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The system was a result of the frank recognition of the fact 
that many, perhaps most, of the chief inquiries that needed to be 
taken up were beyond the capacity of any single individual to 
bring to a successful conclusion within a reasonable time, and that, 
for their solution, the separate aspects of each problem required 
very highly competent specialistic work, such as can only be 
acquired by deep or intensive study rather than by a broad 
survey. I believe this is the correct way to attack such problems, 
and that it is only in very rare cases that an investigator can be 
found whose knowledge of the several distinct aspects which the 
problem may present is deep enough to enable him to explore all 
or many of them adequately. 
It is worthy of note that the National Research Council is 
working along somewhat similar lines. It is an organization 
established in 1916 by the National Academy of Sciences to advise 
and assist in applying the scientific and technical resources of the 
country to the objects of the War, and made permanent by an 
Executive Order of President Wilson’s Government in 1918. It 
is not, however, in the usual sense a governmental institution. 
Its chief objects are to organize research, to stimulate research 
and its application, to formulate comprehensive projects of 
research and to promote co-operation “in order to secure concen- 
tration of effort, minimise duplication, and stimulate progress ; 
but in all co-operative undertakings to give encouragement to 
individual initiative.” It is controlled by its own members, who 
include representatives of the chief scientific and technical 
societies, government representatives, and members at large 
amongst whom, in 1920-21, were Mr. Elihu Root and Mr. Herbert 
Hoover, together with several leaders in industry, engineering, and 
the Press. It is supported by other than Government aid) but 
maintains close contact with Government departments in several 
of its divisions. In its attempts to bring together scattered work 
and workers, and to assist in co-ordinating scientific attack on 
large problems, it has largely adopted the “ project plan,” by the 
establishment of special committees of experts, which plan 
modes of attack and undertake to find men and means for carrying 
out the plan. There are about eighty such committees, and 
many .of them have obtained appropriations from industrial and 
agricultural sources for specific research, ¢.g., one from the 
Southern Pine Association of $10,000 for maintaining certain 
forestry researches, and one which is now being negotiated with 
a group of tobacco growers and manufacturers for the study of 
tobacco diseases. Through the Council, there is also being 
organized an Institute for Research in Tropical America which 
will have a very definite bearing on some aspects of the work of 
the Bureau of Mycology. I had the advantage of discussing 
these and other activities of the Council with Dr. L. R. Jones, 
Chairman, and Dr. McClung, past Chairman, of the Division of 
Biology and Agriculture, and Dr. Yerkes, Chairman of the 
