NO, I ETHNOGEOGRAPHIC BOARD — BENNETT 9I 



4, EVALUATION 



111 spite of policy the Board was forced to evaluate the actual pro- 

 posals which came before it. Some of these were not supported or 

 encouraged because they were considered to be impractical, too vague, 

 or not particularly valuable. Two restrictions seem excessive. One, 

 that the proposal be of immediate war concern ; two, that the pro- 

 posal be of direct assistance to the Board. Neither of these limitations 

 was imposed on requests coming from the Military or Government 

 agencies, and both kept the Ethnogeographic Board from encouraging 

 valuable contributions. 



5. ATTITUDES 



The attitudes of the Board members, the stafif, the Sponsors, and 

 the scholars all handicapped the research function of the Board, The 

 Board members thought the staff should do the work. The staff as- 

 sumed that "research" jobs should be organized and supervised by 

 someone else, anyone else. Their job was to distribute the reports and 

 materials effectively, and to provide information and report services. 

 The staff was engaged in war service, defined basically by requests 

 from the Army, Navy, and war agencies. This was both important 

 and time-consuming so that little consideration could be given to re- 

 search reports, potentially of equally as great war service as anything 

 else, as the Kennedy and Stirling reports illustrate. 



The Sponsors, too, considered the Ethnogeographic Board to be 

 an emergency service organization, and were constantly fearful that 

 it might get entangled in some long-term commitment. The Wash- 

 ington office was frequently reminded of its limited life span, and 

 the Board members were told to restrict themselves to advising the 

 staff, and not get involved in planning or postwar problems. Research 

 compilations and summaries are difficult to encourage when the 

 guillotine is constantly in view. 



The scholars, in general, did not volunteer their services or ma- 

 terials to the Board, although many wrote to inquire about the pos- 

 sibility of Government jobs. Those who applied for grants might 

 have obtained the funds elsewhere and then called on the Board for 

 assistance in placing the reports eft'ectively, but, although some 

 of the projects were completed, the Directorate heard no more about 

 them, 



6. ACADEMIC RELATIONS 



A final reason for the limited research activity reflects the failure 

 to establish satisfactory relationship with the scholarly institutions. 

 This deserves separate discussion in the following pages. 



