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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIV. No. 1404. 



able, by directors, managers and otber 

 executives ; 



11. To cultivate some of the journalist's sense 

 of the story in research work; 



12. And throughout their courses, the tech- 

 nical schools should teach the funda- 

 mentals of the sciences so thoroughly 

 that the graduate can think for himself 

 and will not be at his wits' ends when 

 a problem in his future work does not 

 fall within the limits of the formulae 

 specifically taught or the books avail- 

 able. 



Research has no end. It must be kept up 

 perpetually. The technical schools must be 

 soundly convinced of this fact and through 

 their graduates, must impart it to the in- 

 dustries, lest unprogressiveness rob the com- 

 munity of the benefit of new knowledge. 



Technical schools should convey, also, to 

 their research students some conception of 

 the exigencies and financial necessities of 

 business and instill into them appreciation 

 of the importance and difiiculty of the finan- 

 cial problems and patience for the apparent 

 slowness with which industry and business 

 sometimes put into effect the results of re- 

 search. The scientific man seeks the confi- 

 dence and appreciation of the business man 

 and he should reciprocate. 



The greatest service of all which the tech- 

 nical schools and the universities can do for 

 industry and for the community is to infuse 

 into all workers from unskilled labor to 

 highest executives that appreciation for truth 

 and that conviction of the futility of deceit 

 which are forced upon the scientist and the 

 technologist, by the very nature of their work. 

 IN'either science, nor technology, nor industry, 

 nor business, can permanently flourish on 

 deception or on a narrow and selfish concep- 

 tion of profit. 



Alfred D. Flinn 



THE PRESENT STATUS OF UNIVERSITY 

 MEN IN RUSSIA 



For a long time after coming into power 

 the soviet government of Russia maintained 

 a serioiisly discouraging attitude toward the 



university faculties and the Russian profes- 

 sional and scientific men in general — the 

 " intelligentsia." But this attitude is now 

 modified and still modifying. Along with the 

 other changes in attitude and action charac- 

 teristic of the recent months of soviet govern- 

 ment, changes very marked in relation to 

 business and general economic matters, changes 

 have also been made in the way of ameliora- 

 ting the situation of the university men. 



The salaries, paid in paper roubles of con- 

 stantly depreciating value — they are now 

 worth about 75,000 to the dollar! — were very 

 low, becoming, indeed, as the value of the 

 rouble lowered, simply derisory. But more 

 important, in Russia, than any salary paid 

 in money — unless it get into millions of 

 roubles a month — is the " paiok " (I spell it 

 as pronounced), or food ration, that is the 

 essential part of the reward for services to 

 the government. As is familiarly known, 

 the soviet government established several 

 grades of ration according to various cate- 

 gories into which the people could be roughly 

 divided. The working man got the largest 

 or best ration; the university man nearly the 

 lowest. 



In my recent (September-October) visit to 

 Russia as special representative of the Ameri- 

 can Relief Administration, I learned some- 

 thing at first hand of the changing situation 

 of the university and professional men of the 

 country. I was not in Petrograd, but saw a 

 number of faculty men in the universities 

 of Moscow, Kazan, and Samara. Sarpara 

 is one of the several new universities (?) set 

 up by the soviet government. It has four 

 faculties, medicine, law, agriculture and 

 " workers." The " workers' faculty " offers 

 elementary classes for the sons and daughters 

 of working men and peasants to fit them for 

 matriculation in the professional departments 

 of the university. The president of Samara 

 University, himself a specialist, as he said, in 

 the Italian Renaissance, intimated that his 

 institution was meeting many 'difficulties, the 

 principal one being that of finance — a diffi- 

 culty not unknown outside of soviet Russia. 

 However, while we talked, students were 



