In 1616 an act in Privy council commanded every parish to establish a school "where convenient means may be had", and when the Parliament of Scotland ratified this with the Education Act of 1633, a tax on local landowners was introduced to provide the necessary endowments.
For example, Locke writes: "I place Vertue [sic] as the first and most necessary of those Endowments, that belong to a Man or a Gentleman".
Although native endowment is necessary for realized capacity, it is not sufficient.
Two natural endowments are necessary to a fine perfumer — good taste and an olfactory nerve suited to segregating not only kinds of odors but their qualities.
While not minimizing the museum director's importance, the endowment is the fundamental, necessary element to its long-term sustainability as an institution housing one of the greatest post-war art collections.
In a memo to the faculty and staff, Richard C. Levin, Yale's president, and Peter Salovey, its provost, said the measures were necessary because of the drop in the endowment to $16.3 billion last June from its peak of $22.9 billion in June 2008.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art said on Monday that it had completed a significant round of layoffs and voluntary retirements that it had warned in March would probably be necessary to contend with deep losses in its endowment.
Jehuda Reinharz, the university's president, said in a statement that the decision, made on Monday by the university's trustees, was agonizing but necessary as Brandeis faces a deepening financial crisis, with its endowment, once $700 million, significantly diminished.
A trickier question was how to raise the necessary funds – the NHM does not currently benefit from a large endowment to support the purchase of new material for the collection, so a donor had to be found.
And the implications for investment policy now make necessary a clear and deep inquiry into a question all endowments face and need periodically to revisit: How much money is it worth putting at risk of some loss in the quest for incremental gain?
