ROBERT S. MORISON 



educational to theoretical or basic psychologists in many of our 

 university departments. 



It is of course giving away no secret to say that the last 

 thirty years of foundation support have not brought the same 

 agreed-upon progress in the social as in the natural sciences. 

 Indeed, some observers feel that they detect signs of discourage- 

 ment on the part of several foundations which formerly con- 

 ducted broad programs in the behavioral sciences. For example, 

 Bernard Berelson, speaking at the fortieth anniversary of the 

 New School for Social Research, expressed this situation this 

 way: 



The plain fact is that so far as the behavioral sciences are con- 

 cerned, one foundation after the other has withdrawn from support 

 of the field itself, that is, from basic development of the disciplines 

 in their own terms, and has put what support remains into applica- 

 tions to programmatic concerns of the foundation itself. There has 

 been a constant picture of entry and withdrawal — more so, I think 

 than normal in foundation operations. 



Could it be that dissatisfaction with the results is in part 

 due to the error of emphasizing applied at the expense of basic 

 research? Since our interest is in the natural rather than the 

 social sciences, it would be scarcely appropriate to do more than 

 raise the question. Our only excuse for mentioning the subject 

 at all is that the social sciences may serve as the control in 

 testing the hypothesis that foundation support for the natural 

 sciences succeeded, at least in part, because a strong tradition 

 of basic research had already been established long before the 

 foundations entered the field. 



Early History of Basic Research 



Let us return, then, to a little closer examination of how 

 this tradition became established. Such a historical exercise, 

 brief and superficial though it must be, may give us some clues 



230 



