232 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLV. No. 1158 



hundred on scientific research, no report con- 

 cerning actions or accomplishment can be 

 submitted at this time. A few suggestions 

 may be offered, however, bearing upon the 

 activities of an engineering research com- 

 mittee. 



Researches in engineering may be divided 

 into two classes; namely (1) those undertaken 

 for the assistance of some particular indus- 

 try or manufacture, and (2) those undertaken 

 for the advancement of technical knowledge 

 or applied science. Industrial researches are 

 numerous, and have a great history; but very 

 little literature. They also have a great 

 range of character and.intensiveness, say from 

 overcoming, in a few minutes, certain little 

 mechanical difficulties in the behavior of a 

 machine, to scientific investigations pursued 

 systematically for years, perhaps with a staS 

 of trained technicians, say for the purpose of 

 developing some important industrial process. 

 The amount of industrial research going on in 

 the country is, in the aggregate, very great, 

 and is likely to increase as time goes on and 

 industries further specialize. Many of these 

 problems of industrial research fall within the 

 professional province of consulting engineer- 

 ing, and indeed few new large engineering 

 undertakings can be met without involving 

 some new industrial research. The character- 

 istic quality of industrial research is that it 

 does not find direct or immediate publication. 

 Probably much of it is eventually published 

 either in the form of engineering data or in 

 patent specifications; but the competition be- 

 tween branches of industry almost inevitably 

 demands that the scientific or technical under- 

 lying progress should be protected. The in- 

 dustrial value of successful researches may be 

 so great that their nondisclosure is a first 

 consideration in reward of the necessary labor 

 and expense. The hope and justification of 

 industrial research is that it may, and often 

 does, pay for itself. In many instances it has 

 paid most handsomely. 



On the other hand, the second type of re- 

 search, i. e., engineering researches or re- 

 searches for engineering development may 

 also cover a great range of quality and inten- 



siveness from say brief tests of the perform- 

 ance of some machine, to elaborate investiga- 

 tions in mathematics, physics, chemistry or 

 economics. Such engineering researches may 

 either be intensely practical on the one hand; 

 or they may be outside of the immediate fields 

 of scientific application, and differ in no evi- 

 dent way from so-called pure scientific en- 

 quiry, paving and prospecting the ways for 

 future use in engineering. The characteristic 

 quality of these engineering researches is 

 that in-so-far as they are successful they tend 

 to firid direct and immediate publication, and 

 so to become available for the use of all con- 

 cerned. 



It is evident that engineering technological 

 researches may be of great value to a country 

 or to industries; but that they inherently lack 

 self-support. Any laboratory engaged in re- 

 searches, the successful results of which are 

 to be published, can only expect to be sup- 

 ported either by national institutions, by gifts, 

 or by benevolent endowment. For this reason, 

 although industrial researches are numerous 

 and widespread, engineering researches are 

 mainly restricted to universities, technical 

 colleges and government laboratories. 



It would seem to be desirable that the labo- 

 ratories in which engineering researches are 

 carried on should all be brought into some 

 cooperative association, not only for mutual 

 benefit, but also for the benefit of engineering, 

 and of the country at large, through engineer- 

 ing. It is desirable that each and every tech- 

 nological laboratory should develop a specialty 

 or a group of specialties. The tendency in 

 the past has been for essentially the same 

 course of engineering studies to be pursued in 

 the technical colleges, and in natural con- 

 formity therewith, the laboratory investiga- 

 tions have been more or less of the same type. 

 In order, therefore, to develop greater advan- 

 tages from cooperative effort, such specialties 

 as happen to develop in the researches of tech- 

 nological laboratories should be fostered and 

 encouraged, so long as freedom of individual 

 action is not restricted. 



The encouragement of specializing in engi- 

 neering researches, for the greater good of 



