoted some

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$2,428,056 to housing and city-planning projects and, despite the overshadowing grants from the federal government since the onset of the depression, these foundations continue to spend upwards of $300,000 a year on this preventive type of social welfare. 34 Practically none of this money was spent through higher-education channels, yet the findings have significantly influenced government, sociology, architecture, education, and related engineering courses at the college and university level. They early led to consultation with professors of these courses, and later to departmental grants for specific researches. By 1929 this trend had resulted in a $250,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation toward establishing a School of City Planning at Harvard University; the same trend brought into being the National Institute of Public Administration,88 closely affiliated with Columbia University, the Institute of Public Administration at the University of California, and similar organizations in other universities. As early as 1923 the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial had initiated projects at the university level in these unorganized fields and, with large financial outlays, the Foundation has carried on the university side of the Memorial's work while the Spelman Fund has continued its work with governmental and other nonacademic bodies. It is scarcely an overstatement to say that Rockefeller funds assured city planning and public administration a place in the expanding program of American higher education. T h e 1936 gift of $1,000,000 for a graduate school of public administration at Harvard, from the founder of the Littauer Foundation, indicates that other philanthropies are becoming interested in promoting this new branch of higher education. The depression called attention anew to the need of relieving the condition of the underprivileged. During the decade 1921-30 foundations alone gave $74,776,260 for ameliorative purposes, apparently dissociated from the development of

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higher education but in reality within its margin to the extent that $2,047,348 was used for surveys and studies and $1,914,807 for training social workers.86 The Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, in particular, generously supported these early efforts to bring social work to the higher-education level. Its aggregate of $1,350,000 of grants to the Atlanta School of Social Work, the University of North Carolina School of Public Welfare, the National Catholic School of Social Service, Western Reserve University, Tulane University, the New York School of Social Work, and the Graduate School of Social Service of the University of Chicago made possible what could almost be called a new field of higher education. The Rockefeller Foundation has spent almost as much more to assure the stability of these new college and university undertakings. Other foundations have made minor contributions to this stabilizing process. Another of the marginal types of higher education that has been made possible largely by foundation support is the Y.M.C.A. college. Since neither the religious nor the secular colleges was giving the type of religious-social-recreational training needed for educational leadership in the Y.M.C.A. and similar institutions the foundations made contributions to this type of education. T h e Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial gave a total of $ 1 , 1 1 0 , 5 0 0 of which $583,000 went to the Y.M.C.A. college at Springfield, Mass., $152,500 to that at Chicago, and $375,000 to that at Nashville. Finally, higher education is being expanded through the partial entrance of a discrete group of undertakings now classified under a common heading, such as general education or adult education. Only the research and personnel training of a minority of the enterprises are in the realm of higher education, but these have decidedly influenced the direction of development of a number of institutions. T h e outstanding example of such a foundation influence is the child-study and parent-education program for which the combined Rockefeller funds have "ear-

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marked" approximately $12,000,000, about $7,000,000 of it for use through university channels. T h e Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial initiated foundation interest in the child-study program in 1922 and before its dissolution appropriated $5,268,150 for this purpose; the Spelman fund granted $1,500,000 to the portion of the program that it inherited, the Rockefeller Foundation has appropriated $4,250,000 for continuing the work, and the General Education Board has appropriated $1,000,477 to further the study of still other phases of child growth and development. 87 Under the stimulus of so much money many institutions announced a hitherto unexpressed desire to engage in child study; a new crop of "institutes" sprang up in the colleges from coast to coast. T h e outstanding examples of university development (some say overexpansion) under this stimulus are the Child Development Institute at Teachers College of Columbia University, the Child Study and Parent Education Institute of the University of Iowa, the Institute of Child Welfare of the University of California, and the Institute of Human Relations of Yale University. Harvard University, Western Reserve University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Minnesota have each an appropriate agency for child study. T h e growth of this highly important work has been so rapid that many universities are experiencing budget difficulties in absorbing the projects as the Rockefeller funds are being withdrawn. Since January, 1934, the Carnegie Corporation has appropriated $3,036,663 to a very wide range of exploratory projects in adult education; of the total, $600,000 has been expended in universities and another million dollars has indirectly advanced the university program. 38 T h e researches include Thorndike's study of adult learning, various undertakings in university extension and alumni education, and research in the problems of rural adult education. T h e training projects have included fellowships, funds for demonstrations in summer

266

Nonprofessional

Education

schools, and general departmental support. The institutions most largely stimulated and developed by these activities have been Teachers College of Columbia University, the University of Chicago, Stanford University, the universities of North Carolina and Minnesota, Western Reserve, Michigan State College, and the Institute of Politics at Williams College. Adult education promises to become as important a division of teachertraining as any now pursued at the graduate level. How near to the growing edge of American culture foundations are working is illustrated also by their activities in motion pictures, radio, and the newer phases of museum and occupational adjustment enterprises. Even with foundation stimulation most of these activities have only recently reached the level of higher education but it is a reasonable expectation that like social work, city planning, public administration, and child study they will eventually find their place in higher education. At Ohio State University and elsewhere the Payne Fund is supporting research in motion-picture appreciation and the educational uses of radio; the Harmon Foundation is engaged in similar studies which may later come into the main stream of university activity.39 The General Education Board in 1936 appropriated $100,000 for higher-education projects in the educational use and appreciation of motion pictures. Since 1929 the Carnegie Corporation has appropriated $336,500 to research and demonstration in the more effective use of radio in education, and it is currently devoting some $70,000 annually to this type of education. Since 1926 the - Corporation has allocated $532,500 to establishing an effective occupational use of the techniques of educational and vocational guidance and adjustment; about onefourth of this sum has been spent at the college and university level. Currently about $84,000 a year is being used by the Corporation to advance the newer phases of job adjustment and satisfaction. Under the stimulus of foundation grants institu-

Nonprofessional

Education

267

tions for higher education are learning new uses for the museum which, since the "gay nineties," had come to be looked upon as designed for middle-class adult entertainment and education of the milder sort. The General Education Board and the Rockefeller Foundation are jointly giving nearly $100,000 a year to further this new trend, and the Carnegie Corporation has been leading it since 1922. The Corporation is giving $165,000 a year to a wide range of museum programs, and since its entry into the field it has made museum grants which total $879,500. Possibly as much as twenty percent of these expenditures are strictly chargeable to the promotion of higher education through providing additional facilities, scholarships, and training of personnel for university positions. This catalogue of foundation activities which come only partly into the field of higher education might be extended. But enough has been given to show how foundations influence the introduction of these marginal interests into higher education, and to show that the foundations are interested in promoting enterprises which may point to social change. In fact, the foundation activities discussed in the last six chapters have progressively tended to bring into existence or to test new cultural values.

CHAPTER

XIII

The Geographical and Institutional Distribution of Grants

T

HERE

is as much interest in an analysis of foundation grants

according to recipients as there is in the analysis accord-

ing to purposes that has been given in the preceding chapters. It is important to know what is the institutional and geograph-

ical distribution of gifts and whether it reveals a concentration that may have an effect on higher education comparable to that which the corporate concentration of wealth has exerted in commerce and industry. Early in the twentieth century the General Education Board established the importance of geographical factors in the success of an institution of learning, and demonstrated especially that colleges draw most of their enrollment from within a fiftymile radius of their location. 1 In the light of these findings, so long as foundations sought primarily to increase the

quantity

of higher education, there seemed to be a tacit understanding that funds w o u l d be distributed geographically according to a ratio between the n u m b e r of colleges, the population, and the per capita wealth. Until they abandoned the general policy of building u p particular colleges through capital outlay and endowment grants the Carnegie and Rockefeller funds were especially meticulous in showing that a geographically equitable distribution had been made. 2 T a b l e X provides a generalized picture of the geographical distribution of foundation grants to colleges and universities. Since these nine foundations provided nearly ninety percent of the grants made immediately to colleges and universities be-

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Agencies Receiving

Grants

275

aggregate sums from the nine foundations which have supplied approximately ninety percent of the grants to colleges and universities. With 73.21 percent of the grants for nearly a third of a century allotted to twenty institutions there can remain little doubt that foundations have been highly successful in applying their policies of concentration. A computation basic to but not shown in Table X I I indicates that 64.31 percent of the university grants between 1902 and 1922 were concentrated in these twenty institutions; it is with the extension of the period to 1934 that concentration in them rises to 73.21 percent of the total grants. If the tabulation were extended through 1935 the concentration would again increase; in that year the Rackham Fund granted $5,000,000 to the University of Michigan. Somewhere near 310 other institutions shared the remaining 26.79 percent of the $338,936,030 aggregate of grants.7 Even within the twenty institutions concentration was so great that the five receiving the greatest aggregate of foundation funds surpassed the remaining fifteen with enough margin to require the grants of the next sixteen universities (not shown in the table) to balance the equation. In other words the highest five received as great an aggregate of grants as the next thirty-one institutions. Also, it can be seen that beginning with the lowest five institutions in Table X I I each succeeding group of five increases its aggregate funds by approximately one hundred percent over the preceding group. The University of Chicago alone received practically one hundred percent more than the average of the four next highest universities. As is usual, Table X I I conceals as much as it reveals. It does not make it evident that Chicago's enormous lead is due to an abiding interest manifested by all Rockefeller funds, or that most of the Carnegie Institute of Technology aggregate is from Carnegie funds. It obscures the fact that the aggregate of an

276

Agencies Receiving Grants

institution like Columbia includes grants to many autonomous divisions, such as Teachers College; actually Columbia College may have received less foundation aid than Swarthmore. T h e uninitiated might think of the grants as going uniformly to the purposes of the universities, but actually about half of the total was restricted to the development of medical education. For instance, the General Education Board alone made the following grants specifically to medical schools: Chicago, $10,939,080; Columbia, $1,418,000; Johns Hopkins, $10,245,841; Vanderbilt, $15,165,373; Yale, $6,695,943; Harvard, $1,393,664; Cornell, $7,795,990; Washington University (Mo.), $7,238,388; University of Rochester, $5,813,871.® The medical school of the University of Iowa, the only publicly controlled and supported university among the twenty institutions, accounts for over half of its foundation grants. The history of the grants of a single foundation completes the picture of the concentration of institutional grants. From 1911 to 1936, inclusive, the Carnegie Corporation granted $31,008,991 to 252 colleges and universities in the United States (not including the Carnegie Institute of Technology) ; 26 of these institutions received $20,251,047 and 226 of them received $10,757,944.® The lowest 13 of the 26 institutions received $3,931,061 while the highest 13 received $16,319,986. Of these the highest 6 received $ 1 1 , 8 8 4 , 7 1 1 , or considerably over one-third of the total $31,008,991, while 246 institutions shared the balance. These institutions and their grants were: Vanderbilt, $3,116,000; Columbia, $2,237,670; Johns Hopkins, $2,138,625; Stanford, $1,737,100; Chicago, $1,654,650; and California Institute of Technology, $1,000,666. Despite this showing, possibly no other one foundation has so acceptably spread $31,000,000 among so large and diverse a group of colleges and universities. Has the foundation practice of concentrating grants done more to advance American higher education than a diversifica-

Agencies

Receiving

Grants

277

tion of the funds among a larger number of colleges and universities would have done? Without actually knowing the results of other distributions no realistically definite answer can be given. T h e unaided independent college frequently declares that between foundation-subsidized and tax-supported institutions it is being "squeezed out" by a type of competition that is now considered unfair and inimical to the public welfare when it is applied to the small independent merchant, manufacturer, or other business man. As has already been cited, in the years before the World War both the General Education Board and the Carnegie Foundation publicly asserted that the interests of higher education would be served if the number of these colleges were reduced. A t present foundations make no such assertions; they operate on the theory that they have only limited funds and that the exercise of effective stewardship demands that they be used for vital purposes at strategic centers. T h i s appears to leave on the protestant the burden of proof that any other order of distribution would better advance the quality of higher education. Probably it is too much to expect that such divergent philosophies of grants can be reconciled. Another group which holds that American higher education would have been better served by less institutional concentration of grants justifies its position by asserting that an institution is more responsive to the needs of its public when it is dependent on a wider base for support. These critics believe that potential and actual domination of the university program is an almost inevitable accompaniment of concentration in the source of income, and the idea implicitly or explicitly conveyed is that imputed control is in the interest of status quo economic and cultural groups. Defenders of existing policies of concentration ask for proof that the twenty universities in Table X I I are any less responsive to public need or any more "controlled" than a comparable parallel list of universities that have re-

278

Agencies Receiving Grants

ceived a minimum of foundation grants. An attempt at such an appraisal involves so many imponderables as to make it a nearly futile undertaking. Either side can cite isolated instances to support its contention, but it would be difficult to show that Chicago, for example, because it receives seven times as much support from philanthropic foundations, is correspondingly more "controlled" than Princeton. Foundations, as we have seen, have promoted higher education not only through grants to the colleges and universities, but also, especially since the World War, by funds distributed through auxiliary agencies or upon their initiative. Quoting Mark M. Jones as estimating that there are today no fewer than 54,000 such associations, President Keppel declares: " I t is becoming increasingly clear, however, that while all or nearly all of these organizations are good in themselves, and while many have admirably performed the function of the middleman, nevertheless there are, in the aggregate, more of them than the traffic can possibly stand." 10 In higher education alone there are possibly more than 2,000 such learned societies, councils of learned associations, and independent institutes for producing and diffusing knowledge. They have proved to be far "more than the traffic can stand," and foundations have severely limited the number of such agencies they assist. T h e Carnegie Corporation has made grants to more of these subsidiary and marginal agencies of higher education than any other foundation. T h e history of its activities in this regard shows foundation participation in its most favorable light. Between 1 9 1 1 and 1936 the Corporation made grants in the United States to or through 392 of the possibly 2,000 auxiliary social, educational, and professional agencies that have even a remote stake in higher education; incidentally these grants r e p resent almost the same degree of concentration as has been shown to exist in grants to colleges and universities. T h e 17 agencies given the largest aggregate of grants received $21,534,-

Agencies Receiving Grants

279

489, and the next 34 agencies $4,934,820, the succeeding 29 agencies $1,992,651, and the remaining 3 1 2 agencies $3,930,996." The seven ranking agencies in the first group received $18,069,874, with the National Research Council receiving $6,896,332, the American Library Association $3,194,750, the American Law Institute $2,120,196, the Brookings Institution $1,875,000, the New York Academy of Medicine $1,625,190, the American Association for Adult Education $1,382,830, and the Institute of International Education $975,576. Representative of the 34 agencies in the next lower group, each of which received from $100,000 to $250,000, are the American Institute of Architects, the American Philosophical Association, and the American Association of Museums. Representative of the succeeding 29 agencies, each of which received from $50,000 to $100,000, are the American Political Science Association, the College Art Association, and the American Institute of Criminal Law. The remaining 312 agencies each received less than $50,000 and are represented by such institutions as the American Classical League, the Institute for Research in Land Economics, and the National Institute of Public Administration. In short, about four percent of the 392 agencies received twothirds of the total grants, and the seven largest recipients received four and one-half times as much money as the lowest 312 agencies. No other one foundation has made grants to even a fourth as many auxiliary agencies, and all of the Rockefeller philanthropies combined lack a hundred agencies of equaling the Carnegie Corporation record for "spread." Most of the Rockefeller grants have been concentrated in about twenty nationally recognized learned associations and institutes. Other foundations have participated too casually and intermittently for the factor of concentration to have become important or, like the Falk Foundation, they have so wholly centered grants in a few

s8o

Agencies Receiving

Grants

operating agencies as to make a discussion of the degree of concentration unnecessary. Persons interested in the concentration of foundation grants in terms of the auxiliary institutions which have received the largest aggregate are supplied the elements for such a picture in the following list of institutions. All of them have come into existence since 1916 and most of them have been operating, on an average, fifteen years. T h e sum listed after each agency is that received from foundations since its organization and includes endowment as well as current-support grants. 12 T h e ten agencies receiving the largest grants are: National Research Council, $12,896,132; the Brookings Institution, $4,752,479; the American Library Association, $5,327,750; Social Science Research Council, $4,197,606; New York Academy of Medicine, $2,923,190; the American Council on Education, $2,452,332; the American Council of Learned Societies, $2,430,954; American Law Institute, $2,420,196; National Bureau of Economic Research, $1,894,600; and the American Association for Adult Education, $1,404,830. From these princely grants the aggregate per institution rapidly scales down to less than $50,000 (for eighty percent of the agencies), with three-fourths of this class receiving less than $10,000 from foundation sources. As was mentioned in Chapter X I I , several agencies have written apologetically concerning the concentration in the sources of their income, even admitting that a single foundation had a monopoly. While they have been emphatic in declaring that there is no domination from the supporting foundations, they have considered it better public policy to have wider bases of support. Certain scholars have complained that the nature of the support given the councils of learned societies makes for a divided allegiance as between the constituent professional societies and the foundations. But to the foundations the picture is in a different focus. For the most part they are no longer interested in any individual university or auxiliary agency, re-

Agencies Receiving Grants

281

garding them only as the instruments best adapted to advance the problem at hand. How much or how little concentration results is, to the foundation, only an incidental matter. T h e foundations again leave the burden of proof on those who advocate a more widespread or a different distribution of their grants.

