Much of the recent development in Slavic scholarship must be credited to the work of the Joint Committee on Slavic Studies. Started before World War II by the American Council of Learned Societies, a committee was established in the Slavic area, based on the prototype which existed to aid the reorganization and development of studies in Chinese. Later the Social Science Research Council established a committee for the development of Slavic studies in the social sciences. The committees of these organizations combined to form the Joint Committee, which was able to secure large subsidies from foundations for the development of courses, faculty salaries and scholarship grants. The initiative of this committee, working with influential and alert university officials, has aided the expansion of wartime area studies into institutes, organized programs and centers of research and training. This approach to academic organization is, in a sense, borrowed from European university organization which used institutes, such as the Slavic Institute in Prague, as a means of coordinating the activities of previously isolated chairs. In the United States, where the organization of courses led to the establishment of cohesive departments, the institutes became a means of coordinating departments which were in different faculties, sometimes in isolation and even competition, especially in courses on national cultures which almost of necessity impinge on history. In addition, the institutes had a more practical side, for along with the development of pure research, they aspired to supply trained men and women for special technical work in both government and civilian enterprises. We can scarcely summarize this activity better than by quoting the purposes of the Russian Institute as reported in the Announcement of the Faculty of Philosophy of Columbia University, for 1957 (p. 146):