772 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIII. No. 1118 



sales, patent, advertising, manufacturing, 

 and so on, and the heads of these depart- 

 ments, possibly not understanding the sub- 

 ject and being afraid of passing material 

 which might prove detrimental, frequently 

 err very much in the direction of withhold- 

 ing entirely harmless information from 

 lack of sufficient knowledge. It is much 

 more satisfactory, if possible, for one re- 

 sponsible executive to pass on all matter 

 submitted for publication, and this will 

 inevitably result in a much more liberal 

 policy than where the responsibility is dele- 

 gated to a number of representatives of dif- 

 ferent departments of the company. 



In addition to these scientific papers spe- 

 cial technical reports for the information 

 of the staff of the company itself should be 

 circulated by the laboratory, and in the 

 case of the Kodak laboratory an abstract 

 bulletin is published monthly giving infor- 

 mation as to the more important papers 

 appearing in the technical journals associ- 

 ated with the photographic industry and 

 also of all photographic patents. It is 

 often advisable, also, to prepare special 

 bulletins dealing with the application of 

 scientific investigations, which have al- 

 ready been published, to the special needs 

 and interests of the company. 



Since the evidence points, therefore, to 

 the establishment of really large research 

 laboratories as the most economical and 

 efficient way of increasing the application 

 of science in industrial work the question 

 arises as to how these large laboratories are 

 to be supported. In the United States the 

 great manufacturing corporations, who can 

 afford the necessary capital and expendi- 

 ture for maintenance, and are willing to 

 wait for the results, have already under- 

 taken the establishment of a number of 

 large research laboratories. Such concerns 

 as United States Steel, General Electric 

 Company, United States Rubber, du Pont 



de Nemours, and many others are support- 

 ing large and adequately equipped research 

 laboratories whose staffs are engaged in 

 work on the fundamental theory of the in- 

 dustries in which they are interested, and 

 undoubtedly more and more such labora- 

 tories will be established in the course of 

 the struggle for increased industry which 

 the United States is preparing to wage. 

 There are a large number, however, of 

 smaller firms who can not afford the great 

 expenditures involved but who are anxious 

 to benefit by the application of science to 

 their work, and it seems that the only solu- 

 tion to the problem of providing for such 

 firms is in the direction either of coopera- 

 tive laboratories serving the whole indus- 

 try, as has already been done in the case of 

 the National Canners' Association and the 

 National Paint Association, and no doubt 

 in some others, or in the erection of na- 

 tional laboratories devoted to special sub- 

 jects connected with industry and corre- 

 sponding to such institutions dealing with 

 special branches of pure science as the geo- 

 physical laboratory of the Carnegie Institu- 

 tion. Schemes for industrial scholarships 

 tenable at universities do not meet the case 

 at all, since work done under such arrange- 

 ments must necessarily be limited in re- 

 spect to time and directed towards a defi- 

 nite practical end rather than towards the 

 general acquisition of knowledge connected 

 with the underlying principles on which an 

 industry rests. In the same way consult- 

 ing laboratories, like industrial scholarships, 

 are interested in the development of results 

 for immediate practical application, and 

 both these methods of work are substitutes 

 for the practical industrial laboratories be- 

 longing to my second general division 

 rather than for the large laboratories here 

 discussed. 



In England the coordination of industry 

 has not proceeded as in the United States 