C H A P T E R

XIV

Integration HAT finally is the answer to the question originally proposed: T o what extent and in what direction has higher education in the United States been influenced by the philosophy, the administration, the activities, and the money of philanthropic foundations? In order to answer one must consider not only the degree of educational control or dominance that is exercised by the foundations, but also whether their activities indicate progressive participation in a living culture that looks toward the future, or whether they indicate a static or even reactionary tendency that attempts to maintain the existing social order. While categorical answers cannot be given, enough evidence has been introduced to remove discussion from the realm of biased assertion or mere conjecture. The reader is cautioned to remember that the facts required for answering these questions are buried in a controversial social complex. Their classification and interpretation are unavoidably conditioned by the individual's economic, cultural, and social predilections. One's judgment of the force and direction of grants is colored by his idea of what is really valuable. It is not to be expected that a Communist, a Socialist, a "New Deal" Democrat, an "economic royalist" Republican, and a Fascist will interpret from a common base a foundation grant aimed at a modification of the social security laws of the United States. Likewise, persons of greatly diverse ethical and cultural attitudes will not interpret foundation motives in comparable terms.

Integration

283

T h e person who believes that the surplus wealth which implements philanthropic foundations has been produced by a ruthless individualistic capitalism may find that this belief influences his attitude towards the use of that surplus wealth. Especially during the first two decades of the twentieth century there was a large part of the college public that declared foundation funds "tainted" by the methods of their accumulation and therefore unfit for any social purposes. Another part attributed the giving to a religious motive of stewardship and spoke of the money as "God's gold." A more realistic group from the college public merely feared that those persons who now proposed to influence higher education might resort to many of the questionable practices they had used to build commercial trusts and monopolies. Today there is much less inclination to believe that there is a causal relation between the manner of accumulation and the manner of spending the surplus wealth funded for philanthropic purposes. Again it is not to be expected that observers holding such divergent convictions shall be able to look at foundations from the same point of view. T h u s the present study of foundation activities will not pretend to a formal objectivity that does not exist. Certain inevitable standards of value will be apparent. It is scarcely possible for the author to describe with any completeness the theory of values that underlies his judgment, but he can make clear certain basic assumptions as to the type of society that he would consider should underlie the formulation of policy by foundations, and other social agencies as well. In the first place, in order to secure the greatest possibilities for the freedom and security of the individual, he would like to see continued in the United States the representative political democracy of our country, and some form of individualcollectivistic capitalism. This means a belief in private property and the "profit motive," but not in leaving their regulation

284

Integration

exclusively to the movement of impersonal economic forces or to those individuals who currently dominate the management of corporate capitalism in America. O n the contrary, he would expect the federal and state governments to exercise a supervision that would assure "fair competition" in the collective bargaining of the large-group units of labor, management, and capital. In short, the author believes that our increasingly interdependent society must discard much of the individualism associated with the earlier stages of the industrial revolution, and that we must substitute for it some as yet undetermined kind of group living in which economic and cultural activities would be more centered on society as a whole. T h u s the author would describe as desirable and worthy of encouragement those foundation activities which test and promote new cultural values, especially in the less material aspects of life that tend to lag behind the technological advances of civilization. These aspects would include activities which enrich the conception of education, promote national and international cultural understanding, consider the problems of social and economic planning and social legislation, encourage efforts in the creative arts, or test the application of scientific disciplines to human affairs. On the other hand, the author would regard as less significant those foundation activities which either blindly or for reasons of "vested interest" intensify conventional values and concern themselves only with the surface aspects of society. Under this heading would come "palliative" philanthropy and similar activities which merely reproduce existing educational patterns. 1 O n the basis of these assumptions one may review certain of the outstanding philanthropic activities which have been discussed, and seek to discover what degree of cultural "progress" has been attained by the foundations during the past third of a century. Many persons have classified the general-endowment and

Integration

285

capital-outlay grants of the first two decades as merely increasi n g the quantity of conventional education. B u t as we have seen, a discerning examination of these grants shows significant possibility of reform embedded in them. T h e announcement of the policy for making endowment grants was accompanied by an expressed dissatisfaction with the existing status of the colleges and by the declaration of a forward-looking educational plan that aimed " t o resolve the confusion then existing in higher education." If the foundations had sought only to increase the quantity of the existing kind of education they might have followed the personal examples of their founders and made grants indiscriminately to any college. Instead they chose, after impersonal "thorough studies" of the region and detailed "inventories" of individual institutions, " t o organize and lead a system of colleges" to show how colleges should be conducted. Because of the temper of the times it was necessary for foundations to use the strategy of indirect approach, rather than to seek directly and specifically the improvements they desired. G r a n t i n g the intent to reform and the necessity for its indirectness, did foundation participation hold the colleges in status quo or lead them to improved and newer conceptions of the higher-education process? Surely the latter. T h e state normal schools of "a high order" that Barnas Sears tried to create through the Peabody Education Fund called for higher entrance requirements, richer courses of study, longer terms, and better-qualified teachers than were then known. T h e colleges aided by the General Education Board were chosen on the basis of an impersonal "inventory" reminiscent of that used i n choosing the constituent companies of an oil trust. Each college learned exactly the reforms it must inaugurate and the practices it must discontinue. In one it might be necessary to give up an overexpanded program, in another to install an adequate system of bookkeeping or conform to the Board's

286

Integration

standard for investing and managing endowment funds; frequently the conditioning of grants included the establishment of higher entrance requirements or better articulation with related or nearby educational institutions. These conditions were not the same for all colleges; they were never published; they cannot be appraised for individual institutions; it is common knowledge, however, that they vitally influenced the nature and direction of growth in participating colleges. T h e Carnegie Foundation listed as conditions for admission to its college pension system the maintenance of four collegiate years of work in at least six departments (later eight) manned by professors with earned doctorates, admission on fourteen (later fifteen) specified and regulated units of secondary school work, the unencumbered existence of a $200,000 (later $300,000) endowment fund, and freedom from sectarian affiliation. These standards were far in advance of prevailing practices and, being conditions of desired monetary grants, they were powerful influences for changing existing conditions. Preceding discussion has made it evident that these advanced standards were not embodied in college practice without certain disadvantages to the denominational and state college interests, as well as to affiliated institutions and the Foundation itself. It can hardly be doubted, however, that the requirements, studies, and experiments of the Carnegie agencies have brought about a fuller appreciation and consideration of the problems concerning professors' retirement. The liberalizing influence of conditioned endowment and pension grants extended far beyond the group of institutions finally included in the "systems." Any college that supposed itself eligible could invite inspection. Hundreds of the colleges that had been stimulated to seek an "inventory" were told they could not be further considered until their endowment was increased, their accounting system improved, their entrance requirements raised, their program restricted to adequately

Integration

287

financed items, or their sectarian affiliations modified. T h e expectation of ultimately receiving a grant led most of these colleges to undertake to comply with the conditions. This circumstance gave the foundations a widespread influence among colleges to which they never granted a dollar. There is no way of estimating these indirect effects, but it is generally conceded that they constitute such an important by-product as to discredit attempts to show influence only in terms of dollars granted. In monetary terms the general and special endowment grants during the twentieth century have approximated $220,000,000; it is estimated that this sum stimulated the giving of a further $660,000,000, or two-thirds of the $800,000,000 higher-education endowment fund now in existence. T h e General Education Board granted $120,000,000 of the foundation total; this was followed by $29,000,000 from the Carnegie Corporation and $25,000,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation. This $220,000,000 has gone to some 300 colleges, but the major portion of it has been concentrated in some twenty of these institutions. Here again, as is indicated by the $660,000,000 that others have been stimulated to give, the indirect influence of foundation general and special endowment grants has been exceedingly important. As for pension grants and allowances to college teachers, the Carnegie Foundation has granted $29,936,655 for these purposes, and has assumed obligations which actuaries estimate will require $69,000,000 to liquidate. T o aid the Foundation and the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association in faculty welfare work the Carnegie Corporation has granted these agencies approximately $28,000,000. Probably another third of a century will elapse before individual pensioners will have received the last of these funds. Again, scholarships, fellowships, loan funds, and similar types of student grants are frequently classified as merely palliative aid to individuals who are financially handicapped. Undoubt-

288

Integration

edly part of these contributions is properly to be considered in this way, but in each such instance the foundation is following practices inaugurated by the colleges. At the undergraduate level such scholarship funds as the Rector Scholarship Foundation and such loan funds as the Harmon Foundation are transforming aid from a dole to the needy to a means of assuring equality of opportunity to those otherwise showing the most promise of leadership. At the graduate level practically all of the aid is given with the intention of promoting cultural advancement by further training those most capable of leadership. T h e conventional idea of individual need has no place in the awards. Cultural interaction between races and nations and international goodwill ate being promoted through aid for the training of new personnel. The Rockefeller Foundation, the General Education Board, the Carnegie Corporation, the Commonwealth Fund, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation are representative of the agencies using aid grants to keep both young and mature scholars on the edge of progress. Within the United States, foundations have provided approximately $27,000,000 in scholarships and are continuing to supply $1,500,000 annually for this purpose; foundation loan funds approximate $20,000,000. After the World War American opinion was much more tolerant toward trusts, commercial or philanthropic; the penchant for "trust-busting" and muckraking "the malefactors of great wealth" had considerably abated. In this more favorable atmosphere foundations could exercise more initiative in directly choosing specific causes to support. Have their choices indicated economic and cultural attitudes tending to accelerate social improvement or have the choices tended to put the brakes on progress? For a decade foundations that actively participate in higher education have enjoyed about the same measure of public con-

Integration

289

fidence as endowed universities, and they have exercised about the same control over their projects as would a university. T h e analysis of foundation officials given in Chapter IV shows them to be on economic and cultural levels almost identical with those of trustees of colleges and universities. T h e common ideals of the two groups are evident in the close parallel between college and philanthropic organization. T h e procedure in allocating funds to various academic purposes is so similar in the two kinds of institution that one might have difficulty in knowing whether he were in the board meeting of a university or a foundation. But when judged by the projects to which they have voted funds, the evidence indicates that probably foundation trustees are less conservative than trustees who control college endowments. Possibly the alertness of foundations is nowhere better shown than in their activities in the professional schools of college and university rank. Medical education represents the earliest, the most persistent, and the most successful of the professional undertakings. With grants aggregating $154,000,000 and spread over a quarter of a century, foundations have been the most vital external force in making over 161 nondescript, proprietary medical schools into 75 standardized, progressive, and professionally operated institutions. Whether they were specifically concerned with exposing "fee-grabbing, fake colleges," with securing cooperation between schools and hospitals, or with introducing mental hygiene and other newer branches of medicine, foundations were opposed alike by vested medical interests and conservative medical teachers and practitioners. T h a t foundation leadership was also considerably in advance of governmental and general public thinking is evident from the extensive foundation programs for disseminating information and demonstrating newer practices. T h i s lag was especially noticeable in public health undertakings. T h e readiness with which foundations both supported and contributed leadership

29°

Integration

to the surveys and special studies of engineering and legal education indicates their desire to promote a better type of professional practice in these fields. In the same direction but to a more limited financial extent foundations have encouraged studies in dentistry, forestry, teacher-training, architecture, library schools, the fine arts, and public administration. In monetary terms the extent of foundation participation in all types of professional schools, aside from medicine, is approximately $60,000,000. In this field of professional education the foundations' tendency to support "live" projects is particularly evident also in their contributions to the professional groups interested in studying the whole problem of the nature and quality of the educational process—from the elementary school through the university and professional schools—to the end that the individual student may be more thoroughly trained. A concerted effort has been made to eliminate dependence on the "unit," "credit hour," and other mechanical devices for measuring educational progress, and to substitute or supplement these with cumulative, qualitative measures designed to show more nearly the actual status of educational attainment. This emphasis has made necessary improved intelligence and achievement tests, aptitude and interest forms, and other devices for measuring learning. Foundations are actively supporting the agencies that are remaking the standards for accrediting both high schools and colleges; they are anxious to help remedy the shortcomings of the measures that were used before 1918 for defining a college and a high school and that were then thought capable of resolving the confusion existing in higher education. In promoting the experimentation intended to supply a working knowledge of individual differences in the nature and needs of students, the foundations are supporting psychological and guidance experiments, honors courses for superior students, general college plans for mediocre students, and tu-

Integration

291

torial plans for college students generally. Possibly twenty colleges in the country are being encouraged to try out variations of these projects. As many more institutions are being given grants to experiment with reorganizations of subject matter, methods of instruction, study plans, and other devices calculated to fit education to the needs of the individual student. These "new college" plans are considered progressive steps in higher education, and foundations are willing to help lead the way. It is not contended, of course, that all foundation grants to education, or that all of those of any one foundation, are unquestionable contributions toward a better society. Many of them have added little or nothing to our knowledge. But it is likely that more than three-fourths of the grants may properly be considered as contributions to the progress of contemporary civilization. In their activities for the nonprofessional phases of university work, particularly in the social and humanistic sciences, foundations have entered a field that is often highly controversial. From varying types of project they must choose the ones which they will support, but this choice indicates a tacit assumption that they are wise enough to determine the relative significance of different types of knowledge to a social order struggling for equilibrium. This assumption is questioned by those who fear the direction in which the trend may lead. Probing that might result in proposals involving rapid social change arouses uneasiness in the conservative mind. T h e average man is reluctant to sanction a scientific examination of our fundamental concepts of democracy, government, the distribution of wealth, and similar aspects of civilization because he has a suspicion that such activities threaten the existence of the present social order. Basically, this is the same fear of foundation motive that has existed since the opening of the twentieth century. One ominous or even ill-timed study might crystallize this opinion and produce a series of state investigations (most foundations are

29*

Integration

chartered by state rather than by federal authority) of far more serious import than the 1 9 1 3 - 1 5 Congressional investigation. Even in such an atmosphere foundation officials have not hesitated to throw the weight of foundation influence and money on the side of intelligent research in, and critical examination of, the mores of society; they have unhesitatingly supported the pioneering enterprises that have possibilities of improving the process of higher education and of diffusing it throughout the land. The policy of directly attacking controversial problems did not develop suddenly. In 1918 the foundations decided that further progress in medical education was dependent on basic research in the noncontroversial fields of the natural and physical sciences. They were careful to avoid the blunders that had affronted public opinion and led to a political investigation of foundations. In this they were successful, and their expenditure of $55,000,000 in the sciences brought so many beneficent results that the public gave at least tacit approval to other foundation science projects, the practical applications of which involved controversial social problems. With a scrupulous and judicious observance of policies for protecting the public welfare (such as the principles formulated by the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial) foundations now support almost socialistic studies as to social security, monetary standards, and economic production and consumption; they have even supported studies concerned with the teaching of patriotism and the practice of human sterilization. Foundation activity in the social and humanistic sciences is preponderantly in the direction of new cultural values. Programs in the arts, adult education, child welfare, radio, and motion pictures, efforts to perfect psychological tests, to discover an effective treatment for diabetes, to improve university financial accounting, are only a few of the foundation activities that are a positive contribution to social welfare. The more

Integration

293

than $2,000,000 contributed toward the production of encyclopedias, dictionaries, abstracts, and indexes was not granted to the conventional type of education; rather it made available fresh interpretations and provided the tools essential to progress in the new social undertakings. It would be difficult to find proposals of more potential benefit to society than the foundation-aided studies of the legal and economic aspects of medicine, stock-market control, credit cooperatives, American trade unions, public works, business and price cycles, and other recent economic problems. Specifically, it would be difficult to find a more progressive or provocative series of investigations of the American scene than the foundation-aided Recent Social Trends, Social Studies Investigation, America's Capacity to Produce, and The Recovery Problem in the United States. A complete listing would show a gradation from these very progressive items through to colorless fact-finding studies that bolster the status quo or to studies that have had little practical use. Of the total funds contributed from all sources to social and humanistic research foundations have given more than half. This is a larger portion of their own funds than they are giving to any other field. In 1921 these fields received from foundations only about $228,000 and by 1936 the annual aggregate was over $5,000,000. In the decade 1921-30 the social sciences alone received over $27,000,000 from foundations; the grand total to the two fields is approximately $56,000,000. A good case can easily be made for stressing the social and humanistic sciences on the ground of their neglect by governmental and private industrial and commercial interests. It has been estimated that of all the money spent in research in the United States and Great Britain, one-half goes for industrial research and related pure research in physics and chemistry, one-fourth is spent on military research, and the larger part of the remaining one-fourth is devoted to agriculture and its supporting

«94

Integration

sciences. T h e social and humanistic sciences receive such an infinitesimal part of the total as to be scarcely discernible. In the face of such a situation foundations appear to be working in a neglected field. Probably it will be another decade before it will be known whether this work has been as influential as the role foundations have played in medicine, natural science, public health, farm demonstration, and quality of college organization. If foundations can induce governmental and voluntary agencies to accept as great a responsibility in the social sciences as they have been induced to undertake in the fields just mentioned, philanthropic influence in the social and humanistic sciences may properly be described as powerful and salutary. The evidence so far points to an outcome that will compare favorably with the earlier undertakings. T o what extent and in what direction has American higher education been influenced by philanthropic foundations? An answer to the original question may now be ventured. This study concludes that the extent is roughly $680,000,000 and the direction increasingly toward supporting social and cultural ideas and institutions that contribute to a rapidly changing civilization. Foundations at the start were dissatisfied with existing higher education and they have promoted programs that have, for the most part, been in advance of those prevailing in the institutions with which they have worked. T o a large extent these ideas were originated by frontier thinkers within the professions; the chief contribution of the foundations has been in accelerating the rate of acceptance of the ideas they chose to promote. In contending that these ideas have been closer to the "growing edge" of American culture than were the university practices they proposed to supplant, no claim is made that wiser choices could not have been made or that there has not been occasional overemphasis of foundation-supported ideas, resulting in dislocations and gaps in an ideally conceived pattern of

Integration

295

progressive higher education. This study has often been critical of individual ideas, policies, and persons, and has illustrated the foundations' frequent lack of social awareness, their failure to anticipate educational trends, and the presence of unavoidable human fallibility in their official leadership. Nor does the contention that foundations are a salutary influence in American higher education justify the inference that their work as a whole is as progressive as their higher-education activities. Except for two or three groups of foundations CofiFman did not find them a progressive influence in child welfare work, and Leavell found much of their work in Negro education largely palliative. In humanitarian war work, postwar foreign relief, flood and other disaster relief, and social welfare work during the recent depression foundation programs have not been noticeably in advance of the other agencies ministering to these needs. A judgment of the total influence of foundations on American life must await a detailed appraisal in all of the areas to which they have contributed. Do the general trends of foundation policy during the past third of a century indicate the probable future direction of their activities in higher education? Probably, but it should be recognized that extraneous economic, political, or other social factors may change the direction that is foreshadowed. Without once changing the goal of improving the quality of higher education, foundations have frequently changed the immediate devices for reaching this goal. These adaptations to a changing civilization have been made in response both to social pressures and to the maturing wisdom of the foundation officials. From a retrospective view these officials now discern three indistinct periods: from 1900 to 1918, a period of orientation and general endowment activities; from 1918 to 1925, an interval emphasizing endowment and current support for a few special fields of higher education; and from 1925 to the present, a tendency to encourage specific research and dissemination projects.

