168 



National Resources Committee 



of Science, sixth edition. Of the men starred in the 

 first edition in 1904, 388 are still living. Of these, 

 72.G percent held the Ph.D. or Sc.D.; of the 250 starred 

 for the first time in the sixth edition, 96.5 percent hold 

 the Ph.D or Sc.D. 



Inquiry of one of our great industrial corporations, 

 which conducts extensive research and also employs a 

 large number of engineering graduates, reveals the fact 

 that practical!}' all their research men hold the doctor- 

 ate. Each year it is increasingly true that the uni- 

 versities, the Government, industry, and business, when 

 employing men for research, look for those who have 

 university' training and whose competence has been cer- 

 tified by the award of the doctorate. 



The demand for such men aaid women is shown 

 strikingly in the increasing numbers of degrees con- 

 ferred. 



I Graduate Study in UnicersUies and Colleges in the Uniled States, Office of Education, 

 1934, p. 19. 



Source of Temporary Personnel 



The faculties of the universities afford the Govern- 

 ment an important source from which competent re- 

 search men may be secured for temporary or perma- 

 nent service. There is an increasing flow of research 

 men between the universities and the Goverimient 

 which is accelerated in times of emergency. Not only 

 are the Government services greatly strengthened by 

 having the university staifs to draw upon, but at the 

 same time the universities are benefited by the famil- 

 iarity with the work of the Government brought to 

 them by returning staif members. 



Advanced Training Centers 



The Government is interested in the universities as 

 centers of study and research where Government agen- 

 cies can send staff members for work on special prob- 

 lems and for advanced training. Problems are con- 

 stantly arising which require new knowledge and new 



techniques adequately to deal with them. In such cases 

 the Departments of War and of the Navy, and to some 

 extent the Department of Agriculture, are sending staff 

 members to the universities that are strongest in the 

 field of interest, for special training. This procedure 

 has proved very stimulating to the services and sliould 

 find wider use. 



Centers of "Pure" Research 



The universities are the chief centers of "pure" re- 

 search. The distinction between research in pure and 

 applied science is very difficult to draw. They con- 

 stantly overlap. Perhaps a more intelligible classifi- 

 cation is made by Julian Huxley in Science and Social 

 Needs, p. 253. He says : 



* * * you would find it impossible to draw any sharp line 

 between pure and applied science. 



* * * I am now more than ever convinced that any such 

 line is merely arbitrary, and that often you cannot draw it at 

 all. But, of course, research can be at very different degrees 

 of remove from practice ; and it is u.seful to be able to classify 

 the different kinds of research. 



For that purpose, I have come lo the conclusion that the 

 simple alternative of pure versus applied is quite inadequate. 

 You want at least four categories. At one end is background 

 research, with no practical objective consciously in view — like 

 atomic physics, or experimental embryology. Then basic re- 

 search, which must be quite fundamental, but has some distant 

 practical objective — as is the ease with soil science, or meteor- 

 ology, or animal breeding. Those two categories make up what 

 is usually called "pure research." 



Then you have ad hoc research, with an immediate ob- 

 jective, like research on discharge tubes for lighting purposes, 

 or on mosquitoes for getting rid of malaria. And finally, 

 what industry calls development, or pilot research, which is 

 the work needed to translate laboratory findings into full- 

 scale commercial practice. 



Of course, these categories all overlap and interlock, but they 

 are convenient pigeonholes. 



While pure research is actively carried on in some 

 Government agencies (notably in the Bureau of Stand- 

 ards, Geological Survey, Department of Agriculture, 

 the Public Health Service, and the Smithsonian In- 

 stitution) and in some industrial research laboratories 

 (notably by Bell Telephone and General Electric) the 

 Nation must look chiefly to the universities and the 

 great research foundations to broaden our horizons 

 of knowledge. It is not only a matter of national 

 pride but also a matter of national secui'ity and pros- 

 perity that our nation should advance basic knowledge 

 fully in proportion to our national resources. Ger- 

 many, Austria, England, France, Italy, and Russia 

 have in the past made great contributions to knowledge 

 through university research. Until recent j-ears our 

 part has not been remarkable. It would seem that our 

 responsibilities in this field are now large and our fa- 

 cilities for meeting them great. It cannot be too 

 strongly emphasized that the applied science and the 



