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' •* ， ، ، ، ， ，§ ¶ ¡ ¿ § · · * * × : * ſº： .ºz e • № 3 * * º ： * · * º 4 * * * * * * · * * g * * * * ∞ √∞ √≠ √≠ √ Œ œ '<'+'~~'; - **- •. ( . r - • *. . . .” ---, -, . * - /* c \, . . . . . . . ] { *-*. ºn is . . . . . . . . . . º " . . . \, , i. º (, ; * : * * * ~ + j : \ . . . ; ; ; ; ; X tº 3 . . . . i * T ~ R. § 3. : ~ * ‘. . . ; : . . . _{* .. - - --" - w S-J'-- -- - *** * , i- . . . " • * - * ‘- * - • , - t - “. . 4 * * * ~. ,-- ", | } * -- ~~ - * * * • * \ vº • *- : * 2 ~} \ } <}. * - ºs J. 7, 9 º' . . . º 1. MID-CENTURY The Social Implications of Scientific Progress ës Verbatim account of the discussions held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the occasion of its Mid-Century Convoca- tion, March 31, April 1 and April 2, 1949 EDITED AND ANNOTATED BY JOHN ELY BURCHARD DEAN OF HUMANITIES, M.I.T. CAM BRIDGE • IS50 Published jointly by THE TECHNOLOGY PRESS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY and JoHN WILEY & SONs, INC., NEw York CHAPMAN & HALL, LIMITED, LONDON Engin. Library CoPYRIGHT 1950 by The Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology. All rights reserved. This book or any part thereof must not be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA º (b. (Y| b{T iQ - i-º-ſº p • w ) Q (– {-( , Dedicated to a distinguished scientist, a man of great heart, an understanding boss, and a tolerant friend, KARL TAYLOR COMPTON # / ~ Table of Contents Foreword I. The State of Science JOHN ELY BURCHARD; KARL TAYLOR COMPTON II. The Twentieth Century WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL III. Men Against Nature VANNEVAR BUSH, FRANK WALLACE NOTESTEIN; FAIRFIELD OSBORN; ROBERT PRICE RUSSELL; SIR HENRY TIZARD IV. Men Against Men JAMES MADISON BARKER; RICHARD MERVIN BISSELL, JR.; WILLIAM MALCOLM, LORD HAILEY; SIR RAMASwAMI MuPALLAR; NELSON ALDRICH ROCKEFELLER; PIERRE RYCKMANs V. Science, Materialism and the Human Spirit JULIUS SEELYE BIXLER; PERCY W. BRIDGMAN; JACQUES MARITAIN; WALTER TERENCE STACE VI. The Role of the Individual in a World of Institutions ERWIN DAIN CANHAM; CARLOS CONTRERAs; RALPH EDWARD FLANDERS; CLINTON STRONG GOLDEN; MERLE ANTONY TUVE VII. The Problem of Specialization in Twentieth Century Edu- cation SIDNEY Hook; FREDERIC LILGE; SIR RICHARD LIVINGSTONE; ANDREY ABRAHAM POTTER; PHILLIP JUSTIN RULON; CHARLES ALLEN THOMAS VIII. The State, Industry and the University LAIRD BELL; LEE ALVIN DUBRIDGE, BRYN JACOB Hovde; PETER H. ODEGARD; JOHN DALE RUSSELL IX. The Store of the Future HAROLD EDwARD STASSEN X. The Obligations and Ideals of an Institute of Technology JAMES RHYNE KILLIAN, JR. Appendices Biographical Notes Index ix 34 77 127 196 252 300 353 420 442 465 513 531 Foreword ON April 2, 1949, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology in- augurated its tenth president, James Rhyne Killian, Jr. As a prelude to that event there was a two-day program of panel discussions and addresses which was called “The Mid-Century Convocation on the Social Implications of Scientific Progress.” " This book is the story of that Convocation. These words are written on a day early in January 1950. Already there is a spate of copy dealing with the deeds, fair and dire, of the first half of the twentieth century. It is safe to predict that by the end of the year millions of words will have been written on the same topic. Most of them will have been trivial; it is almost inevitable that all will have suffered from proximity. I have no desire to add much to these words or to display my own myopia. Also, it is a tour de force to pause at a mid-century calendar date and look back on an arbitrary fifty years as though they necessarily had a cultural integrity. Certainly what the nineteenth century stood for did not start happening in 1801 and end at midnight of December 31, 1900.” Nonetheless a limited amount of reminiscence may help. The man who stood with his feet planted in the middle of the twen- tieth century was likely to hold one of two quite different views about it. Unlike almost every man who greeted the dawn of this age, who reveled in the peace and prosperity, seemingly endless, of the late years of Victoria, the man of our time was likely to be vigorously opti- mistic or