Payne Fund, Inc.

Charitable fund which grew out of the National Committee for the Study of Juvenile Reading (founded in 1925 by Frances Payne Bolton). The fund initially supported studies and experiments on the needs of youth, focusing especially on children's literature and the effects of movies and radio on the values of children, and the development of radio as an educational tool. In addition to its support of various programs involving youth, the fund expanded its interests to include support for medical education and interracial cooperation.

The Payne Fund, Inc., was founded in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1927 and had its origin in the National Committee for the Study of Juvenile Reading, founded in 1925 by Frances Payne Bolton. This committee was established in order to devise a character education program through a series of reading materials designed to promote citizenship in youth. By 1927 the committee's interests had expanded to include the effects of movies and radio on youth. In order to facilitate further research and widen its influence among educators, the committee was formally organized as the Payne Study and Experiment Fund. Upon incorporation in 1929 the name was shortened to the Payne Fund. Of particular interest to the organizers of the fund was the effect of mass communication on social values and its potential usefulness as a means of education. The fund was designed to financially assist preliminary surveys and experiments from which a greater understanding of youth and its needs could be gleaned. It was structured to provide annual grants to projects, utilizing donations provided principally by Mrs. Bolton, her brother, William Bingham 2nd, and her sister, Elizabeth Blossom. No capital or trust fund was established. It was the anticipation of the fund's directors that as studies were completed, the results would incite other organizations to implement findings in the form of educational programs and/or reform movements while the fund's participation in the projects would cease. The directors expected that the fund would fade out of existence as experiments were adopted and supported by either public or private philanthropies.

On of the fund's first projects, the study of juvenile reading, resulted in comprehensive surveys on girl life in America and the scope and content of existing publications for youth. Editorial programs were developed for both boys and girls, with the goal of publishing periodicals for both sexes. The fund supported, from 1930 to 1934, the section on children's literature of the International Bureau of Education (Geneva) in its efforts to study children's reading and international good will. The fund also supported research in to he effect of the written word on the reader (bibliopsychology).

With the development of motion pictures and radio as forms of mass entertainment and communication, directors of the fund saw an increasing need for studies to determine the relationships and responsibilities of movies and radio towards youth. The directors felt that while the commercially dominated media were shaping new standards and attitudes among youth, they were indifferent to their social responsibilities. Therefore, in 1927, funds were provided to the National Committee for the Study of Social Values in Motion Pictures to study the social effects of films. Twelve reports from this committee were published, including Motion Pictures and the Social Attitudes of Children, The Emotional Responses of Children to the Motion Picture Situation, Movies and Conduct, and Movies, Delinquency, and Crime . The fund also supported efforts to include motion picture appreciation courses in the public school curriculum.

One of the fund's long term projects was developing the educational possibilities of radio. Through national education organizations and the Payne Fund supported National Committee on Education by Radio (NCER), the fund intended to encourage and assist the development and use of radio as an educational tool in the nation's schools. The NCER also had as one of its goals the development of a national policy of radio broadcasting that would raise the cultural level of the American people. To facilitate these goals the NCER developed the radio council plan, whereby civic and educational agencies within a region co-operated to produce radio programs of high cultural value. The Rocky Mountain Radio Council was one of the most successful of these councils. The fund also supported the Ohio School of the Air, an educational broadcasting service out of Ohio State University. Communications projects at Ohio State University continued to be supported through the 1960s.

The development of Basic English was also supported by the fund. Interested in the system primarily as an international auxiliary language, Basic English was also advanced as a means of teaching English as a second language to immigrants. General language research was also supported.

As these early studies were completed, the fund turned its attention to additional projects involving youth. Among the projects supported were the Experiment in International Living, the training of seeing eye dogs for the blind, Youth of All National, the American Council on African Education, the Institute of International Education, youth attitudes studies, the Junior Extension University, and the Civics Research Institute. In addition, the fund provided scholarships to individuals for private study, and fellowships to 4-H students for summer study at the Department of Agriculture in Washington, D. C. In later years the fund expanded its field of endeavor to include support for medical education and interracial relations. Although the fund's primary donor, Mrs. Bolton, died in 1977, it continued thereafter to provide small grants to petitioners whose interests coincided with the fund's primary objectives of assisting experiments on behalf of the welfare of mankind, but particularly those of youth.

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