16 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



Happily for the Institution, neither of these extreme dangers 

 has been seriously encountered. Its evolution has proceeded 

 without surpassing charter limitations and without permanent 

 hindrance from an aggregate of expectations certainly quite 

 unparalleled in the historj^ of research establishments. But 

 while thus far it has been practicable to steer clear of the rocks 

 and the shoals toward which enthusiastic friends even of the 

 Institution would have it head, and to demonstrate the inappro- 

 priateness, the futility, or the impossibility of a large number of 

 recurring suggestions for application of the Institution's income, 

 there remains a multitude of subjects and objects of omnipresent 

 importunity for which the Institution has furnished and appar- 

 ently can furnish only general disappointment. Some references 

 have been made occasionally in previous reports to these matters, 

 but in general they have been ignored for the reason that they 

 tend to waste energy in the production of nothing better than 

 heat of controversy. A full enumeration and discussion of them 

 would require nothing short of a volume, which would be of value 

 probably only to our successors. There are two classes of them, 

 however, presenting widelj^ different aspects, which appear 

 worthj^ of special mention in this connection and at the present 

 unusual epoch in the intellectual development of mankind . These 

 two classes find expression respectively^ in the perennial pleas of 

 humanists for a larger share of the Institution's income and in 

 the more persistently perennial pleas of aberrant types of mind 

 for special privileges not asked for, and not expected by, the 

 normal devotees to learning. 



Whenever and wherever the rules of arithmetic are ignored, 



then and there will develop vagaries, misunderstandings, and 



errors of fact that only the slow processes of time 



Claims of p^j^ correct. Hence it was not simply natural but 



Humanists. . 



necessary that in the evolution of the Institution 

 something like conflict surpassing the bounds of generous rivalry 

 should arise between claimants whose aggregate of demands for 

 application of income has constantly exceeded the endowment 

 from which income is derived. Indeed, if the evidences of expe- 

 rience are to be trusted, there is scarcel^^ a province in the world 

 of abstract and in the world of applied knowledge w^hich has 

 regarded its needs as incommensurate with that entire income. 



