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4.

II. The Spirit of the Institute:

The Institute should be devoted primarily to research and secondarily to the training of teachers for the universities and colleges. The Fellows would not be expected to do much teaching, beyond the supervision of the students trusted to their care. Each student would be gradually trained to do his own share of the collective work.

The work should be organized more or less like that of an astronomical observatory, each collaborator being given a task according to a general plan and in proportion to his own abilities. A collective work of this kind, the first I think in the historical field in this country, would be in itself a splendid example and would do much to rehabilitate historical studies.

The standards of accuracy and comprehensiveness should be the very highest; indeed, they cannot be placed too high. Nothing is more needed in the educational system of this country than institutes dedicated exclusively to pure research, and there is no better way to raise the intellectual level of the nation.

The influence of the Institute would also be felt in another way. By making possible a thorough and comprehensive survey of the past, it would contribute to the diffusion into this modern world of the best ancient traditions. It would make it easier to graft on the young and strong American tree all that was fine and great in the earlier Eastern and Western civilizations.

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