Part 1 - The Institute Libraries - Institute for Advanced Study

CWTER VIf - NOTES
1. The Treasurer's reports which are available indiczte the Founderst
gifts in cash and in securities at cost were as follows:
Up to and including 1/7/32 ....... $5,324,866
Fiscalyear1933*. ........... 404,856*
Fiscal year 1934 ............ 513,196
Fiscal year1935.. .......... 634,183
Total ................. $6.877,101
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Fiscal year 1936 ....... .,. ... 993,881
*figure derived.
$7 r -870,982
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Treasurer1 s Reports f or fiscal 1922, 1933, not
available. But smaq at 12/11/52 rrade derivation possible.
2. See Fosdiek, op. cit., pp. 207 ff. Mr. Fosdick explained that
though two of the Rockefeller foundations hsd spent considerable
money in grants for resetrch in the social sciences, and especially
in economics, including subventions to the Social Science Research
Council and the N.B.E.R., sm~thing seerred ta be wrongdth the
progrms. Therefore in 1934 he chaired a camnittee to study the
matter. In its report it reemended the abandonrent of programs
in which research was an end in itself:
We axe interested in reseerch vhich is a means to an
end, and the end is the advsncement of humn welfare...
The mere accunulation of fzcts, untested by prsctical
appllcstion, is in danger of becoming a substitute
rather than a basis of callective action."
Fosdick says that thereafter two criteria guided the Foundation in
its giving: (1) the subject must be socially signif ichnt; (2) it
rmst be susceptible of "scf entificn treatment.
This sounds much like Flexner's treatmnt of research fn The Idea
of a Modern University. It Is of more than passing interest that
the Foundstion did not hasten to support Riefler's projected studies
of November, 1935, which the Assistant Director of its Division of
the Social Sciences favored.
3. The 10,000 shares of k cy cmon were valued at cost at $1,070,000
in the endownent, Approximately 3,400 shares were sold before Peb-
ruary 29, 1932, when zccording to the Treasurer's Report, 6,599 re-
mained. By August 31, 1932, only 1,100 shares r ained. That the
sale was debated in late July, with Leidesdorf and Maass opposed,
seems clear from a note, Flexner to Maass, 8/2/32,
4. Report, Treasurer, 8/31/32. Minutes, Trustees' meeting, 1/29/34,
p. 11,
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5, Minutes, Trustees' meeting, 10/1Q/32, pp- -7-8- fbid-, 1/9/33,
. pp- 8-9. \
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