Waterbury Democrat., 1902-07-31
THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTE.
What is Being Done About it, and
 What. it Will Be.

What is Being Done About it, and
 Whatit Will Be.
 l Washington, July 31.-Recent as was the endowment of the Carnegie I Institution and wide as was the pub l licity given to the event. Where, is, and what is the Carnegie Institution?'' are questions frequently asked ill 1 Washington and probably elsewhere, and seldom does the questioner re- ceive an intelligent reply.
 Tn one of the frast residence DOT tions of the city of Washington, stands plain, but substantial brown stone l house and on the door is name plate which reads, Carnegie Institu- l tion." Tn that building in handsome | ly appointed offices, your correspon- l dent found MT. Marcus Baker, assist ant secretary of the Institution MT. l Baker was formerly connected with the Geological Survey but resigned to accept the assistant secretaryship he now holds. Dr. Charles D. Wolcott, the secretary, is spending the summer I ill Massachusetts, and the president, Hon. Daniel c. Gilman, is travelling l in Europe and visiting numerous European and scientific institutions with view to acquiring knowledge which will prove of value to the In :, stitution.
 I The objects of the Carnegie Insti- tuition cannot be better set forth than l i'll the following synopsis of the 1an-s guage of the founder, who declaEed ] it's general purposes to be: 1, to pro- mote general research; ?, to insure 1 prompt publication and distribution of the results of scientific investiga- ton; 3, to discover the specially gifted man and enable him to pursue as 1 life work, that for which he seems specially designed; 4, to increase fa- cilities for higher education; ,, to CO., operate with and increase the effici- ency of the Institution of higher learning in the United States; 6, to aid specially qualified students in uti- lizing the facilities for research and study in the eEgoyernment departments l in Washington.
 Tn reply to an inquiry as to what steps had been taken towards carry ing out these purposes, MT. Baker said l that all that had been done to date I was of a purely tentative character. He referred to Mir. Gilman's investi- l gations abroad and to Dr,, Wolcott's I inquiries in this country and said that l the executive Committee held meetings 1 from time to time to discuss various matters, and that it was the hope of ] the committee that it might be able l sto formulate certain propositions be- fore the meeting of the trustees, which will occur in November. The recom- mendationseOf the committee will then be considered by the trustees and, if possible, the machinery will be set in motion by which certain, concrete re- suits will be accomplished. Pending that meeting every matter discussed by the executive committee will ne- cessarily be confidential and tentative. Referring to the general misimpres- sion which was widely entertained when the Institution was originally organized, MT. Baker said somewhat epigrammatically, "The prime motive of the Carnegie Institution is not to teach existing knowledge but to in-
 crease it.'' Whether fellowships or scholarships will be endowed will de- pend entirely upon the judgment of l the trustees. For the present, they will confine themselves as closely as may be to the purposes outlined above, will carry out those purposes along such lines as may be expedient and l will take advantage of such opportu- mites as present themselevs Mr. Baker said it had afforded some sur prise to the executive committee to learn of the very large number of l Especially gifted men, already ill this country, but that, in view of the large number, the trustees would probably l feel compelled to rely on their own discoveries in this direction and to re- fuse to accept the discoveries of others, particularly of the gentlemen them- selves.
 Such wide latitude is given to the I trustees that there is almost no line of research which they might not take up, no method of disseminating newly acquired information they might not adopt, and no form of rendering as- sistance to those who have demons trated exceptional capacity, which they might not inaugurate. but there appears to be a single tenet upon which the trustees and members of the executive committee have agreed. and that is that nothing of commer- cial nature shall receive assistance 1 from the Institution. It is possible that an invention which promised to work exceptional advantages to man. kind might be encouraged by the In- stitution, but it would need to be of more than ordinary value to human l itv.
 1 The view has been entertained by many, including some of the trustees that medical research would receive considerable attention from the insti- tuition, but that such will be the case is now doubtful The fact that AIr Rockefeller has already endowed an institution with fund of $2,00O,OO0 to hat exclusivespurpose, will quite likely preclude the Carnegie institution from entering the same field.
 It will be remembered that MT Car negie endowed the Carnegie institu- tion with registered five per cent bonds of the United States Steel corporation to the amount of $10,000000, and, of course, these bonds yield an annual income of $500000, so that almost no undertaking upon which these trustees may determine, will be hampered for lack of funds. The transfer of these bonds was made on January 2S, 1902, and the original endowment is already materially increased by additions to a