The author examines the role of the federal government as an public funding agency. In recent years, through the mechanism with which this paper is concerned, government has conveyed monies directly to existing institutions, for purposes in which those institutions were already engaged. It has done this through what might be called public foundations, or public funding agencies. Conspicuously the fields in which they operate include scholarly, scientific, and medical research - including those aspects of higher education which are research-bound, and culture, or the arts, as broadly defined (most examples herein will be drawn from the latter, since this has been the author's principal concern for the past five years).

The most striking feature of this new domain for government, therefore, is that it was previously occupied, and continues to be occupied, by private patrons and private foundations whom no one - least of all government - wishes to see withdraw. Though it may be true that in these areas private sources of support can no longer bear the full burden, or respond fully to increased demand, and thus it may also be true that government has been drawn in out of necessity, yet it would most definitely not be welcome or useful for government to take over entirely, or even to dominate. The virtues of pluralism and voluntarism need not be labored at this juncture, other than to point out that government is by no means universally believed to be capable of replacing them. In this matter, it is the public sector, and not the private, which is under pressure to prove itself. (p. 2-3).

The author examines the role of the federal government as an public funding agency.