214 THE PATH OF SCIENCE 



the industry. The examples of successful research have, of 

 course, tended in this direction and, in many cases, may have 

 induced manufacturers to form their own research groups. 

 But their effect in this direction has been offset to some ex- 

 tent by the tendency on the part of the financial heads of the 

 industries to assume that membership in a research associa- 

 tion is sufficient to take care of their scientific needs. 



In the United States there are a few organizations com- 

 parable to the British Research Associations. Most firms, 

 however, have their own centralized research laboratories or 

 utilize the facilities of large endowed laboratories such as the 

 Mellon Institute, Battelle Memorial Institute, or the Armour 

 Research Foundation, w^hich may conveniently be called 

 Technological Research Institutes. 



The Mellon Institute, at the University of Pittsburgh, the 

 prototype of these laboratories, was founded in 1911 to carry 

 out the scheme of industrial fellowships originally introduced 

 by Robert Kennedy Duncan of the University of Kansas. 

 Duncan adopted this scheme partly to train students in indus- 

 trial research and partly because he felt that such research 

 work as was attempted in small factories was often undertaken 

 under very bad conditions.* He felt too that the manufac- 

 turer often has neither the knowledge nor the experience 

 requisite to establish successful research, that he is not will- 

 ing to allow sufficient space or equipment for it, and that a 

 man w^orking alone in a small industry is hampered both by 

 lack of the stimulation he might get from association with 

 other scientific workers and by want of proper skilled direc- 

 tion of the work. 



In such a laboratory as the Mellon Institute, the manu- 

 facturer can arrange to have the work done under conditions 

 that insure that he alone obtains the result of the work; and 

 yet the research men will have the advantages of the Insti- 

 tute, contact with other scientific workers, the availability of 



* R. K. Duncan, "Industrial Fellowships," Journal of the Society of 

 Chemical Industry, 28, 684 (1909). 