296

Integration

T h e strategy of the initial period was to embed the desired qualitative changes in conditioned grants to a carefully selected group of colleges. Since foundations exercised no immediate control after the grants were made, a college public that was fearful and suspicious of these new agencies did not hesitate to seek cooperation. On the basis of college growth in the last quarter of the nineteenth century foundations estimated that their funds were sufficient to enable them to provide the intended leadership. But there was a 400 percent increase in the cost of higher education between 1900 and 1918, and foundation funds to meet these needs had remained relatively stationary. In the face of such educational trends foundations had to shift to a further concentration in the use of their funds. Probably the social pressures of the moment weighed even more heavily than deliberate choice in the selection of medical education, teachers' salaries, and the educational applications of psychology as the restricted fields in which the policy of endowment grants was to be continued. At any rate the new trend was the foundation response to a rapidly expanding higher education. Foundations acted with commendable social understanding in continuing into the 1918-25 period the basic policy of making conditioned endowment and capital outlay grants, and of concentrating them in noncontroversial fields. Capital grants to the three purposes mentioned above totaled in this brief period $185,000,000 and were concentrated in fewer institutions than the grants of the 1900-1918 period. But even these restricted fields came to require more funds than it was practicable for foundations to supply. The next step toward grants for specific purposes was to build, equip, or endow special departments of medicine or education, with the usual condition that the funds granted should be matched elsewhere. Apparently foundation officials were beginning to question the practice of making a capital grant and renouncing partici-

Integration

297

pation in its management. They began to experiment with making grants for specific purposes. These ventures were limited to carefully selected noncontroversial projects in medicine, in the natural sciences basic to medicine, and in the development of intelligence and other psychological tests. The success and public acceptance of grants for current support and specific projects led to the virtual abandonment of endowment and other types of capital grants. Close contact with the problems of research and dissemination brought to the fore another activity important for the future of scientific thinking: the extensive use of fellowships as a device for providing competent personnel for future leadership. This practice displaced the older idea of student aid as a gift to financially underprivileged individuals. The close of the 1918-25 period shows a resurgence of the initial interest in specific social science problems that had been checked by public and political opinion in 1913-15. Beginning with fact-finding studies and working by rules carefully formulated to protect both their own and the public interest, foundations are now acceptably working on many of the most controversial economic and political problems. During the decade of the 1920's much of this work was done outside of colleges and universities, in independent institutes supported by the foundations and manned largely by enterprising university professors who were ambitious to examine live social problems. Because they were without an indigenous means of support these institutes made large demands on foundation funds for both capital and general current-support grants. A tendency of the current period is the withdrawal of general support from these and other social agencies. Usually the withdrawal is achieved by capitalizing the annual grants, or by gradually reducing them over a period of three to five years, or by financing specific projects, for the time being, to the extent of the previous general-support grant.

298

Integration

Possibly the most important trend in the past decade of foundation giving has been towards the concentration of funds on activities for research and the diffusion of knowledge. As has already been indicated, this shift in policy began with the medical sciences, public health, and the natural sciences, and is now most evident in the social and humanistic sciences. Recently a trend toward further concentration has been noted, with grants being made not so much to general fields of learning as to specific problems of individual and social living whose origins are in the fabric of civilization itself. For the past several years foundation interest in the natural sciences has emphasized experimental biology; in the medical sciences interest has centered chiefly in psychiatry and a few special diseases; in the social sciences it has been particularly focused on problems relating to social security, public administration, and international relations; in the humanities interest has centered on such special fields as radio, drama, music, museums, libraries, and language problems. What does the history of a third of a century of foundation policy suggest as to the probable future role of foundations in American higher education? It is obvious that no one of the now-recognized periods or practices could have been reliably predicted by the trends of the period which preceded it. In steadfastly seeking the improvement of higher education, foundations have been, for the most part, opportunists. It is to be expected that they will continue this adaptation and flexibility to keep pace with the demands of the future. Foundation activity began with a policy of marked concentration and has tended to move consistently toward more and more concentration in the purposes aided and the number of institutions assisted. There now seems a probability that in the next period there will be a further concentration—of a synthesizing character—one which will link the objective research of academic institutions with the activities of governmental planning and

Integration

299

administrative agencies. It is indicated that foundations will exercise still greater initiative in selecting and formulating research projects and in assuming responsibility to the public for the findings, but even under these conditions the very nature of research will still give the qualified investigator the usual freedom for thought and report. It is probable that in the future grants will be regarded as through colleges and universities to aid in solving problems of individual and social living rather than to such institutions for parts of their own program. If university costs continue upward, foundation funds may continue, as they have since the World War, to become a progressively smaller part of university expenditures. But the aggregate wealth funded for philanthropic purposes is substantially increasing. During 1937 approximately $600,000,000 was set apart in new foundations—the huge fortune of Andrew W . Mellon leading the list, followed by that of Charles Hayden. This may not have been a representative year, but in any case the 1937 list of donors indicates that those who control the stable fortunes in aluminum, coal, and other mining enterprises, in the automotive and food-processing industries, and in the public utility, merchandising, and banking fields are beginning to follow the 1902-14 example of the steel and oil magnates. Despite the great number of foundations created between 1915 and 1932, those that were established before 1915 on the basis of oil, steel, and railroad fortunes, in 1932, still accounted for three-fourths of the foundation assets then existing. If the newer industries continue to create fortunes which may thus be devoted to the general welfare they may soon be providing a more equitable share of our philanthropic capital. With increasingly large and diversified sources of revenue the foundations may do even more in the second than in the first third of the twentieth century to promote the purposes of higher education.

Appendix

A P P E N D I X

Foundations Analyzed in This Study A s I N D I C A T E D in the Introduction, this is not a complete list i a of all foundations; twenty foundations of this brief list have supplied approximately eighty-seven percent of the philanthropic capital, the Rockefeller and Carnegie trusts alone controlling sixty-four percent of such funds. An asterisk in the "Assets" column indicates that information is not made public or is too variable to quote. Since many of the foundations in the list are permitted to spend their capital fund even the figures given are often different from the facts as of another reporting period. Foundation 1. A m e r i c a n E d u c a t i o n F u n d 2. A m e r i c a n Field Service Fellowships 3- A m e r i c a n F o u n d a t i o n f o r Mental Hygiene 4- A m e r i c a n F o u n d a t i o n f o r t h e Blind 5- A m e r i c a n F u n d f o r P u b l i c Service

Location

Organized

Assets

New York City

'924

New York

City

'9'9

New York

City

1928

27,302

New York City New York City

1921 1922

779.612 42486

New York

1911

391,012

10,000,000 121,678

$

250,000 •

6. A m e r i c a n - S c a n d i n a v i a n F o u n d a tion 7- A t w a t e r - K e n t F o u n d a t i o n 8. B a m b e r g e r F o u n d a t i o n 9- B e m i s - T a y l o r F o u n d a t i o n 10. Bok F o u n d a t i o n

P h i l a d e l p h i a , Pa. Newark, N. J . C o l o r a d o Springs, Colo • P h i l a d e l p h i a , Pa.

•9'9 >93° '9*7 >93«

i t . Bonfils F o u n d a t i o n 12. B r u s h F o u n d a t i o n >3- B u f f a l o F o u n d a t i o n 14. B u h l F o u n d a t i o n Cambridge Foundation

Denver, Colo. Cleveland, O h i o Buffalo, N . Y. P i t t s b u r g h , Pa. C a m b r i d g e , Mass.

1927 1928 1920 1927 1916

334.000 500,000 703,000 13,120,850

16. C a r n e g i e C o r p o r a t i o n

New York

1911

151,000,000

City

City

•

•

•

304

Appendix Foundation

Location

'7- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 18. Carnegie Foundation '9- Carnegie Institution 20. Carter (W. T . ) F o u n d a t i o n

Washington, D. C. New York City Washington, D. C. Philadelphia Pa.

21. Caruso American F o u n d a t i o n 22. C h a l o n e r Foundation 23- Chemical F o u n d a t i o n «4- Chicago C o m m u n i t y T r u s t 25- Children's F u n d of Michigan

New York City New York City New York City Chicago, 111. Detroit, Mich.

26. China F o u n d a t i o n *7- Cleveland F o u n d a t i o n 28. Coffin F o u n d a t i o n »9- Commission for Relief in Belg i u m , Education F o u n d a t i o n 3°- C o m m i t t e e of the P e r m a n e n t Charity Fund 3>SÜSS3435-

Commonwealth Fund Crawford Loan F u n d Davison F u n d Dodge (C. H.) F o u n d a t i o n Duke E n d o w m e n t

Organized 1910 1906 1910 '9»4 1921

Assets

$ 11,127,000 30,821,000 35,000,000 •

•9'7 1920

23,000 123,000 •

•9'5 '929

3468,200 10,177,175

New York City Cleveland, O h i o Schenectady, N. Y.

1926 •9>4 1922

12,500,000 5,907,000 400,000

New York City

1920

2,588,118

Boston, Mass.

•9'5

4,900,000

New York City P o r t l a n d , Oreg. New York City New York City New York City

1918

42,903,648 250,000 • •

'925 '934 •9'7 '924

50,000,000

36. Duke (A. B.) Memorial 37- d u P o n t F o u n d a t i o n 38. Elks National Foundation 39- Engineering Foundation 40. Falk F o u n d a t i o n

D u r h a m , N. C. Wilmington, Del. Boston, Mass. New York City Pittsburgh, Pa.

'925 '935 1928 '9'4 '929

450,000 1,000,000 359,000 882,000 10,000,000

41. Feild Cooperative Association 42. Forstman Foundation 43- F o u n d a t i o n of t h e American Bankers Association 44. General Education Board 45- G i a n n i n i F o u n d a t i o n

Jackson, Miss. Passaic, N. J.

'925 1922

1,000,000 250,000

New York City New York City Los Angeles, Calif.

'925 '9°3 1928

500,000 45,822,414 1,000,000

46. G u g g e n h e i m (J. S.) F o u n d a t i o n 47- H a r m o n F o u n d a t i o n 48. Hazen F o u n d a t i o n 49- Hester F o u n d a t i o n 50. H o f h e i m e r Foundation

New York City New York City H a d d a m , Conn. Berkeley, Calif. New York City

'925 1922

5.049437 •

'925 1928 '9'9

1,700,000 20,000 1,640,000

New York City New York City Battle Creek, Mich. Washington, D. C.

1920

12,000,000

•9'9 •93" 1921

••>49433 41,500,000 1,500,000

5'5*5S54-

J u i l l i a r d Musical F o u n d a t i o n Keith F u n d Kellogg F o u n d a t i o n Knights T e m p l a r Education F u n d

A ppendix 5 5 . Kosciuszko

Foundation

5 6 . Kxesge F o u n d a t i o n 57. Lake

Placid

Organized

Location

Foundation

Educational

New York City

•925

Detroit, Mich.

>924

Assets $

135.000 •

FounL a k e Placid, N. Y.

1922

•

5 8 . Lancaster C o m m u n i t y T r u s t

L a n c a s t e r , Pa.

1924

30.000

5g. Lasker F o u n d a t i o n

Chicago, 111.

1928

1,000,000

60. L i t t a u e r ( L . N.)

New York

City

1929

215.000

dation

Foundation

New York

City

1930

4.500.000

6 z . Markle F o u n d a t i o n

New York

City

1927

3,152.000

63. Matheson F o u n d a t i o n

New Y o r k City

64. M i l b a n k M e m o r i a l F u n d

New York

65. Musicians' F o u n d a t i o n

Chicago, 111.

1920

6 6 . New York C o m m u n i t y T r u s t

New Y o r k

City

1920

8,025.000

67. New York

New Y o r k

City

8.646,011

6 1 . Macy

(Josiah, J r . )

Foundation

Foundation

'93°

City

400.000 10450,000 130.000

Chicago, 111.

•9"9 1920

6g. Payne F u n d

New Y o r k

1929

«.837543 3,500,000

70. Peabody E d u c a t i o n F u n d

(no longer active)

1867

3,(XX) .000

1923 1911

1,300,000

6 8 . Noyes ( L a V e r n e )

Foundation

City

New York

City

7 2 . Phelps-Stokes F u n d

New York

City

7 3 . Presser F o u n d a t i o n

Philadelphia,

74. R a c k h a m

Ann Arbor, Mich.

7 1 . Penney

( J . C.)

Foundation

Fund

Pa.

7 5 . R e c t o r Scholarship F o u n d a t i o n

Greencastle, Ind.

76. R o c k e f e l l e r F o u n d a t i o n

New York

77. R o c k e f e l l e r

(no longer active)

(L. S.)

Memorial

78. Rosenwald (Julius) 7g. Sage (Russell)

Chicago, 111.

Fund

Foundation

80. Schepp (Leopold)

Foundation

8 1 . S c h m i d l a p p (Charlotte)

Fund

82. Scholarship F u n d , M. E . C h u r c h 83. Schurz

(Carl)

Foundation

City

820,000

1916

•

'934 1920

25,000.000

•9'3 1918

154,000,000

2,207.507

74,000,000 4,125.000

New Y o r k

City

•9'7 1907

New Y o r k

City

'9«5

•5.457.575 4,151,000

'907 1921

2,276407

Cincinnati, Ohio New Y o r k

City

695.000

and Oxford, Ohio

1930 1922

1,059,000

84. Scripps F o u n d a t i o n 85. Service L e a g u e F o u n d a t i o n

Springfield, Mass.

1922

•

86. Slater

Oberlaender T r u s t

( J . F.)

Fund

P h i l a d e l p h i a , Pa.

•

W a s h i n g t o n , D . C.

1882

2 , 1 14,648

87. S p e l m a n F u n d of New Y o r k

New Y o r k

1928

6,542,421

88. Strong

W a s h i n g t o n , D. C.

1928

700.000

New Y o r k

City

'935

35,000,(MX)

New Y o r k

City

'919

7,OOO .(XX)

St. Louis, Mo.

1926

1,054.000

New Y o r k

>9'9

468,024

(Hattie)

Foundation

8g. Surdna F o u n d a t i o n

City

90. T e a c h e r s I n s u r a n c e a n d A n n u i t y Association 91. Tilles

(Rosalie)

Fund

92. T w e n t i e t h Century F u n d

City

Appendix

3o6 Foundation 93. Washington Foundation 94. Whitney Benefits 95. Whitney (Payne) Fund 96. 97. 98. 99. 100.

Wieboldt Foundation Wientz (Lew) Foundation Wilson (Woodrow) Foundation Winston-Salem Foundation Wvoinissing Foundation

Location Washington, D. C. Sheridan, Wyo. New York City

Organized 1920

Assets

1927 '9*7

$

16,000 1,008 XXX) 25,000,000

1921 Chicago, 111. Tulsa, Okla. 19*6 New York City 1922 Winston-Salem, N. C. 1 9 1 9 Reading, Pa. 1926

4,119,000 100,000 865,000 150,000 •

Notes

Notes i:

INTRODUCTION

1. Data supplied from the private files of the John Price Jones Corporation, New York, N. Y . T h e business of this agency is to plan and conduct fundraising campaigns. 2. In 1913 Congress began an investigation of these two foundations in connection with a general investigation of Carnegie and Rockefeller industrial practices. N o foundation legislation resulted, but most of the current fears and suspicions with regard to such philanthropies were aired. For details consult the index volume of the eleven-volume report issued as Senate Document 415, 64th Congress, 1st Session, 1916. 3. Eduard C. Lindeman, Wealth and Culture, pp. 10-21. 4. See Appendix for a list of the foundations discussed in this study; it gives certain information concerning each of them. Since more than three-fourths of the grants have come from four or five foundations, it has not seemed expedient, in this survey of a third of a century of giving, always to identify the number or contributions of the minor foundations. 5. T w e n t i e t h Century Fund, American Foundations and Their Fields, 1934, p. 16. 6. T h i s listing includes unaccredited colleges that enroll a hundred or more resident students and that graduate ten or more students annually, and unaccredited professional and technical schools that enroll twenty-five resident students and graduate five or more annually. 7. T w e n t i e t h Century Fund, op. cit., p. 10. 8. Eduard C. Lindeman, op. cit., Appendix, pp. 72-84. g. Ibid., p. vii. 10. Harold C. Coffman, American Foundations, p. 7. 11. Frederick P. Keppel, The Foundation, p. 56. 12. John J. Hader and Eduard C. Lindeman, Dynamic Social Research, p. 128. 13. O t h e r investigators have lamented this handicap. See especially Harold C. Coffman, American Foundations. 14. T h e reports of the General Education Board from 1914 to 1936 may be consulted if concrete illustrations are desired. IK

THE DEVELOPMENT

OF PHILANTHROPIC

FOUNDATIONS

1. W i l l i a m A. Orton, "Endowments and Foundations," Encyclopaedia Social Sciences, V , 531-32.

of the

2. Ibid. 3. Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries, 480-81. 4. Mack, Hale, and Riser, editors, Corpus Juris, XI, 297-379, give a full statement of the legal basis for charitable trusts.

