ORGANIZATION OF SCIENCE 



would be less competent to advise on questions bearing on the social 

 relations of science in these fields. 



The Board might conduct its relations with the scientific socie- 

 ties through the National Research Council, which could then be 

 incorporated into the Department of Science and carry out other im- 

 portant functions, such as maintaining a permanent roster of scientific 

 personnel. 



It is of course possible that the Academy and the present Na- 

 tional Research Council might be so changed as to assume the func- 

 tions it is proposed to assign to the Board. The changes would be so 

 fundamental as to constitute conversion of these older organizations 

 into a new department of the government; and it is probable that the 

 traditions of both institutions would make such conversion a slow and 

 difficult process, for, in spite of their "national" character, neither 

 has felt itself to be a truly public agency. 



The foregoing brief sketch has given merely in outline form, 

 without any attempt to develop detailed procedures for giving them ef- 

 fect, some of the general ideas and principles which might underlie a 

 policy for the public support of fundamental research. Since it was 

 written (January, 1945) several events of cardinal importance have oc- 

 curred. One of these was the publication in July, 1945, of "Science, 

 the Endless Frontier," a report to the President of the United States 

 by Vannevar Bush, Director of the Office of Scientific Research and 

 Development. This is at once a report on the state of scientific re- 

 search in the United States and a set of recommendations concerning 

 its future support, in answer to specific questions posed by President 

 Roosevelt in 1944. Since it embodies the result of extensive study by 

 committees of competent and experienced scientists serving as advisers 

 to Dr. Bush and is documented with data on current scientific research 

 activity, it is destined to constitute one of the bases on which public 

 policy for science will rest. Another foundation had been provided 

 by the discussions and hearings centering around a bill submitted to the 

 Senate in 1943 by Senator Harley S. Kilgore of West Virginia. These 

 two major influences, one provided primarily by scientists, the other by 

 legislators, came together in the autumn of 1945 during the joint public 

 hearings on five bills for the public support of science. The message 

 to Congress of President Truman on September 6, 1945, definitely com- 

 mitted his administration to the support of fundamental research in 



485 



