MERLE A. TUVE 



new style, the private research institutes set up some decades 

 ago do not count for much in terms of size, as measured either 

 by numbers of workers or by yearly expenditures. The chief 

 examples are the Rockefeller, Carnegie, Guggenheim and 

 Bamberger establishments, and probably their greatest contribu- 

 tions to scientific research today are as stable and continuing 

 prototypes of well-tested procedures for the selection and en- 

 couragement of creative individuals and the maintenance of a 

 productive situation and environment for the scientific in- 

 vestigator. 



We all know what we mean by truly basic research. We 

 mean a devoted and almost passionate activity in search of 

 new knowledge, not just factual information, but knowledge 

 of the kind which can enlarge our understanding, knowledge 

 which is not isolated facts but related to guiding hypotheses or 

 principles, knowledge which relates to natural law. This kind 

 of truly basic research is a creative activity, an expression of 

 wonder and the love of knowledge, and it is correspondingly a 

 highly personal activity. It is concerned with ideas, hopefully 

 and critically directed toward understanding, and it is often 

 the spontaneous efTort of one man, or at most of several com- 

 petent individuals working together. It is not directed or or- 

 ganized, and only in the later stages, often close to technology 

 or to medical use, does it lead to the employment of large groups 

 of specialists operated as a team. By contrast, then, it is the 

 support of ideas by the support of the individual research man 

 who has ideas. 



I believe the private institutions which operate today to 

 carry forward this well-recognized kind of basic research have 

 as their most important function simply the preservation of a 

 prototype of this kind. Their activities comprise well-tested ar- 

 rangements for the increase of knowledge and understanding, 

 and they are based on the subsidy of fundamental research by 



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