vigorously pessimistic. And there was fair reason for either point of view. One might be optimistic, for example, if one examined the cultural skills of this fifty years, or the intellectual achievements, or the social gains. Relatively few periods even in the Golden Age could reveal more accomplishment. Names do not make a culture but they are symbolic of it—and what the names suggest does represent the culture. The half century could display a brilliant panoply of names in any cultural field one chose to select. It was a period which had produced such painters as Marin, * It was not exactly the mid-century, of course, since by the calendar that point will be reached at midnight on December 31, 1950, but the time seems near enough to have justified the title. * More natural markers would be 1815 and 1914 as Lewis Mumford has pointed out. See reference in footnote 11. ix X Foreword Orozco, Picasso, Braque, Duchamp, Miro; * such sculptors as Maillol, Arp, Brancusi, Milles, Moore; * such architects as the Aaltos, the Saarinens, van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Gropius, Oud and Frank Lloyd Wright." The music of the period had unquestioned stature and had been created by such composers as Debussy, Richard Strauss, Bartók, Schönberg, Stravinsky and Prokofieff." There were giants in literature; such figures as Santayana, Haupt- mann, Tagore, France, Proust, Shaw, Chesterton, Joyce, Mann and Gide." The roster of scientists was especially impressive as even a casual selection would show; in physics, for example, there were Roentgen, the Curies, Rayleigh, Rutherford, Planck, Einstein and Bohr; * in chemistry Arrhenius, Debye, Gibbs, Langmuir, Haber and Willstätter.” In biology and medicine there had been such people as Pavlov, Koch, Warburg, the Loebs, Cajal, Morgan, Spemann, Weis- mann, Osler, Freud, Fleming, Cushing and Welch.” The fields could be multiplied indefinitely without loss of weight. That this constituted a list of genius hardly anyone would be dis- posed to argue. There might be more argument as to what their * I name only six; but the reader can recall many more, such as Matisse, Dufy, Derain, Modigliani, Utrillo, Rouaſilt, Sloan, Bellows, Wood, Rivera, Léger, Gris, Feininger, Kandinski, Mondrian, Klee, Chagall, de Chirico, Albers, Ernst, Arp, O'Keeffe, Moholy-Nagy, Jeanneret, Hélion. *To say nothing of Despiau, Lehmbruck, Epstein, Zorach, Lipchitz, Gabo, Davidson, Noguchi, Calder, Archipenko. * And, of course, Lubetkin, Breuer, Moser, Roth, Sundahl, Jacobsen, Dudok, Niemeyer, Mendelsohn, Perret, Nelson, Sullivan and numerous more recent Ameri- Ca11S. * Plus Shostakovich, Honegger, Martinu, Ravel, Bloch, Vaughan Williams, Saint- Saëns, Puccini, Milhaud, Britten, Sibelius, Hindemith, Delius, Roussel, d'Indy, Dohnányi, Rachmaninoff, Poulenc, Piston, Sessions, Kodály, Copland, Mahler, De Falla, Scriabin, Gershwin, etc. 7 Others would be Spengler, Kipling, Lagerlöf, Rolland, Yeats, Bergson, Lewis, Galsworthy, Pirandello, O’Neill, Eliot, Stein, Zweig, Wassermann, Feuchtwanger, Werfel, Whitehead, Croce, Conrad, Hemingway, Wolfe, etc. *And also, but still an incomplete list, Becquerel, J. J. Thomson, Michelson, Bragg, Millikan, Hertz, A. H. Compton, de Broglie, Chandrasekhar, Heisenberg, Dirac, Chadwick, Anderson, Fermi, Lawrence, Rabi, Pauli, Bridgman, Appleton, Blackett, and Aston, etc. * Plus Ramsay, Mme. Curie, Richards, Soddy, Pregl, Svedberg, Wieland, Bosch, Haworth, Kuhn, Robinson, Lewis, Nernst, Ostwald, van’t Hoff, Noyes, Joliot, Remsen, Pauling, von Baeyer, the Fischers, Sabatier, Urey, etc. 19 As well as von Behring, Carrel, Sherrington, Szent-Gyorgi, Finsen, Golgi, Laveran, Kocher, Gullstrand, Richet, Krogh, Hill, Meyerhof, Fibiger, Wagner von Jauregg, Nicolle, Landsteiner, Heymans, Gasser, Cori, Ruzicka, Hopkins, Florey, Dale, Banting, Ehrlich, Metchnikoff, etc. Foreword xi works said about the nature of their times. Lewis Mumford, for ex- ample,” suggests that what Henry Adams, James Joyce and T. S. Eliot “discovered, long before the events themselves were visible, was corruption, confusion, delirium, babble, violence and death. . . . As interpreters of our time, our best writers have done justice to the forces that undermine us and debase us, and it is a nice question