31 



with contemporary practice and respect from practitioners for his special 

 purposes and requirements. The expectation is also reinforced that, while 

 it may be still in the future, long-range research careers are now possible. 

 The visitor's presence as a representative of the international science com- 

 munity underscores the fact that technology constitutes a legitimate and manage- 

 able subject for theoretical treatment; and the important regenerative func- 

 tion begins to make itself felt as blockages with the domestic intellectual 

 community begin to break down. 



The visitor enters into the arrangement on firmer grounds than simply 

 the desire to be helpful and to transfer his competencies by means of processes 

 that have only unilateral advantage. He has expanded his data base in a di- 

 rection that equips him to maintain his professional centrality in a shifting 

 technological circumstance. He has equipped himself to preside more effec- 

 tively over the activities of his juniors in generating the revised quality 

 of new knowledge that his future circumstance will require. He gains practi- 

 cal experience in the management of the more inclusive research tasks co which 

 the future is directing us. Finally, the M. l.T. experience has demonstrated 

 that this kind of par interchange - broadly undertaken - results in restruc- 

 turing at the home base at least equivalent to that which is going an abroad. 

 The "international" activity, instead of being an adjunct to largely domestically- 

 oriented organizational structure, becomes an organic expression of that struc- 

 ture's intent to keep abreast of a changing external circumstance, and the 

 extension of a faculty member's research coverage to a more inclusive base - 

 once a luxury - now becomes hard-headed insurance in his battle to avoid obso- 

 lescence and to maintain professional centrality. 



By virtue of their demonstrated efficiency in technological under- 

 taking, the advanced nations have commanded the attention and acclaim of their 



