hange of programme, the incessant
rehearsals required, and the limited number of times it could actually
play within a contracted season. An annual deficit was inevitable.

He found that the Philadelphia Orchestra had a small but faithful group
of guarantors who each year made good the deficit in addition to paying
for its concert seats. This did not seem to Bok a sound business plan;
it made of the orchestra a necessarily exclusive organization,
maintained by a few; and it gave out this impression to the general
public, which felt that it did not "belong," whereas the true relation
of public and orchestra was that of mutual dependence. Other
orchestras, he found, as, for example, the Boston Symphony and the New
York Philharmonic had their deficits met by one individual patron in
each case. This, to Bok's mind, was an even worse system, since it
entirely excluded the public, making the orchestra dependent on the
continued interest and life of a single man.

In 1916 Bok sought Mr. Alexander Van Rensselaer, the president of the
Philadelphia Orchestra Association, and proposed that he, himself,
should guarantee the deficit of the orchestra for five years, provided
that during that period an endowment fund should be raised, contributed
by a large number of subscribers, and sufficient in amount to meet,
from its interest, the annual deficit. It was agreed that the donor
should remain in strict anonymity, an understanding which has been
adhered to until the present writing.

The offer from the "anonymous donor," presented by the president, was
accepted by the Orchestra Association. A subscription to an endowment
fund was shortly afterward begun; and the amount had been brought to
eight hundred thousand dollars when the Great War interrupted any
further additions. In the autumn of 1919, however, a city-wide
campaign for an addition of one million dollars to the endowment fund
was launched. The amount was not only secured, but oversubscribed.
Thus, instead of a guarantee fund, contributed by thirteen hundred
subscribers, with the necessity for annual collection, an endowment
fund of one million eight hundred thousand dollars, contributed by
fourteen thousand subscribers, has been secured; and the Philadelphia
Orchestra has been promoted from a privately maintained organization to
a public institution in which fourteen thousand residents of
Philadelphia feel a proprietary interest. It has become in fact, as
well as i