SUPPORT FROM PRIVATE PHILANTHROPY 



America became of age intellectually after the Civil War, basic 

 research began in earnest. In our own century, private philan- 

 thropy began to organize itself first in the form of foundations 

 established by a single person or family. The last two decades 

 have seen the growth of organized funds whose roots penetrate 

 almost every household and schoolroom in the country. The 

 individual or family foundations at first tended to carry on the 

 earlier tradition of contributing to the general funds of univer- 

 sities, but later turned more and more to the selection of indi- 

 viduals and projects for special attention. This focusing or 

 concentration of financial aid on problems of topical interest 

 came to be even more emphasized by the categorical funds. 

 Finally, we are beginning to see that we cannot indefinitely 

 depend on the tree of knowledge to produce the apples which 

 keep the doctor awav unless we do something about the health 

 of the tree itself. It seems particularly significant that the cate- 

 gorical funds with their announced interest in the application 

 of knowledge to specified diseases should have preceded their 

 older brothers in recognizing the need to do something about 

 the indirect costs of research and finally in restoring the op- 

 portunity for free-wheeling scholarship to the university pro- 

 fessor. 



The growth of organizations like the National Fund for 

 Medical Education and the recent move on the part of the 

 United Funds to devote a certain percentage of their collections 

 to the general support of medical schools through the National 

 Fund should also be noted. Such moves encourage the hope 

 that private philanthropy in the broadest sense is disposed to 

 return a larger measure of responsibility for the progress of 

 science to the men in our universities who are actually carrying 

 the burden in the heat of the day. 



It remains only to make what guesses we can about the 

 role of the private philanthropist in the future. Like everything 



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