72 Research and National Purpose 



versally cultivated. All countries, old and new, have had to 

 expand and improve their facilities for higher education and, 

 in particular, for scientific education. The size of the full- 

 time university population of the United Kingdom has tripled 

 in the past twenty years, and postgraduate education has multi- 

 plied even more — yet the call for more scientific manpower 

 seems as demanding now as it was when it all began. In all 

 industrialized countries, too, financial support for science and 

 engineering, instead of falling back to pre-war levels, is now 

 far higher than it has ever been. The 20 billion or so dollars 

 available for research and development in the United States 

 compares with some 3 billion in 1946 and the £750m. in the 

 United Kingdom with £70m. — a vast difference even after 

 allowing for the effects of inflation, and for increase in our 

 numbers. 



Increasing numbers of scientists and engineers, and increas- 

 ing support for research and development, constitute what one 

 might describe as an intrinsic aspect of the new wave of tech- 

 nological exploitation which is now engulfing the world. Its 

 external aspect is made up of those divergent forces which 

 lead to the ever-mounting demand for more science and tech- 

 nology — more science to assure better health or better meas- 

 ures of birth-control; more agricultural science to improve 

 agricultural output in impoverished parts of the world; more 

 research and development for weapons-systems; more resources 

 for space science and satellite communications; a better scien- 

 tific outlook to improve transportation and other public serv- 

 ices — and in the private sphere the host of innovations which 

 are always welcomed by the ordinary consumer. In a period of 

 violent and rapid transformation, everyone looks to "science" 

 for a more secure and a happier future. 



Is an atmosphere of this kind, an atmosphere which the 

 scientist himself has helped create, one Avhich provides the 

 best conditions in which science can flourish? 



