SCIENCE, ART, AND EDUCATION — GIBSON 193 



was an understanding of the phenomenon — that is to say, the fitting 

 of it, together with previously laiown facts, into a satisfying pattern. 

 The source of the research problem is not mentioned and is immate- 

 rial; it may come from a man's communing with nature, from his 

 realization of an inconsistency or a hiatus in the subject he is teach- 

 ing, from difficulties encountered in an industrial process, or from 

 the knowledge of an urgent military problem. As long as good judg- 

 ment, fortified by training and experience, is exercised to ascertain 

 the significance of the problem,* its source need not prejudice its 

 value for mental discipline or instruction. The objective, however, 

 is important; the investigator must set out to understand the 

 phenomenon he is to investigate, and this objective will determine 

 how the work is to be conducted. It will constrain him to isolate 

 the variables and to determine the facts quantitatively, to advance 

 hypotheses and plan critical experiments or theoretical studies, to 

 plan auxiliary investigations or explore side lines, and, above all, to 

 use his imagination fortified by reading and study of related 

 phenomena. 



In undertaking a problem from any source whatever, the professor 

 in a scientific department of a university has the right and obliga- 

 tion to inquire into its significance and, having satisfied himself in 

 the light of his knowledge and intuition that it is not trivial, to set 

 as an objective the understanding of something of putative significance 

 before assigning the formulation and prosecution of the problem's 

 subdivisions to graduate students. If, in the professor's judgment, 

 the problem cannot be judged significant in this sense, he has the 

 obligation of refusing to accept it. Under such initial conditions, 

 it is highly probable that the work accepted will become a piece of 

 basic research that is intrinsically valuable for its results and for 

 the training it affords a student no matter what its subsequent 

 application may be. 



Wlien the role of the university in local or national affairs requires 

 it to sponsor larger problems in which development and objectives 

 other than understanding are important, it is advisable to set up an 

 organization sufficiently separated from regular university activities 

 to avoid the distractions that arise from full-time efforts with pro- 

 grammed time scales, the influx of a number and variety of new 



* The reader may ask for a definition of a significant problem. An answer Is extremely 

 hard to give, since the significance of an investigation often depends on the peculiar quality 

 of the imagination and creative ability that the investigator can bring to Its prosecution. 

 Conventional and contemporary opinions do not give sufficient basis for determining the 

 slgnlfieance of a problem ; It must be judged in the light of Its challenge, Its possibility 

 of opening up new vistas, and the ability of the current state of science to provide a 

 background for understanding it. A problem is really a springboard for a leap Into 

 the unknown. 



