BASIC RESEARCH AND THE PRIVATE UNIVERSITY 



funds grow and multiply, both in private and government 

 circles. Of course, one can say that if there are only enough 

 categories, with plenty of funds in each, then full freedom of 

 choice is again available. 



But is it? 



I shall forever pity the physicist who is anxious to learn 

 about the puzzling behavior of'liquid helium II, wasting his 

 time trying to decide whether this is solid state physics or 

 nuclear physics, or maybe oceanography, and whether he 

 should submit proposals to ONR or OOR or NSF. And how 

 can he write a detailed proposal when he is just exploring — 

 when he is just curious? 



Fortunately, in precisely this situation and others like it, 

 the Sloan Foundation has indicated that it was interested in sup- 

 porting inquiring minds, and would be glad to have such minds 

 worry about any questions on earth they pleased. 



Here is the great challenge to universities and to all who 

 support them: Are we attracting the cream of the nation's in- 

 quiring minds to our campuses, and are we there giving them 

 full encouragement and support in pursuing whatever lines of 

 endeavour interest them, preferably with no questions asked? 

 That is a difficult challenge, possibly an impossible one. But 

 unless we have inquiring minds that are really free to inquire, 

 even in fields outside the cognizance of any Washington or 

 New York committee, then we can never reap the full benefits 

 and satisfactions of free and unfettered scientific research. 



As I bring this paper to a close, I realize that I have spent 

 too much time on what seems like dirty administrative problems. 

 I would have enjoyed it much more if I had been describing 

 the magnificent achievements in scientific research the past ten 

 years have witnessed. From the center of the earth to outer 

 space; from the nucleus of the atom to the nucleus of the cell; 

 from the theory of solids to the evolution of the universe; from 



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