Industrial Research 



299 



will exist when conditions improve. There certainly 

 is no large reservoir of men already experienced in or 

 being directly trained for metallurgical research, and 

 the situation would be truly serious wore it not for the 

 still fairly adequate supply of raw material in the chem- 

 ists, physicists, and engineers that are being turned out 

 from the colleges. 



Evaluation of what is needed in a metallurgical re- 

 search man and of the various means that may be taken 

 to produce such men, may therefore be considered as 

 one of the primary topics in this discussion. 



The Personality of a Research Man 



To set the stage so that ever recurring dramas of 

 metallurgical research can continue to be played in our 

 national theater, we must have players who know how 

 to develop the plot while speaking their lines, for there 

 are no set lines and no prompt book in research — every 

 scene calls for new dialogue. Not every man is a good 

 actor, nor is every man, even with long technical train- 

 ing, a research man. The research man must have 

 insatiable curiosity, pertinacity, and optimism, for he 

 is hunting for something about the very existence of 

 which he is uncertain and he must not be dismayed by 

 early failures to find it. He must know the basic 

 principles of the sciences concerned in his particular 

 branch and must superimpose on this knowledge the 

 detailed information called for in his particular project. 

 Up to a certain point the basic training of the bio- 

 chemist and the metallurgist might well be very similar, 

 but the specific training of each would not greatly serve 

 the other. 



The Education of a Metallurgical 

 Research Worker 



In earlier days there was no formal scholastic training 

 in metalliu-gy; the metallurgists were educated in the 

 courses in engineering, chemistry, or physics and picked 

 up their own metallurgy. It is still not very important 

 that a research worker in metallurgy have a formal 

 metallurgical training in his 4-year college course. He 

 must be trained in modes of exact thinking, know a 

 variable factor when he sees it, and know that he must 

 hunt for it when he does not see it. There are able 

 research metallurgists today who were self-educated 

 beyond high school, though they are few. There are 

 many who have had no metallm-gical training at all in 

 college but who were so well-grounded in the basic 

 sciences that they were able to pick-up the needed 

 metallurgical information very promptly by their own 

 efforts. Indeed, many employers of research workers 

 are not at all concerned about an applicant's ignorance 

 of metallurgy if he has a somid foundation and the will 

 to learn what he needs to but does not yet know. For- 

 mal courses in metallurgy and metallurgical engineering 



are not yet given in very many imiversities, and the 

 courses that arc usually given must prepare production 

 men, sales engineers, and perhaps future teachers as 

 well as research men. Hence, the curricula can hardly 

 be expected to be aimed to turn out finished research 

 metallurgists. This is no cause for worry. It will be 

 cause for worry if too specialized metallurgical courses 

 begin to crowd the fundamental com-ses out of the 

 curriculum. 



His Development 



After a youngster has secured a sound backgroimd 

 in the exact sciences, and cither in college or by his 

 own study has procured metallurgical information, he 

 still has to develop that ability to tackle the unknown 

 which differentiates the research from the production 

 man or the sales engineer. This research ability to 

 stand on his own feet may be gained by the right type 

 of man either in graduate work or in a subordinate posi- 

 tion in a research laboratory. A man cannot linow, 

 until he has tried it, whether he is the research type or 

 not. The research laboratories of large metallurgical 

 organizations often bring promising youngsters in from 

 the production and control groups temporarily and send 

 out with such groups for a time men who have served 

 some apprenticeship in the research laboratory. This 

 is done not only with the aim of giving each group an 

 appreciation of the other's problems, but also with the 

 idea that some of each ^vill make the change permanent 

 rather than temporary, thus fitting the square pegs into 

 the square holes. 



The process of natural selection and advancement 

 from subordinate to more responsible research positions 

 may not develop leaders rapidly enough. The necessity 

 for doing routine research work may not give time for 

 roimding out the man into one capable of constructive 

 thought. The metallurgical industries are therefore 

 sho\ving interest ki schemes by which a promising 

 youngster, usually one with a year or more of graduate 

 work in academic research, is given a fellowship in a 

 research organization to work imder close supervision 

 of experienced research men on a problem chosen 

 primarily to train the man in research methods and 

 modes of thinking rather than for its immediate value 

 to the sponsor. Alternatively, men in research or- 

 ganizations may be sent at company expense, or may go 

 volimtarily at their own expense, to a university for 

 graduate work. Either plan is generally far more 

 fruitful than for the man to work directly on for a 

 Ph. D. after procuring his first degree and without 

 any interim spent on research or practice outside the 

 academic cloisters. 



There is, in normal times, no oversupply of men of 

 proved capabilities for constructive metallurgical re- 

 search. Long-range planning for the maintenance of a 



