SCIENCE AND THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN AMERICA 



lives. It can not be successful if parcelled out among a lot of universities 

 and colleges to be done by teachers however eminent and students how- 

 ever zealous in their leisure hours. The other thing is that while the 

 solution of specific industrial problems and the attainment of specific 

 industrial objects will be of immense value, the whole system will dry 

 up and fail unless research in pure science be included with its scope. 

 That is the source and the chief source of the vision which incidentally 

 solves the practical problems. 



We are thinking now mainly of science as applied to war; but prac- 

 tically the entire industrial force of mankind is being applied to war, so 

 that our special point of view takes in the whole field. It is quite certain 

 that if the nations on either side in this war had been without a great 

 fund of scientific knowledge which they could direct towards the ac- 

 complishment of specific things in the way of attack and defense, trans- 

 portation and supply of armies, that side in the war would long since have 

 been defeated. Germany had the advantage at the start, because she had 

 long been consciously making this kind of preparation with a settled 

 purpose to bring on the war when she was ready. It would be the 

 height of folly for the peaceable law-abiding nations of the earth ever 

 to permit themselves to be left again at a disadvantage in that kind of 

 preparation. Competency for defense against military aggression requires 

 highly developed organized scientific preparation. Without it, the most 

 civilized nation will be as helpless as the Aztecs were against Cortez. 



We are not limited, however, to a military objective, for when the 

 war is over the international competitions of peace will be resumed. No 

 treaties or leagues will prevent that, and it is not desirable that they 

 should, for no nation can afford to be without the stimulus of com- 

 petition. 



In that race the same power of science which has so amazingly in- 

 creased the productive capacity of mankind during the past century 

 will be applied again, and the prizes of industrial and commercial leader- 

 ship will fall to the nation which organizes its scientific forces most 

 effectively. 



FOR FURTHER READING 



A history of industrial research in the United States is nonexistent. The 

 only account worth consulting which deals directly with it is the rela- 

 tively brief Howard R. Bartlett, "The Development of Industrial Re- 

 search in the United States," Research — A NaiioJml Resource: II — 

 Industrial Research, Report of the National Research Council to the 

 National Resources Planning Board (Washington: Government Printing 

 Office, 1941), pp. 19-77. A. Hunter Dupree, Science in the Federal Gov- 

 ernment: A History of Policies a?id Activities to 1940 (Cambridge: Har- 

 vard Univ. Press, 1957) gives a connected analysis of those phases which 

 touch the Federal government. Three volumes of economic history — 

 Fred A. Shannon, The Farmer's Last Frontier: 1860-1891 (New York: 

 Farrar, 1945); E. C. Kirkland, Industry Comes of Age: Business, Labor 



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