420 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1946 
Under the scholarship program the nation will become deeply 
involved in educational matters, and it cannot escape a direct interest 
in the quality of training facilities. During the war period, colleges 
and universities gave close study to their curricula with the idea of 
making improvements where changes were indicated. One change 
suggested was a broader base in training in the first college years. The 
report of the president of Pomona College to the alumni illustrates 
how one college has met the changing trend: “The new curriculum is 
dominated by the philosophy that in the first 2 years the student 
should acquire certain fundamental skills, appreciations, and bodies of 
knowledge.” This is a definite change in the right direction and agrees 
closely with British statements on the subject. Broad training in 
fundamentals will provide the student with the confidence and the 
working tools so necessary to systematic solution of problems. 
Another urgent field for expanding our educational facilities is the 
training of specialists in foreign areas. The need for this has been 
expressed very well in the constitution of the United Nations Educa- 
tional, Scientific, and Cultural Organization: “Ignorance of each 
other’s ways and lives has been a common cause, throughout the history 
of mankind, of that suspicion and mistrust between the peoples of the 
world through which their differences have all too often broken into 
war.” The war showed us that area experts in the United States were 
almost nonexistent. Through the cooperation of the universities and 
colleges great strides were made to meet the need for such knowledge. 
Training in this field must be continued since the necessity for such 
experts will not be less with the coming of the peace. We must learn 
more of other peoples and their problems, for whether we like it or not 
we are now neighbor to all peoples of the world. 
Interdisciplinary training should also be stressed. A research man 
should have knowledge of several disciplines beyond the specific 
knowledge of the division or subdivision of his own field of science. 
With this added equipment he has a clearer understanding of his 
problems and possesses abilities to use these related disciplines for their 
solution. He is not only a better research man on his own, but with 
this wider appreciation of the utility of other disciplines he is more 
valuable as a part of a research team. War research demonstrated 
that scientists often received their most useful assistance from co- 
workers, who brought to the solution of problems viewpoints and 
methods from widely different types of work. 
The continuing success of the plan to stimulate research will depend 
to a large extent on the understanding and intelligence used in the 
administration of the program. Its first concern is to outline policy, 
to determine what funds are to be procured, and to learn how to obtain 
the maximum of results from the funds at hand. The latter considera- 