Notes

3io

5. Since this research does not intend to examine the economic theory on which foundations are based, nor foundation theory in general, the interested reader is referred to such basic discussions as W . W. Stephens, editor. Life and Writings of Turgot; Sir Arthur Hobhouse, The Dead Hand; Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book V; John Stuart Mill, Dissertations and Discussions, Vol. I. 6. Frederick P. Keppel, The Foundation, p. 5. 7. For significant and representative discussions of the two points of view see Julius Rosenwald, "Principles of Public Giving," Atlantic Monthly, CXLIII (1929), 599-606, and Henry S. Pritchett, " T h e Use and Abuse of Endowments," Atlantic Monthly, CXLIV (19*9) , 517-24. 8. Twentieth Century Fund, American Foundations and Their Fields, 1934, chart opposite page 15. 9. For basic information on this point consult appropriate sections of J. T . Adams, The Epic of America; the Beards' Rise of American Civilization; and J. A. Hobson, Evolution of Modem Capitalism. 10. Clyde Furst, "Wealth Grown Generous," World's Work, LVIII (Nov., 1929), 56-60. i t . Frederick P. Keppel, Philanthropy and Learning, p. 160. 12. Twentieth Century Fund, American Foundations and Their Fields, 1932, p. 13. In surveys made in 1931 and 1934 there were usable returns from 122 and 123 foundations respectively, but complete tabulations were available from not more than 95 foundations in any one of these three years. 13. Eduard C. Lindeman, Wealth and Culture, p. 10. T h e tabulations in this study are based on only 100 of these foundations. 14. Carnegie Corporation, Annual Report, 1928, p. 24. 15. During 1936 the New York Times alone reported the incorporation of fifteen philanthropic trusts. For the list consult New York Times Index. Mr. Robert M. Lester, Secretary of the Carnegie Corporation, issued in 1937 a mimeographed list of ninety-seven foundations chartered since 1930. 16. This figure is the proportion over a decade of the contributions made by the 100 foundations of Lindeman's study; it is the proportion of Carnegie Corporation income set aside for higher education in 1920. Hcnce the generalization. 17. See Chapter IV for evidence to support this statement. 18. Frederick P. Keppel, The Foundation, pp. 9-12. 19. For details see the appropriate section in the annual reports of the president of the Carnegie Institution from 1903 to 1908 in the Yearbook. 20. For details consult Review of Grants to the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, in the Carnegie Corporation "Review Series" publications. Ill:

FOUNDATION

POLICIES

1. Frederick P. Keppel, The Foundation, pp. 33-34. 2. Jesse B. Sears, Philanthropy in American Higher Education, p. 94. Cf. the 1916 Report of the Congressional Commission on Industrial Relations. 3. General Education Board, 1903—14 Report, p. 109. 4. Ibid., p. 109.

Notes 5. Ibid., p. 143. 6. Ibid., pp. 119-36. 7. Ibid., p. 14s. 8. Carnegie Institution, Yearbook, 1907, p. 3a. 9. For two of the best discussions of this trend see General Education Board. 1928—29 Report, pp. 8-10 and Carnegie Corporation, Review of Grants to Colleges and Universities, pp. 7—12. 10. Elbert Hubbard, "Little Journeys" series, XI, 304-7. • 1. Rockefeller Foundation, Annual Report, 1918, pp. 54—55; Carnegie Corporation, The Corporation: a Digest of Its Financial Record, p. 335. i s . Hoy Taylor, Early Administration of the Peabody Education Fund, pp. 123-56. This reference traces the "state" institution to its metamorphosis into the George Peabody College at Nashville, Tennessee. 13. Ibid., pp. 148-53. 14. Carnegie Endowment, Public Benefactions of Andrew Carnegie, p. 129. 15. General Education Board, 1902—14 Report, p. 108. 16. Ibid., pp. 107, 106. 17. Ibid., p. 105. 18. Carnegie Foundation, Thirtieth Annual Report, 19J), p. 31. 19. Robert M. Lester, Review of Grants for Professors Pensions, pp. 77-78. 20. Ibid., p. 80. 21. J. McKeen Cattell, Carnegie Pensions, p. 126. 22. Carnegie Foundation, Thirtieth Annual Report, 19)}, p. 33. 23. Ibid., p. 31. 24. Carnegie Endowment, Public Benefactions of Andrew Carnegie, p. 303. 25. National Association of State Universities, Proceedings, 1909, p. 14. 26. Hoy Taylor, Early Administration of the Peabody Education Fund, pp. 63-69. 27. Peabody Education Fund, Proceedings, I, 287. 28. General Education Board, 1902—14 Report, pp. 144-47. See Chapter IV for a factual summary of the increase in funds made possible through the matching policy. 29. Frederick P. Keppel, The Foundation, pp. 51-52. 30. Eduard C. Lindeman, Wealth and Culture, p. 19. In 1925 the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin officially declared that conditioning had caused it to refuse additional foundation grants. 31. Frederick P. Keppel, op. cit., p. 52. 32. Harold C. Coffman, American Foundations, Appendix D, pp. 163—84. Sixteen officials were lor a restricted geographical area, nineteen were opposed to such restrictions, and twenty-two were undecided. 33. Carnegie Corporation, Annual Report, 1924, p. 9. 34. Milbank Memorial Fund, Twenty-fifth Annual Report, p. 37. 35. Commonwealth Fund, Annual Report, 19JO, p. 77. 36. General Education Board, 1928-29 Report, p. 10. 37. Ibid., p. 11. 38. Rockfeller Foundation, Annual Report, 1929, p. 175. 39. Frederick P. Keppel, op. cit., p. 49.

Notes

312

40. L a u r a S p e t m a n R o c k e f e l l e r M e m o r i a l , Final

Report,

1933, p p . 1 4 - 1 6 , lists

t w e l v e d e m o n s t r a t i o n p o l i c i e s t h a t h a v e b e e n f o r m u l a t e d a n d o b s e r v e d b y all of the Rockefeller philanthropies. 41. S p e l m a n F u n d of N e w Y o r k , Report 42. C a r n e g i e F o u n d a t i o n , Aules

for 1929 and 1930,

for Admission

passim.

of Institutions,

igsg, pp. 18-19.

43. T h e necessity to conserve space p r e v e n t s a discussion of p u r e l y trative policies, s u c h as t h e n a t u r e a n d n u m b e r of i n t e r i m a n d r e q u i r e d of t h e r e c i p i e n t of agencies

f u n d s , policies f o r m a k i n g grants

(e.g., the A m e r i c a n C o u n c i l o n E d u c a t i o n )

adminis-

final

reports

through

other

rather than administering

t h e m d i r e c t l y , etc. 44. Frederick

P . K e p p e l , The

Foundation,

p . 48.

45. N a t i o n a l Association of S l a t e Universities, Proceedings, 46. J . M c K e e n C a t t e l l , Carnegie 47. Ibid.,

Pensions,

1909. p p .

14-16.

p p . 228-29.

p . 250.

48. See t h e Second,

Third

a n d Fourth

Annual

Reports

of t h e C a r n e g i e F o u n -

d a t i o n f o r P r e s i d e n t P r i t c h e t t ' s criticisms. 49. W . S. P . B r y a n , The

Church,

Her

Colleges,

and

the Carnegie

Foundation,

p . 44. 50. C a r n e g i e F o u n d a t i o n , Ninth

Annual

5 1 . E d i t o r i a l , t h e Independent,

LXVI

Report, (June

1914,

p . 54.

17, 1909), 153-54. C o n s u l t

the

I n d e x o f this v o l u m e lor o t h e r s i m i l a r c o m m e n t o n f o u n d a t i o n s , a n d also the I n d e x of V o l u m e X C o f t h e Nation

f o r s i m i l a r a c c o u n t s d u r i n g 1910, especially

pages 258-59 a n d 286. 52. W a l t e r W . S t e p h e n s , e d i t o r . Life 53. C a r n e g i e C o r p o r a t i o n , Annual 54. W . S. P. B r y a n , The

and

Report,

Church,

Writings

of Turgot,

p . 220.

1922, p p . 19, 17.

Her Colleges,

and

the Carnegie

Foundation,

p. 24. 55. Ibid.,

p p . 18-26, s u m m a r i z e s the p o i n t s of conflict f o r e a c h c o l l e g e .

56. C e n t r e C o l l e g e history s h o w s that this w e a n i n g a w a y was than s p i r i t u a l .

financial

W h e n by 1922 t h e constantly revised rules o f t h e

rather

Foundation

h a d r e d u c e d to $ 1 4 0 0 t h e 1907-8 g r a n t of $4,700, C e n t r e d e c i d e d that t h e d e n o m i n a t i o n a l affiliation w a s t h e m o r e a d v a n t a g e o u s a n d r e t u r n e d to it. 57. B r y a n , op. cit., p . 32. 58. C a r n e g i e F o u n d a t i o n , Rules

for Admission

of Institutions,

1929, p p . 28-29,

gives t h e i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s cited in this p a r a g r a p h . 59. F o r

example,

service pension

Cattell

reports

that

under

the

twenty-five-year

r u l e t h e n i n effect, G e o r g e W a s h i n g t o n

of its professors w h i l e they w e r e at t h e h e i g h t of

Carnegie

University retired two

their m e n t a l a n d

physical

vigor, a n a c t i o n w h i c h w a s in a c c o r d w i t h t h e l e t t e r o f the F o u n d a t i o n ' s rules b u t in v i o l a t i o n o f the s p i r i t in w h i c h the colleges w e r e then b e i n g e x p e c t e d to i n t e r p r e t t h e m . A F o u n d a t i o n r e p r e s e n t a t i v e visited the U n i v e r s i t y a n d , a m o n g o t h e r things, his i n v e s t i g a t i o n r e v e a l e d t h a t t h e e n d o w m e n t h a d b e e n a l l o w e d to d r o p b e l o w t h e r e q u i r e d $200,000. T h e clear v i o l a t i o n of this r u l e w a s used as a basis f o r d r o p p i n g G e o r g e W a s h i n g t o n

University

f r o m C a r n e g i e affiliation.

T h e F o u n d a t i o n was o p e n l y a c c u s e d of t a k i n g this drastic a c t i o n as a p u n i t i v e measure

f o r f a i l u r e i n m o r e s u b t l e c o n f o r m i t i e s . It was f u r t h e r c h a r g e d

the F o u n d a t i o n was m a k i n g a n e x a m p l e of t h e U n i v e r s i t y in o r d e r other

affiliated

institutions

into

more

willing

conformity.

(See J .

that

to coerce McKeen

Notes

3'3

Catlell, Carnegie Pensions, p. 120 and passim, and Carnegie Foundation, Fourth Annual Report, 1909, pp. 42 et seq.) 60. Carnegie Foundation, Rules for Admission of Institutions, 1929, pp. 1 8 - 1 9 . 61. Ibid., p. 28. 62. Ibid., p. 29. 63. Idem, Third Annual Report, 1908, p. 63. 64. Idem, Fourth Annual Report, 1909, p. 84. 65. Ibid., p. 83. 66. Ibid., pp. 85-88. For example, President Pritchett wrote to Governor J u d son Harmon of Ohio, pointing out the lack of wisdom in allowing its university to grow up in three geographical locations, Columbus, Miami, and Athens. He emphasized the lack of uniformity in admission and graduation requirements, as well as the duplication and lack of coordination in the efforts of the three divisions of the state university. T o the final admonition that " T h e educational interests of the State of Ohio require that these three institutions be reconstructed" is attached the implicit suggestion that the undertaking of such a reconstruction is a condition of admission to the eligible list. 67. Idem, Third Annual Report, 1908, pp. 81-93. G8. T h e current status of opinion on these controversial questions is illustrated by the fact that foundation officials, in the ratio of 42 to 10, believe they must continue and even increase the amount of advice they give with and without grants. Of 60 such officials, 8 strongly recommended that a foundation control the work its funds support, and 16 others did not disapprove. T h e officers of organizations receiving foundation grants were of a decidedly contrary opinion: 47 of a total of 59 disapproved of foundation control, whether through executive leadership, the giving of advice, or undue noniinancial conditioning of the grant. It is evident that this conflict of interest leaves still unsolved the problem with which the Carnegie Foundation struggled in dealing with church and state colleges. (Factual data from Coffman, American Foundations, p. 167.) 69. Eduard C. Lindeman, Wealth and Culture, p. 59. 70. Associated Press report of the remarks of Executive Vice President Edwin S. Jarrett, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in the Troy Times, J u n e 15, 1935, here quoted from the Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors, X X X I I (Jan., 1936) , p. 18. 71. Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, Final Report, 1933, pp. >4—1572. Ibid., p. 16. 73. Carnegie Corporation, Review of Grants in the Arts, p. 16. 74. Idem, Annual Report, 1934, p. 36. 75. Twentieth Century Fund, Meeting a Common Problem, an 8-page pamphlet. 76. Carnegie Corporation, The Corporation: a Digest of Its Record, pp. 244-45. 77. Idem, Food Research Institute of Stanford University, p. 8. 78. Eduard C. Lindeman, Wealth and Culture, p. 60. 79. Statement of Dean William F. Russell in the Teachers College News, Jan. 1 1 , 1936. 80. Frederick P. Keppel, Philanthropy and Learning, p. 171.

Notes 81. Coffman, op. cit., p. 18s. 82. Ibid., p. 167. 8j. Pea body Education Fund, Proceedings, Vol. I, Prefatory Note. 84. It has elsewhere been noted that some portions of the Carnegie Foundation's reports do not agree with this generalization. It devoted so much space to criticising other cultural agents that it was d u b b e d "an omniscient busybody." These critical activities were so conspicuous that Professor Jastrow of Harvard remarked: "At times the reports give the impression that their pages are used as a medium of personal opinion; it would be better to distinguish between the individual and official statements a n d to avoid the appearance of an imperially benevolent wisdom" (Carnegie Pensions, p. 141) . 85. General Education Board, 1902—14 Report, p. xv. 86. Congressional Commission on Industrial Relations, Final Report, IX, 8*86-97. 87. Ibid., VIII, 7967. 88. Rockefeller Foundation, Annual Report, 1 9 1 3 - 1 5 , Appendix. 89. Frederick P. Keppel, The Foundation, p. 50. 90. Carnegie Corporation, Annual Report, 19)$, p. 60. T h i s citation shows similar information for each year since 1929. 91. Idem, Annual Report, 1934, p. so. 92. Rockefeller Foundation, Annual Report, 192}, pp. 67-68. 93. General Education Board, 1934—)) Report, p p . 37-38. IV:

FOUNDATION

ORGANIZATION

1. Eduard C. Lindeman, Wealth and Culture, p. 5. 2. John T . Flynn, God's Gold, p p . 394-405. 3. Frederick P. Keppel, The Foundation, p. 18. 4. T h i s is not to say that the immediate administrations have always been free from the personal shortcomings of the founders. His associates indicate that Mr. Carnegie's vanity, sentimentality, impulsiveness, and downright egotism frequently interfered with the administration of his trust (see Burton J . Hendrick, Life of Andrew Carnegie, II, 160) . T h e very reserved Chairman of the Peabody Education Fund Board described George Peabody as not always disposed to keep his good deeds in the background, b u t rather of "decided taste for occasional display—call it ostentation if you will" (see Peabody Education Fund, Proceedings, II, 56) . 5. Robert M. Lester, Review of Grants to the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, pp. 29-30. 6. Carnegie Endowment, Public Benefactions of Andrew Carnegie, p. 303. 7. General Education Board, 1902—14 Report, pp. 7-8. T h r o u g h t h e Society Rockefeller, Sr., had personally given $34,702,375.28 to the University of Chicago, and as much more to other Baptist colleges. 8. Ibid., p. 16. Under this right of personal designation $>3,554,344 of General Education Board funds was given to the University of Chicago, and $10,267/322 of its funds to the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. 9. For terms of the reservation see Appendix, 1913 Report; for release see President's Review, 192», p. 9, Rockefeller Foundation Reports.

