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- Foreword, by Frederick P. Keppel
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FOREWORD
I have been asked to write a prefatory note for this book, because of
the part played by the Carnegie Corporation in inaugurating the
comprehensive study of which it is the outcome. In the public mind, the American
foundations are associated with gifts for endowment and buildings to
universities, colleges and other cultural and scientific institutions, and to a
lesser degree with the financial support of fundamental research. It is true
that a great part of the funds for which their Trustees are responsible have
been distributed for these purposes, but the foundations do other things
not so generally recognized. There are, for example, problems which face
the American people, and sometimes mankind in general, which call for
studies upon a scale too broad for any single institution or association to
undertake, and in recent years certain foundations have devoted a
considerable part of their available resources to the financing of such comprehensive
studies.
The primary purpose of studies of this character is the collection, analysis
and interpretation of existing knowledge; it is true that considerable
research may prove necessary to fill the gaps as they reveal themselves,
but such research is a secondary rather than a primary part of the
undertaking as a whole. Provided the foundation limits itself to its proper
function, namely to make the facts available and let them speak for themselves,
and does not undertake to instruct the public as to what to do about them,
studies of this kind provide a wholly proper and, as experience has shown,
sometimes a highly important use of their funds.
As examples, we may take the inquiry and report of the Committee on
the Costs of Medical Care (1928-1933), made possible by a group of
foundations. Lord Hailey’s memorable study. An African Survey, in the
thirties was financed by the Carnegie Corporation. The significance of such
undertakings cannot be measured by their cost. The volumes on the Poor
Whites of South Africa, published in 1932, represent a relatively modest
enterprise, but they have largely changed the thinking of the South
Africans upon a social question of great importance to them.
While the underlying purpose of these studies is to contribute to the
general “advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding,”
to quote the Charter of the Carnegie Corporation, it sometimes happens
that a secondary factor, namely the need of the foundation itself for fuller
light in the formulation and development of its own program, has been
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