652 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



school teachers, and (c) investigators engaged in literary, historical, pure scientific, 

 and technical research. The latter have not, yet, even the pretence of organisa- 

 tion. With very few exceptions all these categories of skilled workers are poorly 

 paid, and the prospects of betterment are, as a rule, vague and highly unsatis- 

 factory. In the past there were far more frequent opportunities of advancement 

 in the shape of professorships, headmasterships, and heads and directors of public 

 laboratories and other organisations for research. Now for some considerable 

 time past, the increasing specialisation of higher teaching and research has tended 

 to the increase of assistant posts rather than of the directorships, professorships, 

 and other better-paid appointments. Certain other regrettable tendencies are 

 apparent also : the university department in charge of a professor has come to 

 be regarded as a cadre to be filled with assistants. The professor has come 

 to exercise multifarious functions in the direction of one form of economic research 

 or another, and it cannot be contended that the arrangement is satisfactory. 

 Undoubtedly the organisation of the departments, as teaching institutions, tends 

 to suffer by the tendency for the application of the activities of the professor 

 towards the work of " administration " ; and probably the personal research work 

 of the professor also deteriorates under the pressure of the little trivialities of 

 committee work. 



At present these research assistantships are most poorly paid : salaries of 

 ^120 to ,£150 per annum are those of most of such appointments. Status is low, 

 and there is little opportunity on the part of the assistant for the exercise of 

 direction of research. Now it is clear that poor pay, lack of status, and insecurity 

 of tenure most tend to deplete the vaguely defined profession of research of the 

 best men and women. In the medical profession men and women usually under- 

 take research only for a short time immediately after qualification. The work is 

 badly paid, and it is generally understood that most medical research work is only 

 preliminary to the more lucrative work of specialist, general practitioner, or public 

 health officer. Investigation must suffer, for it is undertaken by a great number 

 of young men and women who usually abandon it just about the time when they 

 are becoming trained in special methods of research. 



The objects stated in paragraph (6) must therefore be the main ones promoted 

 by the Guild for an initiatory period. Nevertheless, the ulterior aims are the 

 improvement of higher teaching and training ; the creation of an organisation of 

 workers skilled in those methods involving original thought, or able to employ 

 those techniques or crafts (whether literary or scientific) which are the objects of 

 a university training ; and the assiduous endeavour to find for such workers 

 proper places in a better State organisation. National efficiency in all departments 

 of administrative and industrial productive work ; the training of men and women 

 to undertake specific duties ; and the finding of just the right person for any post 

 in the local or Imperial services — such must be regarded as the primary objects 

 which the Guild ought to set out to promote. 



Besides all this the Guild ought to endeavour to increase very greatly the output 

 of independent, original research of every kind, both pure and applied. The 

 present conditions with regard to research are now well known : they have been 

 described in these pages many times during the last few years. Apart from a few 

 meagre grants administered by the Royal Society, the British Association, and 

 several Government Departments, there is no really adequate provision. Even 

 those very limited sums available are usually placed at the disposal of university 

 professors who already perform duties, or carry on personal research that ought to 

 monopolise all their activities. The result is that the actual investigations are 