Notes

3»5

10. Commission on Industrial Relations, op. cit., I, 82-83. 1 1 . " J o h n D. Rockefeller, J r . , " Fortune, X I V (July, 1936), No. 1. 12. For a list of these gifts see pages 5 - 6 of Hoy Taylor, Early Administration of the Peabody Education Fund. Since George Pea body had made his home in London from 1837 on, he cxercised very little practical direction in the management of the Fund. 13. Letter under date of May 7, 1936, from Executive Secretary John E. Thomas. This foundation issues occasional descriptive accounts of its work. 14. From an Associated Press dispatch to the New York Times, Jan. 20, 1936. 15. Carnegie Endowment, Public Benefactions of Andrew Carnegie, p. 207. 16. James C. Young, "Dead Hand in Philanthropy," Current History, X X I I I , 838-39, gives the details of the restrictions imposed on each of these foundation*. T h e Randall bequest, for example, is limited to minor usefulness by a trust agreement reputedly prepared by Alexander Hamilton. This farm, now located in the Washington Square section of New York City, was worth at the time about $7,000 and today is worth approximately $50,000,000, but the indenture restricts the income to the needs of an almost vanished group of sailors. 17. New York Times, J a n . 19, 1936. 18. Abraham Flexner, "Private Fortunes and the Public Future," Atlantic Monthly, C L V I (Aug., 1935) , p. 221. 19. Ernest Seeman, "Duke, But Not Doris," New Republic, L X X X V I I I (Sept. 30, 1936), 220-22. 20. Louis Graves, "Benevolent Water Power," World's Work, L X ( 1 9 3 1 ) , 41-42. 21. Duke Endowment, Yearbook One, 192}, Appendix xiv. 22. Ibid. 23. Lindeman's study (Wealth and Culture, pp. 32—46) covers 402 of the 509 board members of 70 foundations, and Cotfman's study (American Foundations, pp. 24-30) is of 282 of the 565 trustees in 55 foundations—availability of biographical data in each case determining the number of persons included. Lindeman so magnifies the power of the foundation trustees as to declare that "Taken as a group, that is, as a whole, the trustees of foundations wield a power in American life which is probably equalled only by the national government itself, and by the executives in our dominant financial and industrial corporations" (p. 3 3 ) . 24. Earl J . McGrath, "Control of Higher Education in America," Educational Record, X V I I (April, 1936) , 264-65. 25. T h e McGrath tabulation lists 31.9 percent of the private college trustees as "business men" and the Lindeman and the Coffman studies each list 34 percent of foundation trustees by this designation. College trustees were 4 4 percent physicians and foundation trustees 6 percent physicians. Clergymen accounted for approximately 7 percent in each group. Educators constituted 10 percent of the college boards and 17 percent of the foundation boards. In general these proportions are true also of state college and university trustees, the only differences being: a reduction of 7 in the percentage of business men, with this figure showing as an increase in lawyers; a small increase in the number of women; and the presence of farmers among the vocations. 26. Lindeman, op. cit., p. 44. 27. Carnegie Corporation, Annual

Report,

1922.

316

Notes

»8. Idem, The Corporation: a Digest of Its Record, p. 248. 29. T h e data in this paragraph are from IVho's Who in America standard biographical references.

and similar

30. General Education Board, 1902-14 Report, p. 5. 31. ¡bid., pp. x i i i - x i v . 32. T h e by-laws of all Rockefeller boards and committees require that members absent themselves when consideration is being given to an appeal from an organization with which they have an official connection (see General Education Board, By-Laws, p. 15, and Rockefeller Foundation, By-Laws, p. 6 ) . 33. Earl J. McGrath, "Control of Higher Education in America," Educational Record, X V I I (April, 1936) , 266. 34. Carnegie Endowment, Public Benefactions of Andrew Carnegie, pp. 150, passim. 35. Carnegie Corporation, Annual Report, 1922, p. 15. 36. Frederick P. Keppel, Philanthropy and Learning, p. 167. 37. Ibid., p. 15. 38. For example, the mental hygiene programs of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Markle Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation were undertaken on trustee initiative; the "Review Series," as an audit of the experience of the Carnegie Corporation, was initiated by General J. J. Carty, a member of its Board of Trustees. 39. Peabody Education Fund, Proceedings, I, 279-82; III, 190-93, 257-59; IV, 378. 40. Ernest Seeman, loc. cit. 41. T h e New Republic, L X X X V I I I (Oct. 21, 1936), 3 1 1 - 1 2 , and L X X X I X (Nov. n . 1936), 48-49. 42. Frederick P. Keppel, "Opportunities and Dangers of Educational Foundations," School and Society, X X I I , 799. 43. Idem, The Foundation, pp. 67-68. 44. Harold J. Laski, Dangers of Obedience, pp. 169-70. 45. Ibid. 46. Keppel, The Foundation, p. 96. 47. New York Times, May 19, 1917, p. 12. Files of the Times and of the Nation for 1915-17 are the sources for most of the Flexncr evaluation. 48. New York Times, May 18, 1917, p. 14. 49. Hans Zinsser, " T h e Perils of Magnanimity: a Problem in American Education," Atlantic Monthly, C X X X I X (Feb., 1927) , 247-49. 50. For representative samples of this debate see Volume CII of the 51. General Education Board, 1925-26 Report, pp. x—xii.

Nation.

52. Benj. G . Brawley, Dr. Dillard of the Jeanes Fund. 53. Carnegie Foundation, Annual Report, 19}7, p. 18. 54. Keppel, The Foundation, p. 97. 55. Under the general title of "Review Series" the Corporation since 1930 has issued twenty-six pamphlets describing the history of its major undertakings. All except three of them have been prepared by Robert M. Lester, Secretary of the Corporation. 56. General Education Board, 1924—2} Report,

p. 12.

Notes

3*7

57. Coffman, op. cit., p. 166. Compare Lindeman, Wealth

and Culture,

pp.

58. Keppel, The Foundation, pp. 74, 70. 59. Coffman, op. cit., p. 3a. 60. Keppel, Philanthropy and Learning, p. 164. 61. Editorial, New York Medical Week, March 7, 1931. 6s. See reports of the Commonwealth Fund, 1919-26. 63. Laski, op. cit., p. 162. 64. Social Science Research Council, Decennial Report, 1923-33, p. 105. 65. Records exist to show that one foundation so took a national group for granted as its own agent as to send it a check for $25,000 with directions to administer a project on which it had not been consulted. T h e director of another learned association has stated that by the time a given project is ready to recommend to the foundation he cannot tell how much of it was the planning of his own staff and how much of it came from staff members of three foundations w h o constantly work with his organization. 66. Carnegie Corporation, Annual official Council report. 67. 68. 69. 70.

W i l l i a m H. Allen, Rockefeller, Carnegie Corporation, Annual Lindeman, op. cit., p. 32. Carnegie Corporation, Annual

Report,

19)5,

p. 61, an excerpt from an

pp. 504-5. Report, 19J4, p. 21. Report,

1922, p. 18.

71. Coffman, op. cit., p. 146. 72. Carnegie Corporation, Annual Report, 1922. p. 15. 73. Robert M. Lester, "Philanthropic Endowments in Modern Life," Atlantic Quarterly, X X X I V (1935) , 8. VI: F O U N D A T I O N

South

C O N T R I B U T I O N S IN G E N E R A L

1. T h e data in this and the previous paragraph are from T w e n t i e t h Century Fund, American Foundations and Their Fields, 1934, pp. 12—16. 2. Malcolm M. Willey and Dale O . Patterson, "Philanthropic Foundations and T h e i r Grants to Institutions of Higher Education d u r i n g the Depression Years," School and Society, X L V (May 8, 1937), 664. 3. In the Introduction the difference in the definitions used by the Lindeman and T w e n t i e t h Century Fund studies is explained. T h a t foundation concentration is about in line with that practiced by individual philanthropists is indicated by John Price Jones Corporation data on the 1930-35 gifts in six leading American cities: 80 percent was allocated to education, health, and social welfare, with education receiving 39 percent. 4. Percentages derived from a table on page 28 of Lindeman, Wealth Culture. VII: D E F I N I N G T H E 1. Donfred H . Gardner, Student

Personnel

COLLEGE Service, p. 9 (Volume V of the

series " T h e Evaluation of Higher Institutions," University of Chicago '9383 Books, collections available through foundation aid, 259 Borrowing from endowment f u n d s , 138 Bocany, grants for research in, 244 Brookings Institution, 7, 247; publications in economics, 168; endowment grant, 248; defends impartiality of research, 249; criticism of, 252; The Recovery Problem in the United States, 253; research projects centers of controversy, 253; America's Capacity to Produce, 254; grants from Carnegie Corporation, 279; sum received from foundations since organization, 280 Brown University, liberalization of charter, 54 Brush Foundation, 2 1 6 B r ) a n , William Jennings, 56 Bryce, J a m e s , Viscount, 166 Buhl Foundation, 206, 220; grants for research, 244; grants allocated to medical education and research. 2 1 5 Business, private, contributions for research in sciences, 239 Business cycles, social benefit of studies in, 293 Business Cycles, 251 Butler, Nicholas Murrav, 98 Buttrick, Wallace, 9 1 , 98; personality and working methods, 102

Index California, cooperation with Carnegie trusts on education survey, 160; grants west of Mississippi concentrated in, 270 California, University of, Institute of Public Administration, 263; Institute of Child Welfare, 265 California Institute of Technology, 244; aggregate of grants received (1902-34), 274, 276 Cambridge Foundation, grants to Harvard University, 107; student loans, 187 Campbell, Governor, 56 Capital grants, reform possibilities embedded in, 285; conditioned, 296; abandonment of policy of, 297 Carl Schurz Memorial Foundation, 180; scholarship aid, 183 Carnegie, Andrew, 25, 6g, 93; Carnegie Institute chartered, 22; establishment of Carnegie Institution of Washington, 24; excludes state institutions from sharing in gift, 34; quoted, 37, 76, 81, 196; criticized for inventing the "Carnegie unit," 51; business habits mirrored by Carnegie trusts, 76, 78; assets in foundations established by, 121; pension system, 128; college endowment, 200; personal gifts to libraries, 234 Carnegie Corporation, principal held in perpetuity, 19; support of Carnegie Institute of Technology at Pittsburgh, 25; war and emergency relief, 33; reshaped policies concerning grants, 41; evolution of concentration policy, 42; cooperation with government projects, 48; grants to social and educational projects, 61; anticipation of income, 65; reports, 69, 72; applications considered, 70, 72; origin illustrates founder's influence, 78; growing freedom of trustees, 88, 90; President Keppel's administration, 104; audit of experience: historical studies, 104; use of outside advisers, 106; delay in considering applications, 112; supports newer devices for college admission and guidance, 144; grant to Pennsylvania study, 147; gTants to general education projects and to oc-

345 cupational studies, 150; grants to University of Chicago, 152; grants to Swarthmore and University of Minnesota for experimental courses, 153; surveys of education in California and Missouri, 160; promotion of general diffusion of knowledge, 165; annual reports, 172; fellowship program, 179; expenditures for scholarship, fellowship, and visitors' grants, 182; aid to Carnegie Foundation for pension obligations, 193; grants to faculty welfare through Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America, 195; termination of responsibility, 196; grants for general and special endowment, 204; grants to medical schools, 213; endowment of Harvard Dental School, 219; grants for dental college libraries, and for dental research, 220; grants for study of engineering education, 226; grant for social inquiry into teaching of studies, 228; grants for teacher training and professional education, 231; studies of teacher training financed by, 232; grants for professional aspects of the arts, 233 ff.; grants to libraries and to higher education, 234 ff.; grant to Society of American Foresters, 237; grants to National Research Council, 242; grants to social science activities, 248, 252, 253; subsidy for Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 251; appropriation for Social Studies Investigation, 252; grants to the humanities, 258, 261; exploratory projects in adult education, 265; grants for research in use of radio in education, and for educational and vocational work, 266: museum grants, 267; geographical distribution of grants, 269; grants to colleges for art and music equipment, 271; concentration of institutional grants, 276, 278; grants to subsidiary and marginal agencies of higher education, 278; grants to higher education and to Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, 287; scholarship funds of the Corporation, 288

346

Index

Carnegie Endowment for Internationa] Peace, fellowship program, 179; fellowships in international law, 224; interest in international relations. 262; scholarship funds, 288 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 6; bases affiliation on knowledge of college, 3 1 ; excludes state institutions from sharing in gift, 34; early purpose, 36; denominational colleges and vested church interests, 38, 5 1 , 53, 54, 138; policy of conditional giving, 4 1 , 50; Pennsylvania study, 45, 146, 147, 148, 154; cooperation with public bodies, 47; struggle to formulate and administer policies for giving advice, 50 if.; affiliation of state universities, 56; publicity policy, 69; manner of selecting trustees, 93: executives set operating pattern, 98; report on Medical Education in the United States and Canada, 100; work of Henry S. Pritchett: administrations of Presidents Suzzallo and Jessup, 103; leadership services, 105; percent of assets of foundations held by, 121; plans for improvement of educational system, 128 ff.: entrance standards urged upon colleges, 130; refusal to affiliate landgrant colleges, 132; establishment of standard for liberal arts college, 136; supervision of endowment funds, 138; research scrvice to postwar education, 144; study of public education in Vermont, 157; surveys of education in California and Missouri, 160; influence on college organization and administration, 162; Bulletin Number Three, on accounting forms, 164; influence of publications on higher education and legal practices, 168; influence on medical education, 210, 2 1 1 ; study of dental education, 218; study for improving education in engineering professions, 225; survey of teacher training supported by, 232; grants (1902-14) , 270; grants (to 1920), 270 f.; standards in advance of prevailing practices, 286; standards disadvantageous to denominational and state colleges, 286

Carnegie Foundation—Division of Educational Enquiry, 25, 194; interest in law schools, 221 ff. Carnegie Foundation—Pension system, standards required for affiliation, 36; editorial opinion of program, 52; controversy over control of universities through, 57; conditions of awarding, 129, 286; state universities admitted, 133; obligations assumed by Carnegie Foundation, 141; pension and vocational education studies, 168 f.; pension grants and allowances to college teachers, 190, 287; grants to Carnegie Foundation for pensions, 190; pension plan rouses antagonism, 191; repudiation of initial philosophy (Foundation unable to finance), 192 ff.; abandonment of free pensions, 194; contributory annuity and insurance plan, 194 Carnegie Institute of Technology at Pittsburgh, 22, 25; an industrial and trade school, 78; unwieldy foundation board, 93; aggregate of grants received by the Institute (1902-34) , 274. 275 Carnegie Institution of Washington, 7; difficulties in finding fields for endeavor, 24; publicity policy, 69; manner of selecting trustees, 93; under Dr. Woodward and Dr. Merriam, 103; pure science publications, 169; interest in physical and natural science, 241; policy toward social science research, 246; grants to social science activities, 248, 252; grant for research in historical documents, 252 Carnegie pension system, see Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching—Pension system Carnegie trusts, grants to higher education, 6; mirror business habits of Andrew Carnegie, 76, 78; concentration of capital and disbursement activities, 121, 126; influence in individual college experiments, 151; increase sums devoted to fellowships in professional fields, 175; promotion of faculty welfare, 190 ff.; interest in the arts, 233. See also

Index Congressional Commission on Industrial Relations "Carnegie unit," Andrew Carnegie criticized for inventing, 51; yardstick for measuring high school's work, 130 ff.; retention past day of usefulness, 136; one of "verities" in education, 14a; attack on, 146 Carson College for Orphan Girls, 82 Caruso American Foundation, 181; music scholarships, 183 Cattell, J. McKeen, criticism of Carnegie pension system, 38 Chaloner Foundation, scholarship aid, •83 Charlotte Schmidlapp Fund, student loans, 187 Charter-granting machinery of states. 23 Chatter of incorporation, 17 Chemical Foundation, grants to advance chemical engineering education, 227 Chemistry, fellows in, 185; grants for research in, 244; pure research in, 293 Chicago, University of, Rockefeller contributions, 25, 200, 205, 248; conferences on accounting, 105; use of psychological tests, 143; postwar admission standards, 144; promotes newer devices for college admission, 145; reorganization of curriculum, 152; General Education Board conferences with college business officers, 1G4; La Verne Noyes Foundation scholarships, 177; Survey, loan f u n d , 188: medical department, grants from Rockefeller Foundation, 204; grant for chapel, 204; Graduate School of Social Service, 205, 264; grants from Wieboldt Foundation, 206; clinical departments reorganized, 211; grant to school of public health of, 213; School of Education, grants from Rockefellers, 228; graduate library school, 235; Oriental Institute, 259; Historical Dictionary of American English, 259; agency for child study, 265; adult education, 266; aggregate of grants received from philanthropies (igo234) . 274. 275. 276

347

Chicago, Y. M. C. A. college, 264 Chicago Community T r u s t , grants for mental hygiene and nursing education, 217 Child Development Institute, Teachers College, Columbia University, 67,265 Child-parent education, research in, 232 Children's Fund of Michigan, grants allocated to medical education and research, 215; grants for dental research, 220 Child Study and Parent Education Institute, University of Iowa, 265 Child-study program, 264 Child welfare agencies, attitude of directors toward foundations, i i 2 f f . China Institute in America, 181 Church, vested interests fight Carnegie Foundation, 54 Church colleges, see Denominational colleges Church organs given by Andrew Carnegie, 78 City planning, 263 Civilian Conservation Corps, 150 Civilizations, American Indian, 260 Classical languages in curriculum, Flexner's attack on worth of, 102; controversy, 167 Classical League, controversy, 167 Cleveland Foundation, so6; grants allocated to medical education and research, 215 Clinical instruction, full-time clinical staff a condition of grants to medical schools, 41, 46, 65, 211; not acceptable to medical teachers, 101 Coffin, Charles Albert, establishment of American Field Service Fellowships, 180 CoITman, Harold C., 86, 295; questionnaire on concentration of activities, 42; quoted, 68, 107; tabulation of opinions on use of outside advisers in determination of grants, 106; American Foundations, 114 Colgate University, tutorial undertakings,' 154 College accrediting associations give place to qualitative standards, 137 College administration, publications on, 169

