MERLE A. TUVE 



In general the corollary is simply one of reasonable austerity. 

 Many of us who have soberly discussed the environment re- 

 quired to foster creative personal activity recognize that a mod- 

 erate degree of austerity is essential to the hard work and disci- 

 plined self-criticism which are always required for creative 

 intellectual accomplishment. 



Austerity as an essential requirement for creative research 

 may sound harsh and out of date to most of the big operators and 

 many of the young technical men in research today. For these 

 discussions, however, I wish you would recall to yourselves 

 some of the examples of finished basic research which you most 

 honestly respect and then answer the austerity question silently 

 for yourself. This meeting is supposed to attempt some candidly 

 honest evaluations. It is not a budget hearing but more nearly a 

 study of principles. The undeniable fact is that creative work is 

 almost always done with limited resources and under difficult 

 conditions. I suggest that this austerity is to a considerable extent 

 a necessary discipline for the critical faculty and a basis for the 

 Spartan choices which must be made by the investigator as to 

 emphasis and deletion in the course of any basic research. 



Nearly all the half dozen privately supported research 

 institutes which are known to me give direct allegiance to the 

 idea of supporting basic research by supporting individual 

 investigators who do much of the work themselves. It is well 

 known that the Rockefeller and Carnegie research institutes and 

 the Institute for Advanced Study take this position. 



The Guggenheim Foundation, in its way, is an operating 

 agency exhibiting perhaps the purest form of support of basic 

 research by the support of individual investigators. Some of the 

 newer agencies, it is true, have used their private resources in 

 greater or lesser measure as a backstop and a basis for utilizing 

 government grants and other temporary public funds. The Bar- 

 tol Foundation has enlarged its activities considerably on this 



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