July 30, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



95 



yet, I believe, perfectly evident and tlie world 

 should be made to understand it. 



Another field in which the scientist must 

 take a more active part in certain social 

 problems of the people is the direct outcome 

 of a state of affairs which his own efforts 

 have produced. I refer to the results of re- 

 search in the industrial world and the effect 

 on the social condition of the worker. 



The researches of science in the industrial 

 world and the enormous development of spe- 

 cialized machinery and processes of manu- 

 facture have resulted in producing great in- 

 equalities in the social life of the people. 

 These researches have certainly resulted in 

 giving power to a few men and in belittling 

 the position and character of many men, 

 notably, the individual workers. The tech- 

 nical results of industrial research have made 

 possible the practical control of the world's 

 production of clothing, furniture, much of its 

 food, and means of transportation by a com- 

 paratively few men. Industrial research and 

 development have made some men very rich 

 and caused a great many men to remain un- 

 comfortably poor. I do not mean to say that 

 the laborer is not better off to-day in houses, 

 supplies of food, clothing, entertainment, and 

 the general comforts of life than he has ever 

 been in the history of the world, but I do say 

 that he is tending to become more of an auto- 

 maton, more of a machine, and less of an 

 individual and that he is still living largely 

 under sanitary and health conditions that are 

 wholly incompatible with the advancement of 

 the age and our present knowledge. These 

 effects on the worker and on society are some 

 of the paradoxes of industrial scientific re- 

 search and investigation. And it appears as 

 though further activities of this line of re- 

 search will tend still farther in the same 

 direction, yet the need for similar and more 

 intense investigation, as I shall try to point 

 out, is absolutely imperative and more press- 

 ing than ever before. 



Unquestionably the major problems of 

 social welfare must be left to the student of 

 humanities who is especially equipped by his 

 knowledge of the philosophies, religions, lan- 



guages, racial temperaments, and histories of 

 man, to deal with these questions. Yet I 

 believe the scientist may do much to alleviate 

 the effects of his industrial researches and, 

 it seems to me, he has an obligation in this 

 matter to meet and a duty to perform which 

 perhaps have not been fully realized. The 

 laboring men, in one of the preambles to the 

 resolution which I have read, have already 

 indicated the direction in which a part of 

 the effort of the scientist must go in this 

 matter. In speaking of the importance of 

 scientific research the laboring men said " and 

 the health and well-being not only of the 

 workers but of the whole population as well 

 are dependent upon advances in medicine and 

 sanitation." In this direction, then, may lie 

 some of the efforts of the scientist to amel- 

 iorate the unsatisfactory conditions brought 

 about by industrial research. Certainly any 

 improvement in the sanitary and health con- 

 ditions of the laboring man will react upon 

 his social welfare. Here the medical man, 

 the sanitary engineer, and the biologist may 

 find an enlarged opportunity and a chance 

 to aid in undoing, as it were, some of the 

 undesirable results that the scientist has un- 

 wittingly brought about in his zealous in- 

 vestigations. Indeed, in a wider way, any- 

 thing that the scientist can do to vary the 

 monotony of the laborer's job, to remove the 

 danger of accident to life and limb, to re- 

 lieve the abnormal strain of fatigue, or to 

 improve the man's well-being in any way 

 should be done and unquestionably the scien- 

 tist has a duty in this direction to perform. 



SOME PROBLEMS AWAITING SOLUTION BY 

 SCIENTISTS 



But aside from these questions which many 

 of us will deem relatively unimportant there 

 yet remain out of the many momentous prob- 

 lems facing the world to-day at least three 

 which are pressing for immediate solution 

 and a fourth one which needs new emphasis 

 and added stress. 



The problems to which I refer are: (1) the 

 serious need for an increase in the production 

 of the necessities of life; (2) the development 