34«

Index

College admission, promotion of education through improving standards of, 189 ff.; by certification of units of credit, 136, 143 (see also Carnegie unit) ; foundations promote newer criteria for, 144; demonstration projects in, 145 College and University Finance, 105, 164 College Art Association, grants from Carnegie Corporation, »79 College boards, composition of, 87 College Entrance Examination Board, attempt to resolve confusion in educational system, 128; entrance requirements, 130 College p l a n n i n g as part of educational and social planning, 148 College president transformed into soliciting agent, 111 Colleges, institutional policy, 27; location in centers of population, 30; foundation policies based on surveys of, 31; kinship with foundations, 58, 97; hesitate to undertake certain research work, 67; "freshwater," benefited by Andrew Carnegie, 78, 79; concentration in number receiving grants, 122; defined, 127-55; academies attain form and title of, 128; Carnegie plan for improving, 129; in U . S. (1902), 140; individual experimentation, 151; organization and administration influenced by foundations, 162; financial administration influenced by General Board of Education, 162 ff.; "liorrowing" from permanent funds, 163; decrease in per capita income, 202; buildings and improvements, value, 207; geographical factors in succcss of, 268 ff. See also Denominational colleges; Dental colleges; Experimental colleges; Higher education; Junior college; Land-grant colleges; State colleges Colleges, conservative, influence of "new colleges," 154 Colleges, independent, being excluded, 277 College teachers, pension grants and allowances to, 287 Columbia University, promotes newer devices for college admission, 145;

grants to mcdical school, 205, 213: library school, 235; National Institute of Public Administration, 263; aggregate of grants received (190234), 274, 276. See also Teachers College Commission for Relief in Belgium, Education Foundation, grants for scholarships, 176; grants for fellowships, 180 Committee of Twenty-One, study of accrediting, 145 Committee on Recent Social Trends, criticism of, 252 Commonwealth Fund, 25; postwar European relief projects, 33; concentration of grants, 43; countyunit health activities, 45; evolved from personal giving by Harkness family, 80; use of advisory committees, 107, 108; disbursement activities, 122; supports newer devices for collcge admission and guidance, 144; survey of education in New York State, 160; mental hygiene and physical health studies, 168; fellowships to British students, 179; grants allocated to mcdical education and research, 215; grants for dental research and fellowships, 220; Division of Legal Research, grants to legal education, 224; to law schools, 224, 225; interest in the arts, 233; grants to social science activities, 248; geographical distribution of grants, 26g; scholarship funds, 288 Community trust, 17, 216 Concentration of foundation capital and of disbursement activities, 121 Concentration of grants, 268 ff.; for spccial purposes, 42; effectiveness questioned, 272 Conditioned grants, 39 ff. Conditioned students, 131 Conferences, humanistic, 257 Confidence, public, enjoyed by foundations, 288 Congressional Commission on Industrial Relations, investigation of Rockefeller and Carnegie trusts, 4, 60, 69, 79, 193; result, 245 Conservatives, fear proposals for rapid social change, 291

Index Contributory annuity and insurance plan of Carnegie Foundation, 194 Controversial field of foundation activity, 291 Controversial problems, foundation participation in, 60 IF.; Twentieth Century Fund, 63; in social science studies, 251, 254; policy of attacking. 292 Cooperation, between governmental agencies and foundations, 45 ff.; inter foundation, 48 Cornell, Ezra, college endowment, 200 Cornell University, aggregate of grants received (1902-34) , 274, 276 County-unit health activities, 45 Craig, Burt J., 81 Credit cooperatives, social benefit in studies of, 293 Credit-hour, 146 Credits, 142 Credit Union Cooperatives, 251 Cultural interaction between races and nations promoted by scholarships, 288 Cultural values promoted by foundations through grants to social and humanistic sciences, 292 Curry, J . L. M., 91, 98 Davidson College, 85 Davis, Jackson, 104, 158 Davis and Geek Company, 95 Davison Fund, 92 Dead-hand control of wealth, laws against, 18 Demonstration idea, 45 Denominational colleges, Carnegie Foundation policies concerning, 38, 5 1 ; opposition to Carnegie Foundation policies, 53; become associated in Carnegie system, 54; Carnegie Foundation's attempts to weaken control, 138 ft.; grants from General Education Board, 140, 198; grants concentrated in, 271 Denominations lose colleges through Carnegie pension system, 139 Dental clinics, grants for support, 219 Dental education, 218 ff.; clinics, 219; libraries, training for personnel, 220 Dental Educational Council, study of dental education, 218

349

De Pauw University, 178 Depression, effect on loan policies of scholarship foundations, 190; condition of underprivileged in, 263 Determination of grants, Coffman's tabulation of opinions on use of outside advisers, 106 Detroit Community Trust, 220; grants to dental clinics, 219 Dictionary of American Biography, 259, 261; loan from New York Times for, 261 Dillard, James H., influence on Jeanes and Slater funds, 103 Directors, see Executives Disaster relief, 33 Dissatisfaction with status of colleges implied in endowment policies, 285 Disseminating information, 156-73; general survey, 157 ff.; special studies, 161 ff.; official reports, 170 ff. Doctor of Philosophy degree, requirement for department heads in liberal arts colleges overemphasized, 137 Dodge (C. H.) Foundation, grants to colleges, 206 Donors, influence in foundation organization, 77 ff. Doris Duke Trust, 83 Duke, Doris, 84 Duke, James Buchanan restriction of gifts, 82; quoted, 85 f. Duke Endowment, 82, 95; accused of mixing private and philanthropic interests, 83 ff.; distribution of income, 85; trustee tactics publicly criticized, 95; contribution to higher education in Southeast, 96: grants to Duke University, to colleges in Carolinas, 206; grants to medical education and research, 215; geographical distribution of grants, 269 Duke Foundation, 83 Duke Power Company, 83 Duke power interests, 84 Duke University, 84, 85; Chemistry Department an extension laboratory for Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company, 95; grants from Duke Endowment, 206; aggregate of grants received (1902-34) , 274 Duke University Press, 95 Du Pont Fund, student loans, 187

35°

Index

East, lack of entrance standards in endowed liberal arts colleges, 133; concentration of grants in the, 170 Ecclesiastical foundations, 15, 115: in England, 16 Economic Research Foundation of Cleveland, 8 Economics, grants allocated to, 248 Education, supervised grants a menace to freedom, 49; grants concentrated in field of, 122; divorced from politics, 157, 158; special studies, 161 ff.; fellowship grants, 177; profession of, 228 ff.; foundation grants to, 240; general, 264. See also Colleges; Higher education; High schools; Institutions of learning; Mass education; Medical education; Professional education; Progressive education; Universities Education, nonprofessional, 238-67; foundation grants to, 240; social sciences, 245 ff.; humanities, 256 ff.; marginal interests, 261 ff. Education, schools of, see Schools of éducation Educational accrediting associations, grants for studies of standards, 145 Educational Directory, 272 Educational Finance Inquiry, 150, 232 Educational surveys, foundation policies based on, 31; state-wide, 150; general, 157 ff. Education at the Graduate School Level, 232 Edward W. Hazen Foundation, 81 Eells, Walter C., 160; quoted 161; Surveys of American Higher Education, 170 Eliot, Charles William, 70, 94, 98, 166, 167 Elks National Foundation, student loan fund, 188 Emergency relief, 33 Emory University, library school, 235 Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 251; Carnegie Corporation grant to. 16G Endowment funds, held in perpetuity, 18; required for affiliation in Carnegie Foundation, 137; and capital outlay, activities for, 199-207; reform possibilities embedded in, 284;

general and special (since igoo), stimulate other gifts, 287; conditioned, 296; abandonment of policy of, 297. See also Grants Endowment funds, corporate, in Middle Ages, 15 Engineering, fellowship grants in field of, 177 Engineering education, 225 ff.; Carnegie corporation grant to, 166; technical-institute type of training needed in industry, 226 Engineering Foundation, 227 England, law against mortmain control of endowments, 18 "Equivalent" as device for evaluating high-school preparation, 132 Ethical Culture Schools, Fieldston Junior College of, 62 Examinations and Their Substitutes, 170 Executives, college or university, president as soliciting agent, 1 1 1 ; accused of changing programs in order to receive grants, 171 Executives, foundation, 97 ff.; personality and technical qualifications, 98 Experimental College of University of Wisconsin, 151 Experimental college programs, 46, 62. See also New college plans; Progressive education Experimental projects, to fit needs of individual students, 291 Extension, university, 265 Faculties, university, absorption of fellows by, 178; faculty welfare, 190 ff. See also Professors Falk Foundation, 254; grants to social scicnce research, 253; concentration of grants, 279 Family foundations, 80 ff. Favrot, Leo M., 104 Federation of Jewish Philanthropic Societies, grants to nursing education, 217 Feilcl Cooperative Loan Fund, student loans, 187 Fellowships, 174 ff.; annual grants for, 175 ff.; promote cause rather than individuals, 178; for international peace, 224; Rockefeller, 183 ff.; for

Index college librarians, 235; in the humanities, 257, 261; in hygiene, grants for, 262 Few, William Preston, 95 Field, Marshall, g i Fieldston Junior College of Ethical Culture Schools, 62, 152 Fifteen-unit rule, 132. See also Carnegie unit Flcxner, A b r a h a m , 92, 158, 166, 167; quoted, 82 f.; activities, 100 ff.; attack on worth of classical languages in curriculum, 102; reports on medical education, 168; Medical Education in the United States and Canada, 209 Flexner, Simon, 79 Flvnn, John T . , 77 Fogg Museum, Harvard University, 256 Food Economics, 251 Food Research Institute, Stanford University, 65, 66, 247: endowment grant, 248 Ford, Edsel, 181 Ford Foundation, 81 Ford Motor Company, 81 Foreign languages, Carnegie Corporation grant for study of, 166; survey studies of, 231 Forestry study, 237 Fortunes from new industries provide philanthropic capital, 299 Fosdick, R a y m o n d B., President and Member of Rockefeller Foundation Board, 103 Foundation organization, 76-113; donors, 77 ff.; trustees, 86 ff.; permanent staff, 97 ff.; outside advisers, 105 ff.; l>eneiiciaries, 110 ff. Foundation policies, 27-75. 114; problems of formulation, 27 ff.; outstanding. 32 ff.; social implications, 55 ff.; commitment to long-time programs, 64; making grants on expert advice, 250; trends as indication of future policy, 295, 298 Foundations, ecclesiastical, 15, 115; in England, 16 Foundations, philanthropic, function, 3; distrust of, 4, 49; rapid creation, 5, 22; number of, 6, 22; defined, 7, 15; unwillingness to be investigated.

35

1

8, 22, 29; fail to give adequate reports, 10, 170; as social institutions. 14-117; development, 15-26; historical and legal background, 15; in the U. S., 20 ff.; work through social institutions, 24; concentration of activities, 41 ff.; cooperation with governmental agencies, 45 ff.; interfoundation cooperation, 48; accused of maintaining the cultural status quo, 58; kinship with colleges, 58, (j7; "family foundations," 80 ff.; use of advisory agents, 106; activities for higher education, 120-281; contributions to higher education in general, 121-26; clarifying relations between secondary and higher education, 127-55; disseminating information on higher education, 156-73; activities f o r student and faculty welfare, 174-98; endowment and capital outlay for higher education, 199-207; professional education, 208-37; new, influence on medical education, 214 ff.; grants to nonprofessional education, 240; evaluation of influence conditioned by individual predilections, 282; leadership in advance of public thinking, 286, 289; standards colleges not receiving influence grants, 287; trustees less conservative than college trustees, 289; distrust of motives, 291; influence on governmental and voluntary agencies in social science field, 294; programs in advance of those prevailing in institutions, 294; policy of adaptation to changing civilization, 295; periods of activity (1900-1918) 296, (1918-25) 297, (since 1925) 298; trend toward grants for specific purposes, 297; probable future role, 298; future capital available f r o m new industries, 299; new (1937), Andrew W . Mellon, Charles Hayden,

«99 Foundations, semidetached, relationship to colleges, hospitals, and similar institutions, 17 Fourteen-unit rule, 130. See also Carnegie unit France, law against mortmain control of endowments, 18

352

Index

Franklin, Benjamin, bequests to Boston and Philadelphia, zo; restriction of gifts, 82 Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, i 1 Franklin Union, Boston, s i Franks, Robert A., 78 Freedom, educational, supervised grants a menace to, 49 Freshman week, 143 Full-time clinical staff, a condition of grants to medical schools, 41, 46, 65, 211; not acceptable to medical teachers, 101 Functions and Needs of Schools of Education, The, 232 Fundatio incipiens, fundatio perficiens, terms, 16, 17 Fund-raising campaign, 3 Furman University, 85 Future role of foundations, 298 Gary plan, introduction into New York City schools, 100 Gates, Frederick T . , 91, 102 General Education Board, 6; work through universities, 25; philanthropy a business enterprise, 28; on redundancy of colleges, 29; study of status of higher education, 30; decision to omit state institutions from sphere of influence, 35; early purpose, 36; conditional giving, 40; policy of concentration, 43; cooperation with federal and state governments in farm demonstration projects, 45; cooperation with state universities in promotion of research in child welfare and parent education, 48; disclaims endorsement of any educational theory, 60; grants to experimental college programs, 62; long-time support of Southern program, 66; reports, 69; failure to itemize appropriations, 74; personal giving to colleges transferred by John D. Rockefeller, Sr., to, 79: trustee history, 90 ff.; executives set operating pattern, 98: executives, 100 ff.; effect of Flexner's attack on worth of classical languages in curriculum, 102; advisory services of President Arnett, 105; disbursement activities, 122; plans to improve ed-

ucational system, 128 ff., 133; tolerant attitude in dealings with colleges, 134; endowment of colleges admitted to Carnegie pension system, 138; support of denominational colleges, 140, 198; gifts for college endowments, 141; supports newer devices for college admission and guidance, 144; grants for youth surveys and studies, 149, 150; grants to Swarthmore and University of Minnesota for experimental courses, 153; funds used in North Central Association's study of accrediting, 154; legislation as result of survey activities, 158, 159; survey reports used as textbooks in educational administration, 159; appropriation for study of public education in New York State, 160; influence on college organization and administration, 162 ff.; College and University Finance, 164; grant for accounting forms, 165; Occasional Papers, 166, 167; fellowship grants, 183, 185; endowment for salaries of college teachers, i g i ; promotion of faculty welfare, 197; decision to concentrate gifts for general endowment, 200; appropriations for endowment of general and medical education, 201; endowment problem too big for its funds, 202; change of philosophy regarding permanent endowment, 203; policy of conditioned grants to endowment, 204; influence on medical education, 211; grants to medical education, 212, 271, 276; grants to dental education, 219; grants to Harvard Law School, 224; gifts to schools of education, 228; grants to teacher training, 229, 231; study of teacher-training institutes, 232; grants to libraries, 236; grant to forestry study, 236; grant to study of agricultural education, 237; grants to the humanities, 258, 260, 261; grants to Oriental Institute, 259; grants to child study, 265; appropriation for educational use and appreciation of motion pictuies. 266; museum grants, 267; geographical distribution of grants, 269; grants (1902-14), 270; grants (to

Index 1920), 270 f.; contributions to professors' salaries, 271; basis for choice of colleges aided, 285; endowment grants to higher education, 287; scholarship funds, 288 General Electric Company, expenditures for research, 228 Geographical distribution of grants, 268 ff. Geology, grants for research in the field of, 244 George Peabody College for Teachers. 206; grants from General Education ltoard, 228; aggregate of grants received (1902-34), 274 George Washington University, 138 Georgia state normal school, 34 German-American Foundation, 180 Gifts, see Endowments; Grants Gilman, Daniel C., 91, 98 Girard, Stephen, school for orphan boys, 21; restriction of gifts, 82 Girard College, 21, 82 "God's gold," 283 Governmental activity linked to academic research, a future program for foundations, 298 Governmental agencies, cooperation with, 45 ff. Governmental Reorganization and Personnel, 251 Government-Business Relations, 251 Government of Higher Education, The, 169 Graduate schools, see Universities Grants, average size, 3; educational, spent through colleges, 23; limited to preventive and constructive purposes, 32; conditioned or "matching-" 39 fr•• 2 °4> *86, 296; danger in foundation supervision, 49; long-continued, 64; gradual withdrawal, 66; need for objective policy in connection with rejections of applications for aid, 71; Carnegie Corporation's statistical statement of on applications, 72; applications to Rockefeller Foundation (1921), 73; decision to make or refuse, a complicated cultural undertaking, 76; restricted, 81 ff.; use of outside advisers in determination of, 106; concentrated in fields of education, health, a n d '

353

social welfare, 122; from 100 foundations (1921-30), 123; distribution (1930), 124; to education from 100 foundations (1921-30), 125; noncontroversial, 127; for demonstration projects in college admission, 145: how expectation of grants influenced acceptance of ideas and practices, 156; classification, 238; policy of making on expert advice, 250; geographical and institutional distribution, 268-81; institutions of higher education receiving, 273; institutions receiving largest aggregate of, 274: divergent philosophies of, 277; proportion considered contribution to progress, 291. See also Endowment funds Grant-seeking, 110 If.; d a s h of interests, 112 Grants-in-aid to humanities, 261 Graves, Louis, quoted, 83 Great Britain, distribution of money spent in research in, 293 Greek, see Classical languages Greene, Jerome, 79, 91 G r o u p living vs. individualism, 284 Guggenheim (J. S.) Memorial Foundation, grants for scholarships, 176; nature of work, 181; scholarship funds, 288 Guggenheim (M. and L.) Foundation, 216; establishment of free dental clinic, 220 Guidance, grants, 151 Hampton Institute, library school, 235 Harkness family, evolution of personal giving into Commonwealth Fund, 80 Harmon Foundation, student loans, 186, 187, 189, 190; research in motion picture appreciation and educational uses of radio, 266; scholarship funds, 288 Harper, W i l l i a m Rainey, 91, 98 Harvard University, Yenching Fund. 17; grants from Cambridge Foundation, 107; tutorial undertakings, 154; student aid committee, 187; grants for school of public health, 204, 213: Dental School, endowment from Carnegie Corporation, 219; Law

