Anniversary Address by Prof. C. S. Sherrington. 9 



overlap, both as regards general subject matter of research and of their 

 personnel. Finally, there is excellent contact between both these categories 

 and the third, the State-subventioned institutions. A special feature of the 

 policy and administration of these State organisations secures this, a feature 

 which makes the whole of this subject the more cognate to the purview of 

 our own Society. To exemplify I may turn, for instance, to the Development 

 Commission. Its programme of Fishery Eesearch, avoiding the terms " pure " 

 research and " applied " research, in view of the possible implication that 

 pure research does not lead to practical result, directs research not alone 

 to the solving of particular economic problems. It supports more especially 

 what it terms " free " research, investigation in this case of the fundamental 

 science of the sea and of marine life. This term " free " research is set in its 

 full light by words of the Lord President of the Council, Mr. Balfour, where 

 he points out that while the State may aid research, it will only destroy 

 research if it resolves too rigidly to control it. 



Again, with the Advisory Council of Scientific and Industrial Eesearch, 

 its programme, gradually defined during the past six years, is laid down 

 as having four main points : (1) the encouragement of the individual 

 research worker, particularly in pure science; (2) the organisation of 

 national industries into co-operative research associations ; (3) the direction 

 and co-ordination of research for national purposes ; (4) the aiding of 

 suitable researches undertaken by scientific and professional Societies and 

 organisations. It recruits researchers by giving financial opportunity to 

 promising students to be trained in research attaching them to experienced 

 researchers. In short, it apprentices to research a number of selected 

 younger workers in Universities, Colleges, and other institutions scattered 

 throughout the country. 



So, similarly, the Medical Eesearch Council. Its Secretary, Sir Walter 

 Fletcher, in an illuminating presidential address to Section I of the British 

 Association Meeting this summer, said, speaking of the nexus between 

 scientific research and the progress of Medicine, " It is the accumulating 

 knowledge of the basal laws of life and of the living organism to which 

 alone we can look for the sure establishment either of the study of disease or 

 of the applied sciences of Medicine." 



It is evident, therefore, that with a policy based on such principles as 

 these, the third category in the triple system constituting the organisation 

 for scientific research in this country, is one which has common aim and 

 solid touch with both the others, the Universities and the Scientific and 

 Professional Societies. One sees in short that the organisation which has 

 come into existence and is maintaining scientific research in this country, 



