The "Values" Discussion Group at the University of Toronto, February-May 1949.

On June 18, 1948, the trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation approved an appropriation of $25,000 for use by the officers for the Social Sciences in the development of opportunities in the general area of Moral Issues in the Economic Order. This funding was to enable the officers to invite memoranda from thoughtful students and men of affairs who, it is believed, may have significant ideas to contribute to the Foundation as to directions in which work in this area may be most profitably prosecuted. One of the thoughtful students who was evidently invited to submit a memorandum was Harold Adams Innis, professor of political economy at the University of Toronto, he had established himself as the Rockefeller Foundation's most trusted advisor on matters pertaining to the social sciences in Canada. Innis duly submitted a letter to his friend Joseph Willits, in which he requested support for a small discussion group which has been set up in response to a suggestion from Pendleton Herring, president of the American Social Science Research Council of an interest in the problem of value.