186 THE PATH OF SCIENCE 



tific imagination. This is likely to be far more disastrous 

 to the free spirit of inquiry in the university than the receipt 

 of support from such an organization as the National Re- 

 search Foundation. 



In Great Britain, as in the United States, the public and 

 the government have been impressed by the great importance 

 of the work done by the scientific men for the prosecution of 

 the war and are considering actively the possibilities of in- 

 creasing scientific work by the supply of public funds, w^hose 

 source lies eventually in taxes. There appear to be no pro- 

 posals in Great Britain for the establishment of research in- 

 stitutes. It is proposed instead to aid the universities and to 

 construct one or more technological institutes of the type of 

 the Mellon Institute, w^hile every effort will be made to en- 

 courage research in the laboratories owned by industry and, 

 especially, under the direction of the Research Associations, 

 which are a feature of the organization of research in Great 

 Britain. 



In the widespread discussion of scientific research pub- 

 lished during recent years, there is little material relating to 

 the actual organization of research laboratories and institutes. 

 It has generally been assumed, in fact, that their organization 

 would be similar to that of a factory or an army. Thus, in 

 1920, the author of this book wrote: * 



There are tw^o forms of organization. In the depart- 

 mental system the organization is that familiar to most 

 businesses. The work of the laboratory is classified into 

 several departments; physics, chemistry, engineering, and 

 so on, according to the number necessary to cover the field, 

 and each of these departments has a man of suitable scien- 

 tific attainments in charge. In a large department each of 

 these men will in turn have assistants responsible for sec- 

 tions of the department, all the heads of departments finally 

 being responsible to the director of the laboratory. 



Under the alternative or cell system the laboratory con- 

 sists of a number of investigators of approximately equal 



* C. E. Kenneth Mees, The Organization of Industrial Scientific Re- 

 search, p. 81, New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1920. 



