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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. L. No. 1291 



wealth so that it will yield the largest pos- 

 sible returns to his country and his race. 

 The United States has not in the past been 

 the leading scientific nation, it can not even 

 claim to have been on a par with two or 

 three of the foremost scientific nations, at 

 least if population is considered in as- 

 signing places. The number of outstand- 

 ing scientists whom we have thus far de- 

 veloped in this country has not been at all 

 proportionate to our population. This I 

 take it is not because we do not produce 

 -as able men as any nation, but because our 

 ablest men have not gone in large numbers 

 into scientific activities. 'VvTiy? Simply 

 because the public appreciation of science 

 has not been strong enough; because the 

 role which science plays in the march of 

 progress has not in the past been suffi- 

 ciently generally realized among us; and 

 because we have not developed centers of 

 scientific research in which the atmosphere 

 of research can be breathed by the young 

 American who is about to choose his life 

 work. If anything has been demonstrated 

 by the history of the last century it is that 

 that nation which is in the forefront in 

 scientific developments is the nation which 

 is going to lead in commerce and in indus- 

 try and in every other phase of human ac- 

 tivity. For who with eyes to see and ears 

 to hear and a brain to consider can doubt 

 for a moment that the keynote of modern 

 civilization lies in the control of nature's 

 forces by man, and who can doubt that 

 that country which ferrets out nature's sec- 

 rets most successfully will be the country 

 which controls those forces most effec- 

 tively? "What then can be done to make 

 this country utilize its tremendous natural 

 advantages to the full and play the role 

 which it ought to play in the progress of 

 science and the world? I might answer in 

 terms of the programs of the nations which 

 have been stimulated by the war to the 



development of new programs of scientific 

 research. Great Britain, Canada, Aus- 

 tralia, Japan, have all recently made large 

 governmental appropriations in aid of re- 

 search in the physical sciences. Some of 

 them are founding with these funds great 

 research institutes, as Germany did before 

 the war. Efforts of this kind are not to be 

 decried. They will undoubtedly serve a 

 useful purpose. But they are not in them- 

 selves adequate to our American situation. 

 The mode of approach is not that which 

 conforms best to the genius of our institu- 

 tions or which the experience of the past 

 indicates is likely to yield the largest re- 

 turns. Furthermore, we are already in 

 many places in this country over equipped 

 with facilities and under equipped with 

 men. Every purely research laboratory, 

 whether under the control of the govern- 

 ment or of an industry, is in the first in- 

 stance a man-consuming rather than a man- 

 producing institution. Our greatest need 

 is not for more facilities, but for the selec- 

 tion and development of men of outstand- 

 ing ability in science. Find a way to select 

 and develop men and results will take care 

 of themselves. This need for the develop- 

 ment of men can be met only by the Amer- 

 ican universities. But it can not be met 

 even by them unless we check in some way 

 the tendency, met because of the growth in 

 numbers in all our universities, for instruc- 

 tion to encroach upon and crush out re- 

 search. The stimulus to research which 

 comes from its association with advanced 

 instruction is unquestionable and the 

 broadening influence of a university is per- 

 haps well-nigh essential to the best growth 

 of the scientific mind. Hour for hour re- 

 search in universities is probably much 

 more effective than research in detached 

 research laboratories, but the difficulty is 

 that the number of hours available in most 

 of our universities is still pitifully small. 



