most of the smaller colleges. It does, 

 however, represent the aims of a con- 

 siderable number of them, and the 

 adoption of similar policies by others 

 certainly deserves encouragement. 



Nonresearch Institutions 



The returns from the 63 colleges 

 that do not have organized research 

 programs were mostly in the form of 

 letters; few attempted to fill out the 

 questionnaires. The replies are of 

 some interest, however, and they 

 suggest that the small liberal arts 

 colleges fall into two definite groups. 

 Some of these schools view them- 

 selves as purely teaching institutions 

 and have no interest in developing 

 research programs. Furthermore, a 

 number of them are strongly opposed 

 to Federal subsidy. The following 

 comment is typical: 



In general it is my opinion that the 

 Federal Government should not undertake 

 to establish any far-reaching program for 

 the support of research in either public or 

 private colleges or universities. I do not 

 believe such relations can be established 

 and permanently maintained without in- 

 volving political control, which has proved 

 so disastrous in Germany and other totali- 

 tarian states. 



On the other hand, many of the 

 smaller colleges feel that they could 

 make important contributions to re 

 search, if funds were available to 

 them for that purpose. Of the 63 

 nonresearch institutions reporting, 25 

 made statements, of which the fol- 

 lowing are tvpical: • 



With adequate funds, we could rea- 

 sonably expect a much greater devotion to 

 research than obtains at present, for the 

 members of our staff have both the inter- 

 est and the training requisite for fruitful 



work. 



» * * 



Personally, I believe that if funds were 

 available it would contribute toward the 

 advancement of science to have one or two 

 members of the staff of a liberal arts col- 

 lege engaged in minor projects of research, 

 such as could be carried on satisfactorily 

 with the equipment that such a college 

 has. 



In developing a program of post- 

 war Federal aid to scientific research, 

 attention should be given to the po- 

 tentialities of these schools. To the ex- 

 tent that our sample is representative, 

 at least 40 percent of the small lib- 

 eral arts colleges in this country are 

 desirous of conducting research, and 

 are prevented from doing so by lack 

 of funds. 



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