REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT, 1917. 15 



script in this hirge enterprise has been entrusted to Miss Adelaide 

 R. Hasse, of the PubHc Documents Division of the New York 

 Public Library. The resulting volumes have been issued, under 

 No. 85 of the Institution's series, for the States of Maine, New 

 Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, 

 Cahfornia, Illinois, Kentucky, Delaware, Ohio, and New Jersey, 

 while a volume for Pennsylvania is in press. Quite naturally also 

 the collaborators and their assistants have published in journals 

 and other media many monographs and shorter papers auxiliary 

 to the main project. A bibliography to these contributions has 

 been prepared by Professor Farnam and printed copies may be 

 obtained from him or from the Institution. Fortunately for the 

 intrinsic merits of the project, it is to be continued under the 

 auspices of a new organization composed chiefly of the original 

 collaborators of the department. 



THE INSTITUTION AND THE PUBLIC. 



It is often openly asserted and more often tacitly assum.ed that 



an endowed altruistic organization acting under a state or a 



national charter may proceed without restrictions 



Reciprocity of ^^ ^j^^ development of its work. Thus, in accord- 



Relations. . ; . ... 



ance with this view, the Institution is frequently 

 congratulated on its supposed freedom from governmental 

 control and on its supposed immunity from social restraint. But 

 this view is neither consonant with fact nor consistent with sound 

 public policy. All such organizations are properly subject not 

 only to the literal constraints of their charters but also to the 

 commonly more narrow though un\vritten hmitations imposed b}^ 

 contemporary opinion. The ideal to be sought by them in any 

 case consists in a reciprocity of relations between the individual 

 endowment on the one hand and the vastly larger and more influ- 

 ential public on the other hand. This ideal, however, like most 

 ideals, is rarely fully attainable. Its existence and importance 

 are, indeed, almost as rarely recognized. Hence, anj^ new altru- 

 istic organization is apt to find itself oscillating between two 

 extreme dangers : the one arising from action on the part of the 

 organization prejudicial to public interests; the other arising 

 from pubhc expectations impossible of attainment and there- 

 fore prejudicial to the organization. 