whether, in the act of revelation, they are helping to lance the abscess that threatens us or have themselves merely added to the mass of morbid tissue. . . . If our civilization is not to produce greater holo- causts, our writers will have to become something more than merely a mirror of its violence and disintegration; they will have, through their own efforts, to regain the initiative for the human person and the forces of life, chaining up the demons we have allowed to run loose, and releasing the angels and ministers of grace we have shame- facedly—and shamefully—incarcerated.” What Mumford says here about literature could be said with equal force about the products of the other arts—most obviously about paint- ing, perhaps, with Picasso's Guernica cartooning the statement—but with equal truth about the most abstract form, music. Thus the great- ness of the names might not, for the arts at any rate, allow the man of the century to be smug about his time. Whether the situation was really the same with science, only history will be able to tell. It is hard to believe, intuitively, that intelligent and sensitive men of a common culture are likely to behave in funda- mentally different ways. But so long as the scientist could restrict him- self to a simple pursuit of an objective truth, without regard to the consequences of the applications of the truth when found, he actually was working in a sphere even more abstract than that of music. The abstract relation of the search for knowledge to the life of the times might seem discouraging unless one were content with the crudest physical applications of that knowledge as a sign of progress, or with the search itself. The latter might suffice as a personal creed for the searcher. But for those who were not a part of the search, something more needed to be said. And the century had not succeeded in saying it. In such a position one can only fall back on the nature of the scien- tific discoveries, the facts about these discoveries, and leave for a later time any intelligent guess as to their higher meaning. On this 11 “Mirror of a Violent Half Century” by Lewis Mumford, The New York Times Book Review, January 15, 1950, pp. 1 et f. xii Foreword lower level of assessment, there could be no doubt that the achieve- ments of the scientists of the century were dazzling. These achievements are described in detail by Karl Compton in his address in Chapter I; the applications of this knowledge were perhaps even more spectacular. No one of the ten largest or the ten highest dams in the world was built before 1900 and all except the one at Gatun (1923) were built after 1925. Of the ten largest bridges only one was constructed before 1900 and this, the Firth of Forth Bridge, is ninth in length. All of the rest were built after 1917 and seven of them after 1925. Although railroad trains were running at the rate of over 100 miles an hour before 1900 for a stretch of from one to five miles, it was not until 1934 that rates as high as 80 miles an hour were registered over significant stretches.” The increase in speed of round-the-world travel was, of course, much more phenomenal. In 1901, Charles Fitzmaurice, Chief of Police of Chicago, set a new record when he got around the world in 60 days, 13 hours, and 29 minutes. In 1945, the “Globester” of the United States Army Air Transport Command flew 29,279 miles in a total time of 149 hours and 44 minutes, of which 33 hours and 21 minutes were spent on the ground. Nor were big engineering works and high-speed transport the only accomplishments. The list of inventions in this half century was prodigious. It included all the important developments in petroleum refining, every significant achievement in the creation of synthetic resins and rubbers, the real growth of diesel power and most of the refinements of the internal-combustion engine which made present motor density and air travel possible; it contained such improvements in electric lighting as the gas-filled incandescent lamp, the tungsten- filament, the mercury-vapor lamp, every essential advance in elec- tronics resulting in modern radio, radar and television as well as sound recording and faithful reproduction of music and speech. Telephony changed from the faltering use