354

Index

H a r v a r d U n i v e r s i t y (Continued) School, grants f r o m G e n e r a l Educat i o n B o a r d . 224; S c h o o l o f E d u c a tion, grants f r o m G e n e r a l Education B o a r d , 228; F o g g M u s e u m , 256: graduate school of p u b l i c administration, 263; a g e n c y f o r c h i l d s t u d y , 265: a g g r e g a t e o f g r a n t s received ( 1 9 0 2 - 3 4 ) , 274, 276 Hattie M . S t r o n g F o u n d a t i o n , see S t r o n g ( H a t t i e M.) F o u n d a t i o n H a v e n s R e l i e f F u n d , 22 H a y d e n , C h a r l e s , 299 H a z e n F o u n d a t i o n , 181 H e a l t h , a m a j o r field of f o u n d a t i o n g i v i n g , 122; p r o g r a m s , 243 Health, public, i m p o r t a n c e of fellows h i p p r o g r a m i n d e v e l o p m e n t of p r o g r a m s , 185 H e c k s c h e r F o u n d a t i o n , g r a n t s to d e n tal clinics, 2 1 9 H e n d e r s o n , L a w r e n c e , q u o t e d , 243 H e n r y V I I I , d e s i r e to c o n t r o l f o u n d a tions, 16 H e r s h e y , M i l t o n , f o u n d a t i o n f o r orp h a n boys, 82 H e r s h e y F o u n d a t i o n , M . S „ f o r coll e g i a t e e d u c a t i o n l i m i t e d to s t u d e n t s of Derry T o w n s h i p , Pennsylvania, 82 H i g h e r e d u c a t i o n , d e f i n e d , 7; policies in field o f , 27; p o l i c y of G e n e r a l Education Board in dealing with, 30; e f f o r t to p r o m o t e t h r o u g h a g r o u p o f i n s t i t u t i o n s , 35; f o u n d a tion activities, 120-281; c l a r i f y i n g relations between secondary and. 127-55; e a r l y a t t e m p t s , 127 If.; lack of d e m a r c a t i o n causes c o n f u s i o n i n , 128; p r o m o t i o n t h r o u g h i m p r o v i n g a d m i s s i o n s t a n d a r d s , 129 ff.; institutions o f , in U . S. (1935) . 140; postw a r activities, 141 ff.; c o n f u s i o n e x i s t i n g i n , 142; studies c o n t r i b u t i n g to i m p r o v e m e n t o f , 165; i n f l u e n c e of p u b l i c o p i n i o n u p o n , 171; intern a t i o n a l s c h o l a r s h i p s as a m e a n s f o r a d v a n c i n g , 179; i n f l u e n c e o f R o c k e f e l l e r f e l l o w s h i p s , 183 ff.; total inc o m e (1900) , 200; f o u n d a t i o n s ' cont r i b u t i o n to, 207; i n f l u e n c e of f o u n d a t i o n s , 208, 294; g r a n t s to institutions o f , 273; effect of c o n c e n t r a t i o n

of grants, 277; total endowment f u n d , 287; m a r g i n a l agencies, see M a r g i n a l agencies H i g h schools, " e q u i v a l e n t " as d e v i c e for evaluating preparation, 132; h a m p e r e d by credit system, 143; f r e e d o m i n c u r r i c u l a offerings, 144. See also J u n i o r h i g h schools; Seco n d a r y schools Hirsch, M a u r i c e , Baron de, established f u n d , 21 f. Historical Dictionary of American English, 259 H i s t o r y , g r a n t s allocated to, 248 Hofheimer Foundation, grants to d e n t a l clinics, 219 H o o v e r , H e r b e r t C., 254 H o p k i n s , J o h n s , college e n d o w m e n t , 200 H o u s i n g , 263 H u b b a r d , E l b e r t , q u o t e d , 32 H u m a n i s t i c sciences, neglect by g o v e r n m e n t a l a n d p r i v a t e interests, 293 H u m a n i t i e s , 256 ff.; f o u n d a t i o n grants to, 240, 257, 258, 293 H y g i e n e , institutes o f , 262 H y s l o p F o u n d a t i o n , 216 Ideals of collegc a n d p h i l a n t h r o p i c org a n i z a t i o n s parallel, 28g Ideas, m e r i t o f , 45; f o u n d a t i o n a cleari n g h o u s e for, 50 Income, d e p e n d a b l e source, a r e q u i s i t e of C a r n e g i e F o u n d a t i o n affiliation, '37 Independent, e x c e r p t , 52 I n d e p e n d e n t institute in social science research, 246 ff. I n d i a n a p o l i s F o u n d a t i o n , 220 Indians, A m e r i c a n , 260 I n d i v i d u a l i s m vs. g r o u p l i v i n g , 284 Institute f o r R e s e a r c h in L a n d Economics, grants from C a r n e g i e C o r p o r a t i o n , 279 Institute of C h i l d W e l f a r e , U n i v e r s i t y of C a l i f o r n i a , 265 Institute o f H u m a n R e l a t i o n s , Y a l e U n i v e r s i t y , 265 Institute of I n t e r n a t i o n a l E d u c a t i o n , 232; f e l l o w s h i p p r o g r a m , 179; g r a n t s f r o m C a r n e g i e C o r p o r a t i o n , 279 Institute of Politics, W i l l i a m s C o l l e g e , a d u l t e d u c a t i o n , 266

Index Institute of Public Administration, University of California, 263 Institutes, dependence upon foundations, 249, »53 Institutes, independent, for social science research, 246 ff.; preponderance of grants for, 257; trend toward withdrawal of foundation support, 297 Institutional distribution of grants, 271 ff., 273, 274 Institutions of learning, confidential nature of data collected by foundations, 2g; foundation policies based on surveys of, 31; geographical factors in success of, 268; privately controlled, grants concentrated in, 271; receiving grants, 273 Insurance plan of Carnegie Foundation, 194 Intelligence tests, 290 Interfoundation cooperation, 48 International Cancer Research Foundation, 216 International Education Board, grants to Oriental Institute, 259; geographical distribution of grants, 269 International goodwill, 261, 288 International Health Division, summary of Rockefeller fellowships, 184 International Institute, 67 International law, 261; fellowships granted by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 224 International relations, foundation interest in, 262 International understanding and friendship promoted through grants, .78 Iowa, University of, medical school, 205; Child Study and Parent Education Institute, 265; aggregate of grants received (1902-34), 274, 276 James, William, quoted, 256 Jastrow, Joseph, quoted, 157 Jeanes Fund, James H . Dillard, leader of, grants for Negro education, 206 Jessup, Walter A., educational and foundation executive, 103 Jesup, Morris K., 91 Jewish immigrants, f u n d for civic and vocational training, 22

355

Jews, foundation for aiding, 217 Jot) adjustment and satisfaction, 266 John Edgar T h o m p s o n Foundation, see Thompson (John Edgar) Foundation John F. Slater Fund, see Slater (John F.) Fund Johns Hopkins University, grants for school of public health, 204, 213; grant to reorganize departments of medicine, surgery, and pediatrics, 211; medical school, grant to, 213: aggregate of grants received (190234), 274, 276 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, see Guggenheim (J. S.) Memorial Foundation Johnson C. Smith University, 85 Jones, Mark M „ 278 Jones, T h o m a s Jesse, survey of Negro educational institutions, 160 Jordan, David Starr, 98 Josiah Macy, Jr., Foundation, see Macy (Josiah, Jr.) Foundation J. S. Guggenheim Foundation, see Guggenheim (J. S.) Foundation Juilliard Musical Foundation, music scholarships, 183 Julius Rosenwald Fund, must be spent in given period, 19; county-unit health activities, 45; cooperation with Southern states in promotion of Negro education, 47, 80; grant to Swarthmore for experimental courses, 153; studies in Negro education, 168; scholarships, 183; grants for Negro education, 206; grants to medical education and research, 215; grants to teacher training for Negroes, 229; interest in the arts, 233; giants to libraries, 236 Junior college, 141 Junior high school, 141 Justice and the Poor, 156, 168, 221, 238 Kandel, I. L., Examinations Substitutes, 170 Keith Fund, 206 Kellogg Foundation, grants education and research, for dental research and 220

and

Their

to medical 215; grants fellowships,

Index

356

K e p p e l , Frederick P a u l , 76; distinction b e t w e e n f o u n d a t i o n s a n d f u n d s , 19; n u m b e r of f o u n d a t i o n s , z z ; q u o t e d , z j f . , 40. 49. 6», 68, 7 1 , 7 z , 94, 96, 98, lOO, 106, 107, HO, 165, ZJ2 f., «45, 278; evaluates motives f o r giving, 77; administration as president of C a r n e g i e C o r p o r a t i o n , 104; favora b l e o p i n i o n o n G u g g e n h e i m awards, 182 K i n g , W . L. Mackenzie, studies of industrial relations, 245 K n i g h t s T e m p l a r , loan f u n d , 188 K n o x , Frank, 254 Kosciuszko Foundation, scholarship aids, 181 Krock, A r t h u r , criticism of The Recovery Problem in the United States, 253 Land

Economics

and

Public

Utilities,

*5« Land-grant colleges, entrance requirements low, 132; in U. S. (1935) , 140; survey of scholarship grants, 176; student loans, 188 Langdell, C h r i s t o p h e r C o l u m b u s , 221 Laski, H a r o l d J., 100; q u o t e d , 99, 108 L a t i n , see Classical languages L a u r a Spelman R o c k e f e l l e r M e m o r i a l , cooperation with state universities in promotion of research in c h i l d welfare a n d parent education, 48; twelve principles f o r g u i d i n g foundation activity in controversial fields, 60; supports n e w e r devices f o r college admission a n d guidance, 144; fellowship grants, 183; fellowships in education, child w e l f a r e research, etc., 185; grants for capital o u t l a y a n d e n d o w m e n t , 204; grants f o r teacher training, 231; grants to social science research, 248, 252, 253; subsidy f o r Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 252; projects in unorganized fields, 263; s u p p o r t of efforts to b r i n g social w o r k to higher-education level, 264; initiated f o u n d a t i o n interest in child-study program, 265; geographical distribution of grants, 269 La V e r n e Noyes F o u n d a t i o n , see Noyes (La Verne) F o u n d a t i o n

L a w , c o m m o n , synthesis a n d restatement, 224 IMW of Restitution, The, 224 L a w schools, 221; low level of educational practices, 222 Lawyers, ethical practices a n d ideals, 222 Leaders, potential, development of h i g h e r education through grants to discover, 174 Leadership, f o u n d a t i o n , in advance of p u b l i c thinking, 286, >89 Learned, W i l l i a m S „ 105, 143; Relations of Secondary and Higher Education in Pennsylvania, 170 Learned societies, foundations work through, 25. See also Marginal agencies Leavell, U . W . , 295 Lederle Laboratories, Inc., 95 Legal education, 221 ff.; grants for law scholarships, 224 Legal medicine, social benefit in studies, 293 Legal practices, nefarious, exposed, 168 Legislation, New Deal, 253 Legislation as result of survey activities of General Education Board, 158, >59 Lel.ind, W a l d o G., q u o t e d , 238 Leopold Schepp Foundation, see S c h e p p (Leopold) F o u n d a t i o n Lester, R o b e r t M., studies of Carnegie C o r p o r a t i o n , 104; quoted, 196 Librarians, college, fellowships, 235 Libraries, grants to, 234 II.; grants from C a r n e g i e C o r p o r a t i o n , 235 Library buildings given by A n d r e w Carnegie, 78 Library of Congress, grants to furnish service for humanistic scholars, 259 Library schools, 235 L i f w y n n F o u n d a t i o n , 216 Liggett a n d Myers T o b a c c o C o m p a n y , 95 Lincoln School of T e a c h e r s College, Columbia University, 62; grants f r o m G e n e r a l Education Board, 228 L i n d e m a n , E d u a r d C., 86, 227; study of grants, 22, 176; q u o t e d , 66, 88; Wealth and Culture, 122 ff., 240, 243, 247, 257

Index Littaucr (L. N.) Foundation, 206; gift of graduate school of public administration to Harvard University, 263 Loan fund organizations, assets, 189 Loan funds, amount provided for, 288 Loan grants to medical students, 217 Loans, student, 186 ff. Longley, Clifford B., quoted, 81 McGrath, Earl J., 87 Macy (Josiah, Jr.) Foundation, use of advisory committees, 107; grants allocated to medical education and research, 215 Magdalen Society, 21 Marginal agencies, 261 ff.; concentration of grants to, 278. See also Learned societies Markle Foundation, 207; grants allocated to medical education and research, 215 Maryland Survey, by General Education Board, 158-59 Mass education, 141 Matching grants, j g IT. Mathematics, fellows in, 185; grants for research in, 244 Mayo Foundation, 17 Medical economics, social benefit in studies, 293 Medical education, 209(1., 261; standardization difficult, 135; Flexner's reports on, 168; General Education Board appropriation for, 201; progress in field, 212; promotion through non teaching professional agencies, 213; contributions of foundations to, 217; aggregate grants, 289 Medical Education in the United States and Canada, 100, 209 Medical research to advance knowledge rather than medical education, 214 Medical schools, full-time clinical staff a condition of grants, 41, 46, 65, 211; not acceptable to medical teachers, 101; and colleges, Flexner's leadership in development of, 101; proprietary ventures of physicians, 209; reduction in number of and enrollment in, 210; gifts conditioned upon full-time staffs, 211; General Education Board grants to, 271, 276

357

Medical sciences, fellows in, 185 Medical Society of New York County, 108 Medical students, scholarship and loan grants to, 217 Mellon, Andrew W., 299 Mental hygiene, grants for research and education in Geld of, 215, 262 Merriam, John Campbell, 103 Methodist Church, scholarship foundation, 188 Michigan, University of, certification system originated at, 128; grants from R a c k h a m Fund, 206, 275; grant for dental college library, 220; dictionary of early m o d e m English, 259; expedition in Egypt, 260 Michigan State College, adult education, 266 Middlebury Cortege, 52 Middlemen, professional, 231, 232 Milbank Memorial Fund, concentration policy, 43; health-unit demonstrations in New York State, 45; publicity policy, 69; use of advisory committees, 107; mental hygiene and physical health studies, 168; grants to colleges, 206; grants to medical education and research, 215 Military research, 293 Mills, Ogden, 254 Minnesota, University of. Mayo Foundation, 17; General College of, 62; contrast in intellectual levels of students, General College, 153; agency for child study, 265; adult education, 266 Missouri, study of teacher-training in, 160 Mitchell, Wesley C „ 246 Modern Language Association of America, grants for research, 261 Moe, Henry A., 176 Montgomery Ward philanthropic funds, grant to Northwestern University School of Dentistry, 219 Mortmain, control of endowments, •8

Motion pictures, 266 Moulton, Howard G., 246 Mt. Palomar, telescope, 244 Mt. Wilson, telescope, 244 Murphy, Starr J., 79, 91

358

Index

Miirry and Leonie Guggenheim Foundation, see Guggenheim (M. and L.) Foundation Museum curators, fellowships, 234 Museums, »66, »67 Music education, grants for, 234 Music equipment, Carnegie Corporation grants for, l n ' 1£ 8> ' S 2 - ' 3 6 ; c r i t i c i z e d for u r g i n g standards, 51; blamed for liberalizing effect of policy of Carn e g i e F o u n d a t i o n , 54; i n v e s t i g a t i o n of political situations affecting univ e r s i t i e s , 5 7 ; p e r s o n a l i t y , 103; o n reform in higher education, 12g; m e t h o d of influencing d e v e l o p m e n t of h i g h e r e d u c a t i o n , 172; r e p u d i a tion of C a r n e g i e Foundation's initial p h i l o s o p h y o f p e n s i o n s , 192; o n i m p r o v e m e n t s in m e d i c a l schools, 210 Private institutions, concentration of g r a n t s i n , 273 Professional e d u c a t i o n , activities, 20837; m e d i c a l , 209 ff.; d e n t a l , 218 ff.; legal, 221 ff.; e n g i n e e r i n g , 225 ff.; profession of education, 228 ff.; g r a n t s i n field o f , 231: a r t s a n d o t h e r p r o f e s s i o n a l fields, 233 ff.; a l e r t n e s s o f f o u n d a t i o n s s h o w n in a c t i v i t i e s i n , 289

