OF THE JOHN F. SLATER FUND. 15
departments. This fact I commend to the earnest considera¬
tion of the Board. How far may your Agent go in aiding
the institutions, selected from the whole number, in setting
their industrial departments in operation? In using the
$20,000 appropriated last April I have, in some cases, as
reported in another paper, given or promised some aid to
institutions in equipping industrial departments. Some appro¬
priations I have made conditioned upon the raising of funds
by their friends, in some cases seeking to co-operate with the
communities in which they were located.
IV.—Suggestions as to the Policy of the Board.
The more I have investigated the subjects referred to me,
the more I have explored the field in which our work is to be
done, the more impracticable has it appeared to me to suggest
any clearly defined rules by which appropriations may be
made. The conditions are so diverse that what seems wisest in
relation to one institution does not suit the circumstances of
another. In some institutions we can do the greatest good, as
it appears to me, by a general appropriation; in others by
assuming the support of an instructor in the normal depart¬
ment ; in others by supplementing the salary paid — inadequate
in all of them; in others by paying the salary of an instructor
in the industrial department; in others by offering "student
aid;" in some by helping them to equip, with suitable tools,
their industrial departments. Your Agent regrets the imprac-
ticability of suggesting any absolute rules for determining the
making of appropriations; such rules would save him embar¬
rassment and many grave responsibilities. It may be that
after the experiment has made further progress most of the
difficulties, growing out of diverse conditions in the institu¬
tions aided by the Slater Fund, will vanish.
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