of a capricious instrument to a device whereby a man in Boston took down the receiver and was almost in- stantly connected to a man in San Francisco, Paris, or on a great ship at sea. The period saw the birth of such diverse and now common- place articles or materials as barbiturate sedatives, cellophane, lam- inated glass, insulin, nitrocellulose lacquers, fused bifocal lenses, high- 12 Union Pacific from Cheyenne to Omaha, 507 miles, at an average of 84 miles per hour; Chicago, Burlington and Quincy from Chicago to Denver, 1,017 miles at an average of 88.3 miles per hour. Foreword xiii pressure lubricants, novocaine, nylon, oil-filled power cables, perm- alloy, phototelegraphy, stainless steel, sulfanilamides as used thera- peutically, caterpillar tractors, X-ray tubes and synthetic vitamins. Since this is not a comprehensive but merely an illustrative list, the reader's observation of omissions will merely offer further documenta- tion.18 Nor were the social achievements less spectacular. All the basis for the enormous social change which has since taken place had not been laid by 1901. Little of this social change was in fact brought about save through turmoil in the later years. On the national scene the greatest accomplishments appeared to be the better lot of labor, the improved status of women, the expansion of education, the reduction of racial intolerance and increased solicitude for the underprivileged.” But each of these took a long time, and each was far from complete even by the middle of the century. * The apparent excellence of these achievements may, of course, pale with time; and even the most ardent barker for the eminence of modern technology would hardly claim that they exceeded in importance the following innovations or inven- tions made in the great century of Ionian science (600–500 B.C.) : potter's wheel, bellows, soldering of iron, art of moving and placing huge columns, level, square rule, lathe, key, casting of bronze, building water conduits. [See Karl W. Deutsch, “Higher Education and The Unity of Knowledge,” in Goals for American Educa– tion (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1950), pages 86–87.] 14 For example, it was not until 1916 that a woman (Jeannette Rankin, Montana) was elected to the Congress of the United States; the 19th Amendment giving suf- frage to women in this country was not proclaimed until August, 1920; the first woman to be elected Governor of a State was Nellie Tayloe Ross in 1924; since then, women have been elected to the United States Senate, have sat on the bench, have been in the Cabinet and have commanded detachments of other women in the Army, Navy and Marine Corps. Race riots were common throughout the world from the pogroms of Kishinev in 1903 to the white-black disturbances of 1943 in Detroit and Harlem; there are still lynchings in this country and equal rights and anti-poll-tax bills do not pass, but this situation is on the way to being eliminated. In December, 1942, the United States Supreme Court decreed that Georgia’s 40-year-old Contract Labor Law was a violation of the Anti-Slavery Amendment and an Act of Congress forbidding peomage; on July 2, 1946, Negroes voted for the first time in the Democratic pri- maries in Mississippi. Labor's organization has, of course, become increasingly powerful. A turning point was doubtless marked in 1936 when the C.I.O. decided to organize the auto- mobile industry, beginning with the General Motors Corporation. Labor leaders played trusted roles in the fighting of World War II. It is true that 1946 witnessed the greatest work stoppages in the history of the nation (they numbered nearly 5,000, involved over 4% million workers and amounted to 116 million man-days xiv Foreword World politics showed much the same trends as those at home. The United States freed the Philippines in 1934, to take effect in 1945; at the end of World War II or in its aftermath, India became an inde- pendent member of the British Commonwealth of Nations; Holland renounced her rights in Indonesia; the African empires of every coun- try save Belgium were essentially destroyed; and China moved out from the position of a satellite of the West into an orbit as yet un- defined. It would be hard for most of the