SEA GRANT COLLEGES 31 



THE CONCEPT OF A SEA-GRANT UNIVERSITY 



Athelstan Spilhaus, D.Sc, University of Cape Town, 1948. He has 

 been Dean of the Institute of Technology at the University of Minne- 

 sota since January 1949. From 1961 to 1964, he served as Chairman 

 of the Committee on Oceanography of the National Academy of Sci- 

 ences- -National Research Council. He is an internationally known 

 author, inventor, and scientist. 



President Horn, Senator Pell, Dean Knauss and friends, I don't suppose that 

 many people have the pleasure and honor that I feel today on this occasion when 

 at this wonderful place on the sea under the auspices of a fine university and with 

 so majiy of those who've contributed much to the science of the ocean- -that I 

 feel on being invited to explore and develop with your help my own sea-grant uni- 

 versity idea. 



My friend. Dr. Chapman, wrote me about a year ago to ask whether the sea- 

 grant university sprang full blown from my mind. I would say, rather, that it 

 resulted from the recognition of a need, a conception, a period of labor, delivery 

 at the right time, gradual acceptance of the young infant and I now hope that its 

 sponsors here may make it have a productive and useful life. 



When Harrison Brown formed the National Committee on Oceanography in 

 1957, some of us jokingly yet with much truth stated that our first objective would 

 be to get our public leaders to at least be able to pronounce the word "ocean- 

 ography." Harrison not only managed this but with his fellows on the committee 

 succeeded in stirring an amazing public and legislative awareness of the impor- 

 tance of knowing about the sea. 



Early on, we recognized the need to use engineering in support of the study 

 of the sea. We had a panel of the National Academy Committee which devoted it- 

 self to special engineering devices, vehicles, instruments, and the like. When I 

 became chairman in 1961, I was already beginning to see that engineering in 

 support of oceanographic research, while important, was not enough. And I re- 

 call on being asked, in a joint meeting with the governmental Interagency Com- 

 mittee on Oceanography, what the task of the Academy group should be over the 

 next five years, that I said that marine science and oceanography were going 

 strong but that the real gap was between our excellent science and the pitiful 

 state of the U.S. performance in the exploitation of the sea. Our pitiful fishery 

 effort- -our poor merchant marine- -the fact that when we needed a bathyscaphe 

 we purchased it in Europe- -all symptoms of a lack of purpose and a failure to 

 apply our science through ocean engineering and biological engineering or aqua- 

 culture. 



In 1963, in a keynote address to a national meeting on fisheries, I voiced 

 my unhappiness and recalled that just about a hundred years before, a positive 

 purposeful action had been taken by Congress to stimulate "the mechanic arts 

 and agriculture" --the act that established land-grant colleges. There can be no 

 question that the Morrill Act establishing a land-grant fund for the support of 

 such colleges, passed by Congress in 1859 but vetoed by President Buchanan 

 and subsequently signed by Lincoln in 1862 contributed mightily, through the 

 mechanic arts to lead to our national preeminence in the mass production of 

 things that people need- -including agricultural products. 



Why not then provide a focus, a commitment and continuing support in the 

 context of sea-grant universities today to bring the United States to a position 

 of leadership in ocean engineering and aquaculture. 



After this talk, I received many letters expressing interest in the concept. 

 One was from Professor Saila. of Rhode Island. As a result of his expressed 



