following statement by Dr. Robert Gordon Sproul, President of the Univer- 

 sity of California — a statement of such cogency and sound common sense 

 that we are glad to adopt it as our own: 



One of the major responsibilities of the university of the future, is to see that the 

 money it spends * '^ * goes toward the education of the most worthy candidates in each 

 generation. The intelligence of the citizenry of a nation is a natural resource which 

 transcends in importance all other natural resources * * * One may condone the waste 

 of many natural resources on the ground that science will some day discover a substitute 

 that is just as good. But intelligence is quite unique, and though science search dili- 

 gently it will never find a substitute for it, nor will the war lords. 



Universities * * * are conservators of the above-average intelligence of the nation 

 * * * Every conservation program must proceed along two lines: it must safeguard the 

 known reserves of a given resource, and it must also, through exploration and every 

 other means, make a determined effort to ascertain accurately the further supplies of 

 that resource. 



We do not know how much intelligence the citizenry of this Nation is capable of 

 producing. We pay little attention to intelligence unless it forces itself to the surface 

 and trickles into a college or university by force of gravity. If it happens to come to the 

 surface in the backwoods area or a rural district, where the process of trickling down to 

 college is made difficult by distance and by lack of funds, the chances are that the trickle 

 will sink into the earth again, "unwept, unhonored, and unsung" — unless, of course, it 

 happens to be one of the fastest running, highest-jumping, or quickest trickles on the 

 track, court, or gridiron. 



Across the continent from Dr. Sproul, Dr. James B. Conant, President of 

 Harvard University and a member of this Committee, coming at the ques- 

 tion from another direction, has made a statement to like effect which his 

 colleagues of the committee would adopt as their own: 



* * * 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 who are 

 engaged in the work in question. If I have learned anything from my experience in 

 Washington as chairman of the National Defense Research Committee, it is that ten 

 second-rate men are no substitute for one first-class man. It is no use pouring second- 

 class men on a problem, even if you are under the greatest pressure for a solution; 

 second-class men often do more harm than good. So in the last analysis, the future of 

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



And finally we would quote the Board of Regents of the State of New 



York who recently declared: 



The need is imperative for enrolling the ablest young people of the State in institu- 

 tions of higher education. This proposal is defensible not in terms of the desire of the 

 colleges to obtain students. Fundamentally, the case rests on the need of any State to 

 bring its best minds up to a high level of understanding and accomplishments. 



This statement also we adopt as basic to our thinking. 



The data which prove the truth of the quoted statements are well known 

 and some parts of them are set forth in a Appendix A attached to this report. 

 Here we simply give samples and it is to be noted that these samples apply 

 not only to scientific ability in American youth but to ability generally: 



An Indiana study published in 1922 showed: 



If we compare the records made on our tests by the group of seniors representing 

 the richest and the poorest homes, we find that there are proportionally more children 

 possessing the highest grades of mental ability among the poorest class than among the 

 wealthiest class, and more individuals with high average grades of intelligence among 

 the wealthier than among the poorer group. The wealthiest group ranks high on 

 central tendency. The poorest salaried group ranks low on central tendency and also 



144 



