Philanthropy is America's most distinctive virtue. There is no other aspect of American life that is so vast in scale, so rooted in tradition, so broadly supported by law and public policy or more gratuitously neglected by the educational community.

This essay marks one stage in the development of one person's thought about philanthropy. Thinking about philanthropy usually begins with being asked to give money for a "good cause" and then moves to asking others to give their money for a (perhaps different) good cause. All Americans participate in the first stage of the process; it is not possible to live in this society and not be asked incessantly to give money for good causes.

There is, of course, great difference of opinion as to what constitutes a good cause; there is a cause to delight and offend every taste.

Many of the activities that are alleged to be good causes would change the economy, reform our morals, liberate our children, rescue the poor, decorate our museums, correct our spelling. Although some of these causes are arguably trivial and inconsequential, some of them are directly related to our foundations as a society.

Even so, even with the extraordinary visibility of philanthropy in our lives, even with the seismic disturbances that philanthropically supported activities sometimes cause, it is a nonsubject in academic terms. It is not taught, except as a technique for practitioners, in American colleges and universities.

This is the argument: Philanthropy permeates American life, touches each one of us countless times in countless ways; philanthropy provides the resources for some of the most important activities that give shape and substance to our efforts to be a free and open and democratic society, and yet, inexplicably, it is not a matter of central intellectual concern, of thought and study.

Some definitions are in order before going further. Our usage is casual in talking about these subjects, and there is not an available glossary of terms to which we can all turn confidently for reference. "Philanthropy" is used here as an umbrella-term to cover all types of private giving for public purposes. (In the background is the original sense of "love of mankind," a generalized benevolence, but philanthropy has come to represent that more limited expression of concern for others as manifested in gifts of money: "one-way transfers of exchangeables. ")

There are two broad objectives served by gifts of money for public purposes, one originating in the Judaeo-Christian tradition and the other having its earliest expression in classical Greece. Charity is the word we use to describe gifts that are intended to relieve suffering, to be personal acts of mercy to others in distress who are beyond our own clear realm of responsibility. Charitable concern, in that sense, is at the heart of most of our voluntary giving.

The word philanthropy, on the other hand, comes to us from the Greeks and Romans, where most of our ideas about political society originated.

Although there is evidence of a charitable concern in classical civilization, the predominant thrust of giving is to improve the life of the community. Philanthropy also tends to signify larger gifts, more carefully rationalized, less personal and spontaneous, more directed toward the future.

I have found it helpful to think of charity and philanthropy as analogous to the ideas of "relief" and "development" in foreign aid. (That context also provides a more dramatic reminder of the choices involved in giving, the sometimes agonizing tradeoffs between the relief of suffering today and the prevention of suffering tomorrow.)

If we set aside the small amount of giving for public purposes that takes place between individuals and concentrate on the vast majority of giving that is done to and through organizations and institutions, we have to bring into the discussion of philanthropy the recipients of our giving. These are corporate entities that have special status in our society, status established by law and greatly encouraged by public policy.

I speak now of what is called the "independent sector," the vast collection of organizations that operate on a not-for-profit basis and for public rather than private purposes. These organizations are private in terms of their control, and voluntary in terms of their participation. Any financial surplus that may on occasion be generated by their activities is not distributed as profits for the private benefit of the "owners."

The independent sector, then, is not part of the marketplace because the exchange that takes place is one-way and not for profit, and it is not an instrument of government because it depends on voluntary action and has no police power or taxing authority.

Within the scope of the independent sector are all those organized activities that have to do with private gifts for public purposes that is, with philanthropy. The scope of the independent sector and of philanthropy constitutes the first part of the essay that follows. The second part attempts to discuss the role of the independent sector and of philanthropy in defining and advancing the moral values of the free society. The third part then examines the place of the independent sector and of philanthropy in the higher educational system, on the assumption that it is important to consider the way philanthropy is treated in education and what confidence we should have in the continuation of that tradition.