June 10, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



525 



earnestly sought, for we can not afford to sac- 

 rifice the breadth of a man to create a too 

 narrowly efficient machine. 



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When President Maclaurin said "A tech- 

 nical school was not doing its whole duty un- 

 less it kept in the closest touch with industry," 

 he spoke the minds of many thoughtful men. 



The two outstanding industrial problems 

 to-day are: (1) The more intensive applica- 

 tion of scientific knowledge and research to 

 the processes and products of industry; (2) 

 the cultivation of more understanding and 

 wholesome relations between labor and man- 

 agement. Both of these problems may rightly 

 claim attention in any modern scheme of tech- 

 nical education. On each of these questions 

 I wish to speak very briefly. 



Of scientific research there are two more or 

 less distinct types. Both embody the genuine 

 spirit of inquiry; both use the same tools and 

 instruments under similar laboratory condi- 

 tions. The essential difference between them 

 is not in method but in aim and intention. In 

 applied science research, the controlling pur- 

 pose is to reach a definite and predetermined 

 result which can be immediately applied to the 

 material profit, convenience, or comfort of 

 man. In pure science research, the only pur- 

 pose is the discovery of new knowledge with- 

 out thought of any material benefit to any- 

 body. The fundamental discoveries from 

 which applied science gets its raw material for 

 useful applications come out of the pure sci- 

 ence laboratory. That you can not apply 

 knowledge you haven't got needs no proving. 



Take any familiar application of science 

 you choose, and one, two, or at most three 

 backward steps bring you to the pure science 

 laboratory where the fact or principle em- 

 ployed was first discovered. Sir J. J. Thom- 

 son has said in substance, " If you want im- 

 provements in industry, you may turn with 

 confidence to applied science. If you want to 

 revolutionize an industry or create a new one, 

 you will do well to search the innermost re- 

 cesses of the pure science laboratory." The 

 difference between the man of theory and the 



practical man is one of suggestiveness and 

 scope. 



Applied science research in the modern sense 

 is of comparatively recent origin. What we 

 npw call pure science is centuries older. At 

 its beginning, therefore, applied science had 

 the accumulated results of centuries of pure 

 science to draw upon, but, due to the bril- 

 liantly amazing progress of applied science, 

 that surplus in many fields is nearing ex- 

 haustion. 



With depleted reserves applied science must 

 soon face one of two alternatives. Either it 

 must descend from its past and present rapid 

 succession of great achievements to a more 

 modest hand-to-mouth existence, reworking old 

 ones and consuming next year whatever pure 

 science, at its present working rate, may dis- 

 cover this; or else the hosts of pure science 

 research must be vastly strengthened, and the 

 volume of their yearly output many times in- 

 creased. 



That some of our more progressive indus- 

 tries already realize the situation is amply 

 proved by the very rapidly increasing amount 

 of pure science research issuing from the re- 

 search laboratories of our optical, chemical, 

 electrical, and other highly developed in- 

 dustries. 



Under these circumstances technical schools 

 owe to modern industry the more intensive cul- 

 tivation of research with increasing emphasis 

 on pure science. Every possible means should 

 be used to train up more men in pure science, 

 men competent to enter the fruitful and im- 

 portant field of research, to supply the rapidly 

 increasing demand for workers in the fast 

 multiplying laboratories of progressive in- 

 dustry. 



In every fruitful cooperation between tech- 

 nical education and industry, our schools 

 should be prepared to give more than they re- 

 ceive and to lead, not follow. 



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Under the present organization of our larg- 

 est industries the conscious responsibilities of 

 real ownership have become somewhat vague. 

 Industrial ownership to-day is widely diffused 



