BASIC RESEARCH AND THE LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGE 



inevitable exchange of ideas, and election to associate member- 

 ship is a motivating factor in stimulating the youthful scientist- 

 to-be. It is all the more surprising therefore to discover that only 

 eight liberal arts colleges have chapters of Sigma Xi and three 

 of these are women's colleges. 



I cannot too strongly reemphasize the fact that the aca- 

 demic climate which is hospitable to science must be no less 

 friendly to intellectual values in other fields. No greater dis- 

 service could be done to science than to raise the level of science 

 education without raising the level of all education. It is a chief 

 task of the liberal arts college to emphasize the fundamental 

 unity of knowledge — to hold before its students the idea that 

 the pursuit of wisdom is still basically a single enterprise. 



In spite of the superior performance of the few, the total 

 record of our liberal arts colleges in research and the training 

 of scientists is not impressive. It is neither as good as it should 

 or could be. But I think it is improving as more funds are being 

 made available for research and more attention is drawn to its 

 fundamental role in discovering scientific potentialities at the 

 undergraduate level. 



Consideration of the need for more and better scientists 

 and the dimensions of our task, I would hazard the guess that 

 we shall examine few areas of potential basic research in this 

 symposium where there is greater opportunity for healthy 

 growth than in our liberal arts colleges. 



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