THE CONDUCTION OF RESEARCH 431 



are of great value in mathematical work, computations and the writing 

 of reports, but when it is attempted to use them on purely experimental 

 work, their efficiency is greatly reduced. It is far easier to teach one of 

 the practical class to work efficiently on theoretical problems, than is 

 to teach one of the theoretical class to work efficiently with their hands. 

 It is quite necessary to have experimenters who can be trusted with 

 delicate apparatus without having constantly to fear for its safety. 



Some men are naturally hustlers and possess initiative enough to 

 make themselves of value with very little supervision, and some go so 

 far in this direction as to require constant restraint to keep them from 

 getting beyond their depth, but this quality is on the whole a good one, 

 and should be directed rather than discouraged. On the other hand, 

 there are men who will take no responsibility and need constant push- 

 ing to keep them working efficiently, but wherever possible it is better 

 to lead than to force. If a person is really interested in his work, and 

 by interested, I mean the ability to derive pleasure from thinking of the 

 problems evolved outside as well as inside of working hours, he re- 

 quires no pushing and very little directing, so that the whole problem 

 of successful administration lies in getting the staff interested in the 

 problem on which they are working. 



As far as possible it is best to give to each man a definite job, and 

 make him responsible for it; giving him the credit when it is success- 

 fully completed. This stimulates interest and originality, and is much 

 better than a constant supervision down to the smallest details, a method 

 that is likely to produce ill feeling and retard the development of the 

 experimenter. Of course, an inexperienced man can not be efficiently 

 put on to a new subject without considerable supervision, but this super- 

 vision should be instructive rather than destructive, and as soon as he 

 shows himself capable of handling the work he should be left to carry 

 on alone. When, as is often the case, a number of men are working on 

 one problem each one should be encouraged to acquaint themselves 

 with the work of the others in order to obtain a more general view 

 point. 



It often happens in research work that certain portions of it, such 

 as computations, are exceedingly monotonous and it would certainly 

 be an injustice to give all of this portion to one man, so that it is always 

 best to distribute this kind of work among the investigators, unless, of 

 course, some of the men are especially hired for this, and have no ex- 

 perience fitting them for other work. There are some types of research 

 that can be most efficiently carried out by a single person working 

 exclusively on that job, but in the majority of cases it is better to con- 

 centrate a number of men on the problem, not only to finish it up and 

 get it out of the way quickly, but because a man is apt to get into a rut 

 when working alone. There are some experiments that require a high 



