156 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



known example, founded in 19 13 by the brothers Richard and Andrew 

 Mellon. Since its origin 1,150 research fellowships have been 

 established in 275 technological subjects and 650 processes or pro- 

 ducts have been invented or developed. In ten instances new industries 

 have resulted. 



In Canada, where I was very recently, I was greatly struck by the action 

 the Dominion Government is taking in the promotion of research. The 

 National Research Council, with headquarters at Ottawa, where it has a 

 magnificent new building, is not only carrying out a very wide programme 

 of practical research, but is aiming at training a big body of research- 

 minded engineers and scientists. 



One could continue the story of research abroad, but I must stop. I 

 have omitted much that those acquainted with the subject would have 

 expected to be included. But I have done enough to show what a great 

 deal has been done to establish research in our generation. 



There is no finality. Every day extends the bounds of knowledge. 

 We have only just begun to understand how to conduct organised research. 

 ' The historian of the future,' writes Lord Rutherford, in the last Report 

 of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, ' will probably 

 point to the last five years as a period marking an important development 

 in the industrial outlook of this country. These years have witnessed 

 the fruition of the policy adopted by several large industrial undertakings 

 of setting well-balanced teams of research workers, including chemists, 

 physicists, engineers and where necessary biologists, to solve a particular 

 problem or to develop a new product. This method of attack has led to 

 the steady improvement of the efficiency of electric lamps, to the position 

 this country has won in high definition television, to the development on 

 a commercial scale of the huge plant for the conversion of coal into oil by 

 hydrogenation, to the growth of the plastics industry and to many other 

 important advances. . . . Co-operation can never win its fullest success 

 until the contacts between men of ideas in industry and men of ideas in 

 science are as closely knit as possible.' 



Although I have dealt so briefly with the subject I hope I have made 

 evident that research divides itself into several categories. It is, I think, 

 very necessary to bear this in mind. 



There is what one may call true fundamental research — splitting the 

 atom, or extreme low temperature investigation. No one can doubt that 

 the results will ultimately have their effect on human life. No one, 

 however, can now say who will be benefited, or how. Such work must 

 always be expensive, it must depend on endowments and generous gifts. 

 It is not with this type of research that Engineering is directly concerned. 



I am concerned with applied research, and it has its divisions. We 

 have in the first instance work of more or less universal application — -such 

 as agricultural research, the breeding of new wheats, or methods of storage 

 of fresh fruits ; or investigations in regard to river pollution. The results 

 once attained become immediately available to all the world. Such work 

 too depends on endowments and Government support. This type of 



