REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT, 1920. 11 



the popular theory that it is worth while to winnow a great bulk 

 of chaff if only a few grains of wheat can be found. Thus it 

 happened that a vast aggregate of unrealizable expectations was 

 generated and a correspondingly vast aggregate of disappoint- 

 ment necessitated, not because of any personaUties involved, but 

 because of the relentless operation of the rules of arithmetic 

 and the laws of probabiHty. After this early period of phantasms 

 was passed, and after the Institution secured a charter defining 

 its functions, it became the duty of the Trustees, subject to 

 the inexorable Hmitations imposed by those rules and laws, to 

 justify the existence of the Institution by concentrating atten- 

 tion upon practicable researches and conducting them persistently 

 to logical conclusions. But while this pohcy led speedily to 

 tangible results, and is the only efficient poHcy, it did not remove 

 the early common, and probably still prevalent, impressions 

 that the Institution could finance worthy projects without 

 limit, that it is under no moral obligations to live within income, 

 and that it may proceed regardless of legal restrictions and of 

 the maxims dictated by the age-long experience of our race. It 

 should go without saying that the Institution has attempted 

 none of these foUies; it is almost inconceivable, in fact, that any 

 responsible body of men would now entertain such illusions, 

 although history records numerous instances of similar obliqui- 

 ties on the part of fiduciary agents. Nevertheless, it must be 

 admitted that no organization has arrived at a stage of stabiHty 

 and permanence until it has won pubUc confidence in its integrity 

 and in its freedom from suspicions of ''frenzied finance." If the 

 Institution is to live and to prosper it must evolve steadily away 

 from the fantastic ideas of those who speak and write without 

 reflection and as steadily toward the rational penetration of 

 those who speak and wiite only after dehberate contemplation. 



Citation of two concrete cases of current fallacies may suffice 

 to show how inimical, in some respects, are the conditions under 

 which the Institution exists; and it may be observed that any 

 similarly endowed establishment must encounter similarly un- 

 toward conditions. 



(1) Behef in the unHmited capacities of a limited income and 

 disbeHef in the capacities of the Institution itself to apply that 



