Part Four 



RENEWAL OF OUR SCIENTIFIC 



TALENT 



Nature of the Problem 



The responsibility for the creation of new scientific knowledge rests on 



that small body of men and women who understand the fundamental laws 



of nature and are skilled in the techniques of scientific research. While there 



will always be the rare individual who will rise to the top without benefit 



of formal education and training, he is the exception and even he might 



make a more notable contribution if he had the benefit of the best education 



we have to offer. I cannot improve on President Conant's statement that: 



"* * * in every section of the entire area where the word science may properly 

 be applied, the limiting factor is a human one. We shall have rapid or slow advance in 

 this direction or in that depending on the number of really first-class men Vv'ho are 

 engaged in the work in question. * * * So in the last analysis, the future of 

 science in this country will be determined by our basic educational policy." 



A Note of Warning 



It would be follv to set up a program under which research in the natural 

 sciences and medicine was expanded at the cost of the social sciences, 

 humanities, and other studies so essential to national well-being. This point 

 has been well stated by the Moe Committee as follows: 



"As citizens, as good citizens, we therefore think that we must have in mind while 

 examining the question before us — the discovery and development of scientific talent — 

 the needs of the whole national welfare. We could not suggest to you a program which 

 would syphon into science and technology a disproportionately large share of the Nation's 

 highest abilities, without doing harm to the Nation, nor, indeed, without crippling 

 science. * * * Science cannot live by and unto itself alone." 



"The uses to which high ability in youth can be put are various and, to a large 

 extent, are determined by social pressures and rewards. When aided by selective devices 

 for picking out scientifically talented youth, it is clear that large sums of money for 

 scholarships and fellowships and monetary and other rewards in disproportionate amounts 

 might draw into science too large a percentage of the Nation's high ability, with a result 

 highly detrimental to the Nation and to science. Plans for the discovery and development 

 of scientific talent must be related to the other needs of society for high ability * * *. 

 There is never enough ability at high levels to satisfy all the needs of the Nation; we 

 would not seek to draw into science any more of it than science's proportionate share." 



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