SUPPORT FROM GOVERNMENT 



institutes, field stations, or research centers, they have demon- 

 strated their indispensability to acceleration of progress in 

 science. Among their other advantages, they provide means not 

 otherwise easily found for many scientists to exercise their 

 creativity, and for university scientists to have occasional use 

 of equipment not available in their own institutions. To the 

 latter they also offer the intellectual stimulation of conferences 

 and seminars attended by large, diverse groups. Such centers 

 should be located so as to facilitate the interchange of staff 

 members and faculty members of universities, and to give easy 

 access to graduate students for thesis research. 



Within ten years the investment of government funds in 

 such centers devoted to basic research will probably be of the 

 order of a billion dollars, and government-financed facilities 



o 



within universities will represent an investment of perhaps 

 $400 million, with operating costs in both cases at an annual 

 figure of about 25 per cent of capital costs. 



The major responsibility for large efforts in basic research 

 with respect both to capital investment and operating costs has 

 undergone a shift from the universities to the government. The 

 reason is clear. Government has money, which, in part, it takes 

 from its citizens bv way of taxes. Universities have no such 

 effective method for getting it. Finding sufficient operating 

 funds to cover their growing needs becomes more difficult from 

 year to year. Public attitude makes it mandatory also to give 

 instructional budgets first claim on income, with research inter- 

 ests of the faculty somewhere near the end of the line. Under 

 existing conditions, higher education can therefore hardly avoid 

 seeking aid from government to produce and maintain superior 

 creative scholarship and to train new scholars. 



Another circumstance helps to explain the shift, namely, 

 the change in the pattern of basic research in the university 

 from prewar to postwar. Many more dollars, even at 1938 



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