ROBERT S. MORISON 



help those who kept quietly at work along more traditional 

 lines. As the pressure for quick results began to mount, de- 

 fenders of older and purer methods emerged to plead the cause 

 of basic research and protect it from semi-annual reports and 

 other pressure. This symposium is perhaps but a particularly 

 explicit and sophisticated battle in the long campaign to main- 

 tain the integrity of basic research in the natural sciences. 



To summarize: When private philanthropy turned its 

 attention to the natural sciences, it was protected from over- 

 indulging its traditional interest in immediate practical objec- 

 tives by the preexistence of two factors, a substantial amount 

 of accumulated basic knowledge, which could be rather rapidly 

 turned into the machinery of welfare, and a considerable num- 

 ber of basic researchers determined not to be turned away from 

 their first love and more than ready to instruct foundation 

 officers and trustees in the meaning of basic research and aca- 

 demic freedom. 



To highlight the importance of the long tradition of im- 

 practicality in the natural sciences, we might look for a moment 

 at what happened when philanthropy turned its attention to the 

 social sciences and the allied medical discipline of psychiatry. 

 The practical motivation for entering these fields is clear from 

 the record. For example, a general memorandum dealing with 

 the proposed program of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller 

 Memorial in 1922 included the following paragraphs: 



The need for knowledge of social forces is certainly very great. 

 Not only is it required by social welfare organizations, but by 

 business and industry, and by the agencies of government as well. 

 It is becoming more and more clearly recognized that unless means 

 are found of meeting the complex social problems that are so 

 rapidly developing, our increasing control of physical forces may 



pi 



rove increasingly destructive of human values. 



The controllino interest which the Memorial would have in 

 carrying forward such a program would be in no sense an academic 



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