NO. I ETHNOGEOGRAPHIC BOARD — BENNETT 6"] 



the Government agencies were either unaware of, or not interested 

 in, this function of the Board. Nor did the situation ever arise 

 whereby a Council or academic institution asked the Ethnogeographic 

 Board to prepare a report on some aspect of Government. 



The Board was not forced to go far afield in preparing its reports. 

 Fifteen were written by the staff itself. Another 12 were handled by 

 the staff of the Smithsonian, 2 by committees of the National Research 

 Council, and i by the Office of the Geographer of the Department of 

 State. Only 6 were sent outside of Washington, and all of these to 

 one place, namely, Yale. 



The reports were sent to others besides the requester unless spe- 

 cifically restricted. In most cases everything was sent voluntarily to 

 the Intelligence branches of both Army and Navy and to other war 

 agencies on request. The published survival articles naturally re- 

 ceived a wide distribution. 



The Board's report service was well received. The Kennedy and 

 Stirling manuscripts provoked a truly enthusiastic response and the 

 letters of acknowledgment show that the other area reports were 

 appreciated. The survival articles were considered significant enough 

 for rather extensive publication. The remaining reports, about a 

 fourth of the total, were of more limited value. 



The chief criticism of the report service is its limitation. Thirty- 

 seven reports, regardless of their individual merits, are but a small 

 number. Furthermore, the staff of the Board and the Smithsonian, 

 and a few professionals at Yale, competent as all of them may be, do 

 not represent an adequate sampling of the scholarly resources of the 

 country. The Board was, of course, faced with the problem of how 

 many and how large jobs it could handle without becoming a small 

 branch office of the Army or Navy. However, the report service 

 should have been one of the most effective means of bringing the 

 specialized talents of many scholars into focus on the war effort. The 

 Board members did nothing to assist the Directorate to increase its 

 report service. 



CONFERENCES 



The American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science 

 Research Council have for many years used the informal luncheon or 

 dinner conference as a technique for making their activities known 

 and for bringing together individuals with common interests. Some 

 of these conferences are oriented around a discipline, or a specific 

 problem, others are regional. For example, the Joint Committee on 



