SUPPORT FROM PRIVATE PHILANTHROPY 



tion of charity or pity, and it seems at least possible that philan- 

 thropists are free to love men in the same way philosophers love 

 wisdom, or philatelists love stamps, without in some way look- 

 ing down on them, whatever the dictionary may say. 



Philanthropy as a word did not appear in English until 

 1608, and "philanthropist" not until 1730. By this time men 

 were becoming aware that relatively few people in society 

 derived much pleasure or even elementary comfort from life. 

 The Puritan conscience began to ask itself whether the great 

 majority of mankind was inevitably predestined to wretched- 

 ness on this earth. Indeed, the more eccentric began to lav 

 increasing emphasis on charity as a way of tempering the wind 

 to the shorn lamb. In England especially, individual gifts and 

 endowment began to be set up to feed and care for the poor 

 in various ways. It was this sort of direct service that originally 

 came to be thought of as philanthropy. The tie-in between 

 philanthropy and basic research came much later, when it 

 was found that direct service, provided on the basis of existing 

 knowledge, would not solve the problem of human misery. The 

 great philanthropists, the Carnegies, Harknesses, Nuffields, 

 the Rockefellers, and Tates, were all of them practical men 

 interested in doing something concrete to help people free 

 themselves from suffering — hence the great emphasis on health 

 services in the early days of these endowments. 



Utilitarian Aspects of Philanthropy 



It is important to remember the utilitarian inheritance of 

 the private foundations since it still flavors their activities, as 

 well as those of individual givers and the recently formed 

 granting agencies of government. It remains difficult to write 

 an annual report about some new scientific discovery without re- 

 ferring to how it will help to solve some pressing practical 

 problem. The beauties of phage genetics, for example, must 



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