Tu Tsung-ming, the first Taiwanese doctorate of the Japanese era, noted in his eulogy of Yen Yun-nien that he went to the extreme of taking out a mortgage on his own house to raise money for these charitable endeavors.
根據日據時代全台灣第一位博士杜聰明的文章指出，當時顏家為了籌措這筆資金，甚至以自己的房屋拿到銀行貸款。