C. A. ELVEHJEM 



He closed with a plea that the University of Wisconsin 

 become a leader in basic research: 



... no institution has yet fully entered upon it. . . . Which 

 shall be the first to become predominantly an institution of re- 

 search? Which shall be the first to fulfill the high destiny of an 

 ideal state university? 



I am sure that were he here today, some fifty years later, 

 he would be astonished at the magnitude of our answer to his 

 challenge, both at Wisconsin and on a national scale, and at 

 the magnitude of the problems we have as a result. 



During the past two decades, for example, our national 

 research budget has increased some fifteenfold, if we take into 

 account the changes in the value of the dollar. Today the 

 national economy supports about a quarter million active scien- 

 tists although only 10 per cent conduct basic research. The rate 

 of growth of research in this country is probably greater than 

 growth of any other single activity. At least four entirely new 

 industries have been created by recent scientific advances — 

 chemical, electronic, nuclear energy, and pharmaceutical — and 

 application of these fields to older industries is almost universal. 



From the evidence around us, it could not be more appar- 

 ent that there is a strong social and economic demand for 

 research, at least of the variety that is commonly regarded as 

 being capable of fairly rapid transformation into tangible evi- 

 dence of progress. The major part of support in this country 

 goes into applied research and development rather than into 

 basic science. Support is heavily slanted toward the physical 

 sciences, and at the present time a large part of our total 

 research activities are for military purposes. 



The "industry of discovery," as Sumner Slichter terms it, 

 is now recognized as one of our major producers of investment 

 opportunity. Slichter points out, in fact, that the vital capacity 

 of a modern economy to create investment possibilities depends 



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