140 SCIENTIST 



it is not always easy to differentiate between scientists and 

 engineers, and there are other difficulties of classification 

 that tend to confuse the picture. It is probable that the 

 universities have a higher proportion of pure scientists and 

 that university people are freer to choose their own prob- 

 lems and working conditions than are the employees of 

 the other two types of institutions. 



University and college scientists are of course expected 

 to spend a certain proportion of their time in teaching. In 

 the smaller and less well supported colleges, teaching may 

 occupy most of the faculty members' time, with research 

 squeezed into evenings, weekends, and vacations. The most 

 productive scientists at the university level may be excused 

 from all undergraduate teaching, but almost all give some 

 time to graduate students both in seminar courses and in 

 the informal apprentice-master relationship characteristic 

 of academic research laboratories. Many scientists regard 

 the opportunity for teaching as the most valued part of 

 an academic position. Others make rather a point of com- 

 plaining about it as an intolerable burden which only in- 

 terferes with the progress of research. These differences in 

 opinion largely reflect differences in the temperament and 

 value systems of individual scientists, but there is an ele- 

 ment of fashion in the situation as well. Many excellent 

 scientists are known almost as much for the quality of 

 their students as for their own individual contributions to 

 knowledge. Most teachers with normal feelings for other 

 human beings experience a deep sense of satisfaction in 

 watching their students develop and go forth to establish 

 their own laboratories and produce work of distinction. 

 Even more immediately, many teachers find that their own 

 research profits from the participation of graduate students. 

 At the very least, the graduate student brings with him 

 a bouncing energy and enthusiasm for tasks which may 