P r o f e s s i o n a l fields, s t u d i e s in, 232 P r o f e s s i o n a l m i d d l e m e n , 232; o r g a n i z a t i o n a c t i n g as, 231 Professional Preparation of Teachers for American Public Schools, The, 232 Professors, q u a l i f i c a t i o n s r e q u i r e d o f , 137; a c t i v i t i e s f o r w e l f a r e o f , 174 ff.; critics of free-pension administration, 191; engineering, summer s c h o o l s f o r , 226; salaries, 271. See also F a c u l t i e s P r o f e s s o r s ' r e t i r e m e n t f u n d , see C a r negie Foundation—Pension system Programs d e t e r m i n e d by personalities o f l e a d e r s , 103 Progressive education, new college p l a n s , 45, 147, 151 ff., 291; e x p e r i m e n t a l c o l l e g e p r o g r a m s , 46, 62; f o u n d a t i o n s ' p a r t i n , 61 P r o g r e s s i v e E d u c a t i o n A s s o c i a t i o n , 62; a t t e m p t to i m p r o v e q u a l i t y o f seco n d a r y a n d h i g h e r e d u c a t i o n , 147, 148 Psychiatry, teaching and consulting dep a r t m e n t s , g r a n t s f o r , 262 P s y c h o l o g i c a l tests, u s e o f , in Univ e r s i t y o f C h i c a g o , 143 P s y c h o l o g y , f o u n d a t i o n g r a n t s to, 240 Ptolemies, created foundation for library a n d research agency at A l e x a n d r i a , 15 P u b l i c a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , 263 Publications, for disseminating inf o r m a t i o n , 156 ff.; in field o f g e n eral k n o w l e d g e , 165; h u m a n i s t i c , 257 Public h e a l t h , grants for research and e d u c a t i o n in field o f , 215; R o c k e f e l ler F o u n d a t i o n g r a n t s f o r , 262 P u b l i c i t y w e a k n e s s , see R e p o r t s P u b l i c o p i n i o n , p u b l i c a t i o n s t h a t inf l u e n c e , 170; i n f l u e n c e u p o n h i g h e r e d u c a t i o n , 171; suspicious a t t i t u d e t o w a r d s o c i a l s c i e n c e r e s e a r c h , 246 P u b l i c u n i v e r s i t i e s , g r a n t s to, 274; see also S t a t e u n i v e r s i t i e s P u b l i c w o r k s , social b e n e f i t of in, 293

studies

P u r d u e R e s e a r c h F o u n d a t i o n , 17, 216; g r a n t s to e n g i n e e r i n g r e s e a r c h , 227 P u r d u e U n i v e r s i t y , 169 Rnckham of

Fund,

grants

to

University

M i c h i g a n , 206, 275

R a d i o , 266; e d u c a t i o n a l uses o f , 262

Index Randall, Thomas, bequest to Sailors' Snug Harbor, 82 Recent Social Trends in the United States, 251, 252, 293 Recovery Problem in the United States, The, 253, 293 Rector Scholarship Foundation, grants, 176; influence on scholarship, 178; scholarship funds, 288 Reed College, 151 Reforms made necessary condition for participating in grants, 285 Regional accrediting associations attempt to resolve confusion in educational system, 128 Regional associations, studies of admission standards, 146 Relations of Secondary and Higher Education in Pennsylvania, 170 Religious denominations, policy of General Education Board toward cooperation with, 30 Religious foundations, see Foundations, ecclesiastical Reports, failure of foundations and community trusts to issue, 8, 10, 29, 68 ff., 170; on selected phases of educative process, 162; official, 170 ff. Research, financed by semidetached foundations, 17; tendency toward concentration in, 44 ff.; in general education, 150; contributions of foundations to, 217; grants to advance educational knowledge, 232; in the humanities, 257; for mental hygiene, 262; academic, linked to governmental activities, a future program for foundations, 289 Research, pure, support and endowment, 239; advances in medicine await findings, 243; in physics and chemistry, 293 Rhodes, Cecil, use of scholarships to promote understanding between English-speaking peoples, 178 Rhodes Scholarships, influence on development of American higher education, 17g Ritchie, Albert Cabell, quoted, 158 Rochester, University of, grants for medical-dental purposes, 219; aggregate of grants received (1902-34), 274, 276

361

Rockefeller, John D., Sr., fund contributed, 25; business methods reflected by philanthropic trusts, 76; transferred personal giving to colleges from American Baptist Education Society to General Education Board, 79; assets in foundations established by, 1 2 1 ; gift for increase of teachers' salaries, 197; college endowment, 200 Rockefeller, John D., Jr., 79, 91; power to control General Education Board, statesmanlike qualities, 80; advocates raising tuition charges, 175 Rockefeller, John D „ 3d., 92 Rockefeller Foundation principal and interest may be spent, 19; contributions: support of University of Chicago, 25, 204, 205; World War activities: disaster relief, 33; research, tendency toward concentration, 44 ff.: county-unit health activities, 45; cooperation with public bodies, 47; reports, 69, 70, 7 1 , 73, 74; failure to obtain Congressional charter, 70; donor's right to disposition of fund, 79; Finance Committee, 79, 80; executive Committee, 80; trustee policy, 92; percent of assets of foundations held by, 121; disbursement activities, 122; fellowship program, 180, 183; endowment fund policy liberalized, 203; bulk of grants made outside U. S.; grants within U. S., 204; grants to natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities, 205°, support of medicine, medical education, and health work, 213; grants for dental education, research, and fellowships, 219, 220; grants to legal education, 223 ff.; grants for teachertraining, 231; grants to social science activities, 248, 252, 253; subsidy for Encyclopcedia of the Social Sciences, 251; appropriation for Recent Social Trends, 252; grants to the humanities, 258, 260, 261; grants to Oriental Institute, 259; grants for public health activities: interest in international relations, 262; grant toward establishing School of Citv Planning at Harvard University: projects in unorganized fields, 263;

362

Index

Rockefeller Foundation (Continued) support of social work, 164; grants for child study, 265; museum grants, 167; geographical distribution of grants, 269; endowment giants to higher education, 287; scholarship funds. 288 Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, 8, 79; influence in medical education, 216; interest in physical and natural science, 241 Rockefeller trusts, grants to higher education, 6; endowment and grants to University of Chicago, 25, 200, 204, 205. 228, 248, 259; success in demonstrating merit of ideas, 46; refusal to influence legislation, 47; operating policies, 60; reflect business methods of founder, 76; concentration of capital and disbursement activities, 1 2 1 , 126; influence in individual college experiments, 151; increase sums devoted to fellowships in professional fields, 175; grants for scholarships and fellowships, 176; interest in the arts, 233; grants to National Research Council, 242; gifts for child study and parent education, 264. See also Congressional Commission on Industrial Relations Rollins College, 151 Rome, Georgia, grant to schools, 39 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 254 Root, Elihu, 78 Rose, Wickliffe, 79, 91, 98 Rosenwald, Julius, 80; personal grants for Negro education, 206 Rosenwald Fund, see Julius Rosenwald Fund Rural adult education, 265 Russell Sage Foundation, publicity policy, 69; dissemination of findings on state school system, 168; activities in problems of social work, 169; subsidy for Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 252 Sage (Russell) Foundation, see Russell Sage Foundation Sailors' Snug Harbor, 82 Salaries, teachers', Rockefeller gift for increase, 197 Sarah Lawrence College, 62; experiments in education for women, 153

Savage, Howard J., American College Athletics, 169 Schepp (Leopold) Foundation, 81, 217; motives for establishing, 77 Schmidlapp (Charlotte) Fund, 220 Scholarships, 174 ff.; annual grants for, 175 if.; foundations' influence on, 177; international, 178; scholarship foundations, 216; to medical students, 217; law grants, 224; for engineering students, 227; undergraduate, 288 Scholastic aptitude test, 144 School credits, see Credits Schools of education, graduate, funds in education granted through, 229; development through research and studies, 230; indebtedness to foundation funds, 230 Schools of nursing, grants for, 262 School surveys, state, improved status of teachers, 230 Schurman, Jacob Gould, quoted, 39, 49 Sciences, research, 239 Sears, Barnas, 285; quoted, 40; efforts to establish state normal schools, 34; General Agent of Peabody Educational Fund, 98; leadership of Peabody Fund, 98, 116 Sears, Jesse B „ quoted, 28, 241 Secondary schools, lack of demarcation, 128; efforts to standardize, 130; postwar reorganization, 141: study of accrediting, by Committee of Twenty-One, 145; clarifying relations between higher and, 127-55. See also High schools; Junior high schools Seeman, Ernest, 96; quoted, 83, 95 Semidetached foundations, 17 Shaw, Albert, 91 Slater (John F.) Fund, 22, 91, 200; administration of grants for Negro education, 48; publicity policy, 69; executives set operating pattern, 98; grants for work with Negro colleges. 206; grants for teacher training for Negroes, 229; Smith, S. L., 104 Smithson, James, bequest, 21 Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C., 21; interest in physical and natural science, 241

Index Social forces which have influenced foundations, t o Social implications of foundation policies, 58 Socialistic studies, foundations support almost, 292 Social problems, controversial, 292 Social Science Abstracts, 251, 252 Social Science Research Council, 232; supported by foundations, 48; as advisory agent, 106, 109; grant, 249; asserts freedom of action, 249; sum received from foundations since organization, 280 Social sciences, 245 ff.; grants-in-aid, 177; effort of foundations to work in controversial areas of, 60 ff.; fellows in, 185; foundation grants to, 240; suspicious attitude of public toward research in, "independent institute," 246; grants (1921-30) , 247 ff.; publications; controversy in, 251 ff.; rapid development supported by foundations, 255; total funds contributed to, 293; neglect by governmental and private interests, 293; resurgence of interest in problems, »97 Social security plans. T w e n t i e t h Century Fund publications on, 168; study by T w e n t i e t h Century Fund, 253 Social Security Problems, 251 Social studies, Carnegie Corporation grant to, 166; investigation, 232 Social Studies Commission, criticism of, 252 Social

Studies

Investigation,

251, 252,

»93 Social welfare, a major field of foundation giving, 122; preventive type, 263 Society, substitution of group living for individualism, 284 Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education, 225; grants from foundations, 226 Society of American Foresters, 237 Source materials available through foundation aid, 259 South, Peabody Fund established to aid, 21, 32; cooperation with Rosenwald Fund in promotion of Negro education, 47, 80; General Educa-

363

tion Board's support of Southern program, 66; Duke interests, 83 ff., 96; state universities lacking standards of admission, 132; General Education Board's plan for improving secondary education, 133; highschool situation, 134; grants to medical education, 270 South Carolina, Duke commercial and philanthropic interests, 83 ff., 96 Southern Education Board, 91; publicity policy, 69 Southern Power System, 84 Specialists, 105 Special students, 131 Spelman College, endowment received, 204 Spelman Fund of New York, 92; improvement of technical aspects of public administration, 48; projects in unorganized fields, 263 Springfield, Mass., Y. M. C. A. college. 264 Staff, permanent, 97 ff. Standardized tests, 232 Standards, required, in advance of prevailing practices, 286; indirect effects on colleges not receiving grants, 287 Standing committees as advisers, 107 Stanford, Leland, college endowment. 200 Stanford University, Carnegie Corporation grants for Food Research Institute, 65; promotes newer devices for college admission, 145; Food Research Institute, 247, 248; endowment grant, 248; study of production, consumption, marketing, and prices of basic food commodities, 252; adult education, 266; aggregate of grants received (1902-34), 274 State colleges, outside the sphere of foundation influence, 33 State normal schools, 285; Peabody Fund aids, 33 State universities, affiliation with Carnegie Foundation, 56; political influence in, 57; standards of admission, 132; decision to admit to Carnegie pension system, 133; income required for affiliation in Carnegie Foundation, 137; in U. S. (1935), 140

364

Index

Steel and oil industries, most foundation assets accumulated in, îai Stephens College, 6s, 151 Sterilization, human, >9* Stock-market control, study by Twentieth Century Fund, »53; social benefit in studies of, 293 Stone. Harlan Fiske, 50, 195 Strategy of indirect approach to improvement in status of colleges, 285 Strong (Hattie M.) Foundation, student loans, 190 Student and faculty welfare, student loans, 186 ff. Student loans, 186 ff. Students, conditioned and special, 131; activities for welfare of, 174 ff. Studies contributing to improvement of higher education, 165 Summer classes for art teachers, 134 Summer schools for engineering professors, 226 Surdna Foundation, gift to Wesleyan University, 205 Surveys, general, 157 ff. Surveys of American Higher Education, 170 Suzzallo, Henry, 103 Swarthmore College, 62; contrast in intellectual levels of students, 153; aggregate of grants received (190234). 274 "Tainted money," 4, 54, 127, 283 T a x exemption, 16 Teachers, college, see Faculty; Professors Teachers, education of, 228 If.; college art, fellowships, 234 Teachers College. Columbia University, budget difficulties; financing of Child Development Institute and International Institute, 67; grants from General Education Board, 228; Child Development Institute, 265; adult education, 266. See also Lincoln School Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America, 194; chartered for promotion of faculty welfare, 195; policy holders, 196; grants from Carnegie Corporation to the Association, 287

Teacher training, institutes, 232; adult education an important division of, s6C Technical-institute engineering training needed in industry, 226 Tennessee state normal school financed by Peabody Education Fund, 34 Texas refused terms of Carnegie Foundation, 56 Theisen, W. W „ 158 Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, 259 Thompson (John Edgar) Foundation, 22 Thorndike, Edward Lee, 265 Thwing, Charles Franklin, 200 Times (New York), 170, 1 7 1 ; excerpt, 181; loan for preparation of Dictionary of American Biography, 261 "Tobacco Beetle Control," 95 Trade unions, social benefit of studies in, 293 Trustees, college and university, 289 Trustees, foundation, economic, social, and cultural backgrounds, 86 ff.; qualifications essential, 93 ff.; in danger of misunderstanding function of wealth, 96 Trusts, commercial or philanthropic, toleration toward, 288 Tuition charges, raising, 175 Tulane University, 264; medical school, grant to, 213; aggregate of grants received (1902-34), 274 Turgot, Anne Robert Jacques, Baron de l'Aulne, 18; quoted, 53 Twentieth Century Fund, 7, 92, 97; tabulation of foundation data, 19; study of foundations, 22; policies, controversial issues, 63; American Foundations and Their Fields, 122. 125, 240, 244; publications on social security plans, 168; criticism of, 252; studies incorporated into New Deal legislation, 253 Undergraduate scholarships, 177 Unit, credit, superseded by qualitative measures of attainment. 290 United States, international understanding and friendship promoted through grants, 178; fellowships for study and travel in, 179; distribution of money spent in research in, 293

Index United States B u r e a u of Education, survey of N e g r o h i g h e r education, 160, 161 United States Daily, 251 United States Office of Education, 169. 272; Directory, institutions of h i g h e r é d u c a t i o n , 140, 188; survey of scholarship grants, 176; survey of loan funds, 188 Units o f secondary school w o r k , 286. See also C a r n e g i e u n i t Universities, f u n d - r a i s i n g campaign, 3: f o u n d a t i o n s work t h r o u g h , 24: effect of Flexner's opinions o n policies, 101; postwar, start training with u p p e r years of college course, 141; g e o g r a p h i c a l distribution of grants to, 268 ff. See also H i g h e r education; Institutions of learning; Professional education; State universities Universities, p u b l i c , grants to, 274 University departments, preponderance of grants for, 257 University teachers, t r a i n i n g f o r exploration a n d research, 258 Vanderbilt University, grants from R o c k e f e l l e r F o u n d a t i o n , 204; clinical d e p a r t m e n t s reorganized, 211; medical school, g r a n t to, 213; aggregate of grants received (1902-34), 274, 276 Vassar, M a t t h e w , college e n d o w m e n t , 200 V e r m o n t , study of p u b l i c education by C a r n e g i e F o u n d a t i o n , 157 V i n c e n t , G e o r g e E., 92 V i r g i n i a , University of, student loans, .87 Virginia Historical Index, 259 V o c a t i o n a l consultation, gTants for, 150 V o c a t i o n a l g u i d a n c e , 232 W a n a m a k e r , J o h n , 91 W a r , grants for h u m a n i t a r i a n purposes, 33 W a s h i n g t o n University, grants f r o m R o c k e f e l l e r F o u n d a t i o n , 204; clinical d e p a r t m e n t s reorganized, 211; aggregate of grants received (19023 4 ) , 274, 276

Wealth

365 and

Culture,

122 ff., 240, 243,

247. »57 Wealth available for philanthropic purposes increasing, 299 Wesleyan University, tutorial undertakings, 154; g i f t to, 205 Western Reserve University, 264; agency f o r c h i l d study, 265; adult education, 266 W h i t e - W i l l i a m s F o u n d a t i o n , 21 Whitney Benefits, student loans, .87 W i e b o l d t F o u n d a t i o n , grants to colleges, 206 Willey, Malcolm M., 273; quoted. 108 W i l l i a m s C o l l e g e , Institute of Politics, a d u l t e d u c a t i o n , 266 Willits, Joseph H „ 246 Wilson ( W o o d r o w ) F o u n d a t i o n , see W o o d row W i l s o n F o u n d a t i o n Wisconsin, University of, Experimental C o l l e g e , 151 Wisconsin A l u m n i F o u n d a t i o n , 17 W o m e n , as trustees, 86; e x p e r i m e n t s in e d u c a t i o n for, 153 W o o d r o w W i l s o n F o u n d a t i o n , 180 Woodward, Robert Simpson, 103; q u o t e d , 31 World Almanac (1936) , 175, 207 W o r l d W a r , activities of R o c k e f e l l e i F o u n d a t i o n , 33; effect u p o n higher education, 141; heightened scientific interest, 239, 241 W y o m i s s i n g F o u n d a t i o n , 181

Yale University, tutorial undertakings, 154; S t e r l i n g F u n d , 188; school of nursing, grant from Rockefeller F o u n d a t i o n , 204; clinical departments reorganized, 211; grant to school of p u b l i c health o f , 213; grants f o r medical-dental purposes, 219; e x p l o r a t i o n in Syria a n d T r a n s Jordan, 260; Institute of H u m a n Relations, 265; aggregate of grants received (1902-34), 274, 276 Y e n c h i n g F u n d , Harvard, 17 Y. M. C. A . college, 264 Y o u t h p r o b l e m in Amcrica, grant for study o f , 62 Y o u t h surveys a n d studies, 149