Foreword ix 



cators and guidance counselors confirmed the idea, and The 

 Macmillan Company welcomed it as an opportunity to be of 

 real service to young people in secondary school and college. 



The plan for this series calls for a Hmited number of 

 books on the most important calHngs. Each is written by 

 a person who has actually practiced and is intimately ac- 

 quainted with the vocation in question, and who has 

 achieved notable distinction in it. Each is designed to pre- 

 sent in a thoroughly factual manner the problems of en- 

 trance into and practice of the different professions. But 

 the volumes do more than that, we hope, for they are 

 intended to give a vivid picture of what it is hke to be a 

 lawyer or a professor or an engineer or an architect. More- 

 over, they endeavor to convey a sense of the personal re- 

 quirements, the rewards, and the sacrifices involved in the 

 various vocations. There is no attempt at ^'salesmanship," 

 no effort to romanticize the professions or to heighten their 

 color. What these books are designed to do is to help young 

 people in the most practicable way possible in one of the 

 two most vital decisions of life (the other being marriage). 



In this volume Dr. Robert S. Morison faces a most diffi- 

 cult task, for the profession of scientist has, in the last half- 

 century, assumed a sudden and dramatic importance. Scien- 

 tists sit at the right hand of presidents, generals, and busi- 

 nessmen in the making of the crucial decisions, and some- 

 times it is only the scientist who can understand the point 

 at issue. Science has changed the world more in the last 

 sixty years than it was changed by all forces in the previous 

 six hundred. Scientists talk a language of their own and live 

 in a realm where others cannot penetrate. It is no wonder 

 that science has taken on an importance, a glamour, and 

 an attraction so great that a young man or woman may 

 decide to be a scientist without any adequate realization of 

 the problems and the obligations involved. 



