Governmental Research 127 



competitive point of view — absolute silence is usually the most rigid of 

 pass words. What might become many able contributions to science 

 never see the light of day, on account of, what appears to me, a misguided 

 policy of secrecy which often extends to unessentials, from the manu- 

 facturer's point of view, in an industrial research laboratory. The follow- 

 ing is an illustration among many: the director of a long established 

 industrial research laboratory showed me the other day the reports on 

 a series of long since completed but as yet unpublished investigations of 

 considerable general interest, two of which had just been duplicated and 

 published by the Bureau of Standards where we had no knowledge of 

 the previous work. In addition to the economic waste of unnecessary 

 duplication, what is the effect on the morale of the men who did the 

 work first and had it suppressed except for use in the plant? 



The benefits of association and working in a com.munity of consider- 

 able size where there may be rapid interchange and immediate avail- 

 ability of information and experimental facilities are often overlooked 

 by those who advocate the advantages of research by lone individuals 

 in the conditions of practical isolation often prevailing in even our 

 larger universities. The laboratories of the government, and to a less 

 extent the larger industrial laboratories, should be and unquestionably 

 are able to secure more rapid progress and greater effectiveness in the 

 execution of research than can the isolated worker. 



Then as to the facilities or tools of research, the public laboratories, 

 speaking generally, are better equipped than most private laboratories 

 although some of the industries maintain laboratories before which even 

 the government laboratories pale. The industrial research laboratories 

 to be effective must also possess as adjuncts development laboratories 

 for manufacturing on an experimental scale. In pure science there are 

 many problems, often the most fundamental such as the exact deter- 

 mination of physical constants and standards, which require very 

 elaborate and costly layouts and often take a series of years for their 

 completion. Such can best be left to the government laboratories. 



It would thus appear that viewed from these various standpoints of 

 freedom, publication, facilities, atmosphere, so dear to the research 

 worker he is at least as well off in the government laboratory as elsewhere. 



As an example of the operation of a government research laboratory 

 in the United States, let us take the Division of Metallurgy of the Bureau 

 of Standards. What does it do and how? 



First as to organization; the Bureau is divided for administrative 

 convenience into twelve divisions, the office, the plant, the shops, and 

 nine scientific or technical divisions, each constituting one of the branches 

 of scientific work carried out at the Bureau, electricity, optics, heat, 



