SUPPORT FROM PRIVATE PHILANTHROPY 



large individual donations and foundation funds which allowed 

 them quickly to catch up with institutions founded 200 or 300 

 years earlier. In line with the "applied" objective which we 

 have found to characterize much private philanthropy in the 

 past, the stated purpose of these early gifts was education 

 rather than research. Nevertheless, the importance of research 

 in connection with higher education was duly recognized and 

 the new institutions provided talented people with secure 

 funds and the freedom to follow their curiosities into the un- 

 known. The essential prerequisites of research were therefore 

 provided in perhaps a sounder way than if the objective had 

 been more explicitly stated and directly sought. 



Beginning in the 1920's and extending to the present day, 

 the interest of the private foundations in research became more 

 explicit and direct. The reasons for this change insofar as they 

 can be reconstructed may be outlined more or less as follows. 



1. As individuals and especially the larger foundations 

 became more experienced in forwarding the welfare of man- 

 kind, they saw more and more clearly the limitations of a 

 policy of direct, immediate, and practical aid to individuals or 

 groups of suffering humanity. It turned out that existing medi- 

 cines and doctors simply were not up to the job of relieving or 

 preventing most of the troubles from which men suffered. We 

 would have to know more before we could do more. 



2. Coincident with the recognition of the limitations of 

 existing knowledge came a growing awareness of the limitations 

 of foundation funds. The great fortunes of the late nineteenth 

 century had seemed princely in their proportions — which they 

 were — and limitless in their potentialities, which they very dis- 

 tinctly were not. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advance- 

 ment of Teaching started out with the belief that it could pro- 

 vide suitable pensions for all the college professors in the 



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