SEA GRANT COLLEGES HI 



less of how far this vision might deviate from the original. The Spilhaus concept 

 is to create the engineering and technological machinery and to translate know- 

 ledge already gained about the sea into practical use. "Pure science" is seen 

 as an essential companion activity, but application - applied science - is the 

 fundamental base of the concept. 



It is to be hoped that wide, active and unified support can be given to Dr. 

 Spilhaus' idea and to Senator Pell's practical expression of it. Support of all 

 facts of oceanographic research and engineering will certainly follow, but we 

 must be willing to allow a certain amount of time for some of them. It took the 

 land-grant colleges 100 years to build their complex structure; it will not take 

 the sea-grant colleges anything like as long if we are energetic and intelligent 

 enough to build on their experience. 



One principle which seems necessary to establish is that the functions of 

 practical application of the sea-grant colleges should be based on research and 

 teaching at the graduate level. A common misconception is that oceanography 

 is a science in itself. This is no more true than that there is such a thing as 

 "land science." Oceanography is the application of the basic sciences of biology, 

 geology, physics and chemistry to problems of the sea. This being the case, 

 students of oceanography must be graduates who have mastered the principles 

 of at least some of these sciences and who are then confronted in a graduate 

 school with the kinds of problems created by the unique ocean environment and 

 given opportunity to practice the solution of some of these. Training in marine 

 science should be largely the teaching of attitudes and principles and the inten- 

 sive participation in research. It is essential, furthermore, that this research 

 be on real problems whose solution is necessary to advance our mastery over 

 the ocean environment, and not artificial problems invented only to provide a 

 student with a thesis. This requires that graduate schools in marine science be 

 given realistic support for research programs. Whether this support is in the 

 form of grants or contracts will depend on circumstances, but however it is given, 

 some control is necessary to ensure that only excellence is supported. Once 

 this kind of safeguard is assured, and review mechanisms established, then 

 some system of continuous and long-term backing is required in order for the 

 schools to attract and hold able faculty and to guarantee long-term progranns. 



Since the result of basic research is to be applied to practice in the nature 

 of programs envisioned for the sea-grant colleges, and applied research is 

 strongly emphasized, it seems appropriate that the sea- grant college program 

 should be administered by the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. It is to be hoped 

 that the National Science Foundation and other agencies will continue strong 

 support of basic ocean research. In fact, it will be necessary, as applied re- 

 search and engineering increase in scope under the sea-grant college impetus, 

 that greatly increased basic research will be essential, inside the sea-grant 

 colleges and in hundreds of other institutions on the coast and inland alike. Tech- 

 nology feeds on pure research, and the base of the latter must be far broader 

 than the technology it supports. Thus the support of NSF and of many other 

 agencies will be increasingly urgent. But for the mission of the sea-grant col- 

 leges, the experience and philosophical base of the Bureau of Commercial Fish- 

 eries seems to be a more logical administrative agency. 



The sea is an unique environment, and if we are to understand it we must 

 study its problems intensively with scientists trained in special techniques. It 

 may be true, as has been stated, that there are enough chemists and biologists 

 and other scientists in the United States to solve the problems of oceanography, 

 but this is highly doubtful. What is certainly not true is that these scientists are 

 engaged now or are likely soon to be engaged in the study of marine science. 

 The only means by which the United States can engage more effectively in ocean- 

 ographic studies is to direct the efforts of skilled and trained scientists on this 

 research. Many of these have still to be trained. The establishment of sea- 

 grant colleges would be an effective means of promoting this training, as well 

 as providing an enormous stimulus to the essential research. 



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