ROBERT S. MORISON 



their productive lives to outstanding scientists of proved capac- 

 ity and brilliance." Sometimes referred to as career investigator- 

 ships, these positions are essentially research professorships 

 guaranteed "without limit of time" by the foundation. The 

 commitment is directly to the individual, but the arrangements 

 are usually carefully worked out with the institution in which 

 the individual is working, and the latter undertakes to provide 

 laboratory space and certain other amenities. Although such 

 schemes can be criticized for diffusing a responsibility which 

 should rest fully in the university, they have many merits. At 

 the very least they restore to a few professors "the time and 

 freedom to develop potentially fruitful ideas, [and] to follow 

 new leads as they emerge." Supported as they are by organiza- 

 tions which command wide support from the public, they serve 

 to draw public attention to what after all is the sine qua non of 

 basic research — men with the capacity and opportunity to do 

 it. It would obviously be unfortunate if the day should come 

 when a substantial proportion of the senior men in our uni- 

 versities owed their primary loyalty to some extraneous body. 

 Before that day comes we may be allowed to hope that the 

 autonomy of our universities may be restored through an in- 

 crease of unearmarked funds. Meanwhile the career investiga- 

 torships may help tide basic research over some rough spots and 

 call attention to the need for university professors who are 

 professors and not some new kind of dean. 



Government and Private Pliihmthropy 



We now may pause to notice that private philanthropic 

 support for basic research has come full circle. It began in the 

 United States 300 years ago with the efforts of wealthy private 

 individuals who set up and fostered our great private universi- 

 ties. During the first 200 years the research output was small 

 indeed, but at least the environment was there and when 



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