90 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I07 



ful elsewhere. In one sense service grants of small amounts would 

 have made many a report possible, but the Board's policy was against 

 this. 



2. FRAMEWORK LIMITATIONS 



Perhaps the greatest block in building up a backlog of valuable area 

 summaries was the lack of a suitable outline. The few presented by 

 the Army and Navy were broad enough to tax the Encyclopedia 

 Britannica. If all branches of the Military are taken into account, the 

 required area information covers every topic known to man, plus 

 a few unknowns. The Ethnogeographic Board was unable to frame 

 an outline which would be of maximum service to the Military and 

 still appeal to the scholars. Unable may be too strong a word since 

 only one effort was ever made to do this. This was an outline pre- 

 pared by Solon Kimball for a book on an area. The Board made 

 no use of this although a publishing firm seized it with interest. 



3. POLICY RESTRICTIONS 



Several applications for small grants of money led the Board 

 into adopting the following policy at its second meeting: (i) The 

 Board is not a fund-raising organization for projects, but limits its 

 participation to implementation of small group meetings and secre- 

 tarial assistance; (2) The Board is not a jury to pass on the im- 

 portance of projects, but is willing to look them over, determine their 

 interest to the Board's activities, and possibly suggest sources of funds. 

 This was not a particularly clear statement of policy. For example, at 

 the same meeting, a discussion of the Distribution Service brought 

 forth the policy that although the Board cannot undertake the 

 preparation of these materials for distribution it can make small 

 assisting grants. The distinction between "materials" and "reports" 

 was not considered. 



This policy restricting the granting of funds for useful reports 

 was most unfortunate. (At the time, the writer was the one who 

 clamored the loudest for its adoption.) The financial resources of 

 the Ethnogeographic Board were insufficient to allow too many or too 

 large grants, and certainly the Board should not have usurped the 

 standard functions of the Councils. Still, small assisting grants, 

 under the heading of secretarial or clerical assistance if necessary, 

 would have enabled many reports to be prepared, and, through part- 

 time employment, more scholars could have been made active 

 participants. 



