74 REPORTS ON INVESTIGATIONS AND PROJECTS. 



search and scientific work during more than five years was less than $94,000. 

 As there are 12 divisions, it is clear that this is an average for each division 

 of less than $8,000 in five years, or less than $1,600 a year. 



If we should count as our output only the more extended monographs and 

 books, entirely disregarding the large amount of partly finished work done 

 by the collaborators and others, we should have about 134 extended studies. 

 Therefore, if we had done nothing else, and had spent our $94,000 on these 

 things alone, they would average about $700 apiece. 



When, upon the creation of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, a 

 number of economists were consulted regarding the first undertaking to be 

 assigned to a Department of Economics and Sociology, they agreed unani- 

 mously, and each independently of the others, that the most important work 

 to undertake was a study of the methods and the influences under which our 

 wonderful economic development had taken place, before the evidence, both 

 documentary and human, should have been lost. This same idea was sug- 

 gested at an earlier date by General Francis A. Walker, a short time before 

 his death. 



In order to carry out such a great plan, all recognized that cooperation 

 was necessary. The general interest taken in the plan is shown by the fact 

 that the American Economic Association and the American Historical Asso- 

 ciation formally invited Colonel Wright to deliver an address upon the 

 subject at the annual meeting held in December 1904. The address was 

 followed by a discussion, which showed a general interest in, and approval 

 of, the project. I believe that the work when completed will be a credit to 

 American scholarship. But work of this kind takes time as well as money ; 

 and in view of the amount already accomplished it would, in my judgment, 

 be a mistake of the first magnitude to either curtail the work itself or lower 

 its standard by insisting upon a too rapid completion. 



