x INTRODUCTION 



the right direction. In similar ways costs can be reduced and 

 efficiency increased in all directions through the intelligent use 

 of scientific research. 



The recognition of this fact throughout the British Empire 

 has resulted in a world-wide movement of great significance. 

 Advisory Councils for Scientific and Industrial Research, hav- 

 ing large government appropriations at their disposal, have 

 been established by Australia, Canada, South Africa, and New 

 Zealand, and provision is being made for large research labora- 

 tories to render possible investigations in all branches of sci- 

 ence, and in engineering, medicine, and agriculture. It is uni- 

 versally recognized that the underlying problems of science, 

 from the solution of which all great industrial advances spring, 

 must be attacked no less vigorously than the more obvious 

 practical questions. Therefore this movement, the most sig- 

 nificant and far-reaching in the history of science, recognizes 

 no distinction between the problems of science and those of the 

 arts, but seeks to provide broadly and liberally for the ad- 

 vancement of knowledge and its effective application for the 

 public welfare. 



The fundamental importance of science has long been rec- 

 ognized by the ablest leaders of industry in the United States. 

 The telephone was born in a research laboratory, and as soon 

 as the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was 

 formed, this laboratory was made into a department of its 

 activities. Under the far-seeing guidance of Theodore N. 

 Vail it has now become the Department of Development and 

 Research under Vice-President John J. Carty, employing thir- 

 teen hundred scientists and engineers who devote their time 

 exclusively to research and development in the telephone art. 

 Two of the outstanding results of this laboratory are trans- 

 continental telephony by wire and wireless telephony between 

 airplane and earth and between earth stations as widely 

 separated as Arlington and Hawaii. The General Electric 

 Company, which also grew out of research, maintains a great 

 research laboratory, costing nearly a million dollars per year, 



