218 THE PATH OF SCIENCE 



how to get its scientific work done by somebody else but how 

 to find that active leader. 



When the first industrial research laboratories were or- 

 ganized, in the early years of this century, the managers of 

 industrial undertakings realized that they required a group 

 of investigators whose results could be applied to that par- 

 ticular industry. They realized also that they themselves did 

 not understand how scientific work ^vas carried out or how it 

 could be applied. They therefore chose an individual, fre- 

 quently a teacher of science at a university, who was em- 

 ployed to enter the industrial organization as director of re- 

 search. Characteristically, the first task assigned to the re- 

 search director was usually to build a laboratory, an opera- 

 tion which he undertook with the enthusiasm and zest born 

 of ignorance, since very few scientific men know anything 

 about buildings. Having built the laboratory, the research 

 director proceeded to organize a staff and to start doing scien- 

 tific research. The success of these early pioneers varied con- 

 siderably, but almost all were successful to some extent. 



The efficiency and accomplishment of an industrial labora- 

 tory depend to a very large extent upon the director. In fact, 

 it may be said of research laboratories, as of other human 

 institutions, that they are the reflex of a man. The large in- 

 dustrial research laboratories are at the present time passing 

 through a critical stage, in which the founding directors are 

 passing and are being replaced by their successors. Their 

 experience shows to how great an extent the success of a re- 

 search laboratory is dependent upon the individuality of its 

 director. There are laboratories which have had a distinctly 

 successful career and which, with the passing of the directors 

 who organized and developed them, have fallen into obscurity. 

 Moreover, it is extremely difficult to find suitable men to 

 direct industrial laboratories. Such a man must be both a 

 scientist and an executive, and he must have an interest in 

 and a capacity for the commercial operations of the business 

 in which he is eng^as^ed. The reason that the director of an 

 industrial research laboratory must be interested in the com- 