natives of any of these lands not to find joy in such events, much as they might concern or even frighten those of the West who had so long held profitable sway under the imperial-colonial system. The relations of the United States to Latin and South America had altered slowly from those of a big-stick paternalism to those of a limited partnership. In the early days the big nation had frankly condoned “favorable” revolutions, as in Panama; in 1914 we had breached Mexican sovereignty and landed Marines at Vera Cruz; in 1927 the Marines had gone forth again, this time to Nicaragua whence they did not return for 6 years. But by the Hoover trip to the southern countries just after his election to the Presidency in 1928, the conferences at Buenos Aires in 1934, the visit of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the same capital in 1936 and the Chapultepec agreements of 1945, these relations became steadily less unilateral. World War II finished what World War I had started. Germany had risen twice during the century to be a threat to the world, and twice she had succumbed; the second defeat had been so resounding as to give promise that she might not try again for a while, anyway. Japan had jumped in a few years from the status of a minor power to that of a great one, but her attack upon the United States had led to dis- aster and at the mid-point she was not important as a military force. idle). This brought about the Taft-Hartley Act, but labor's political power con- tinued to mount and was accompanied by many kinds of welfare legislation. The advance in education is suggested by some statistics. The number of stu- dents enrolled in secondary schools in the 14–17 year age group rose from 11 per cent in 1900 to 51 per cent in 1980, and to 71 per cent in 1945. At the beginning of the century about 100,000 young people, or six in every hundred of the above age group, were graduated from high school, but in 1946 approximately one mil- lion, or forty-six in every hundred, were graduated. The results in colleges were less spectacular but of the same nature. In 1900, 4 per cent of the young people in the 18–21 year age group, or about 240,000, were enrolled in colleges; in 1946, 13 per cent of those in this age group, or about 1.7 million out of 9.4 million, were so enrolled. Whether the present level of education of the average high school or college graduate is as high as in 1901 is perhaps a matter for debate; but that a greater proportion graduate is incontrovertible. Foreword XV France had continued to decline as a world power to the point where it was painful to see her efforts to regain a place. Most significantly, the far-flung British Empire had really ceased to be; and the long reign of England over the destinies of most of the world had ended. There was much too great resourcefulness and courage in the British Isles to suggest an early demise, but her days as a colossus might be at an end. The future role of the great potential nations of China and India remained in doubt. The two real powers of the world were Russia and the United States. And for some time, Russia remained an enigma. This was not to last for long. These two protagonists stood at the poles in almost every respect. For the first time, perhaps, since the invasions of the Mongols, the struggles with the Mohammedans in Spain or the great schisms of the Reformation, the world saw two powerful ideologies so antagonistic one to the other that it seemed doubtful that both could survive. At first towards the end of the half century, these ideologies seemed to try to get along with one another. But as the world returned to ostensibly peaceful pursuits, the dichotomy loomed ever more notice- ably. Finally, almost everyone ceased to try to resolve it and the cold war began. The world then witnessed the anomaly of an expenditure which was greater in preparation for a war than had usually been spent in waging war. This cold war was being waged at the time of the Mid-Century Convocation. Behind the anxiety over the outcome of this conflict, over the threats implicit in such fundamental disagreements, lurked fear—and this fear had its genesis in the atomic bomb. The international political situation in 1949 and the existence of the new weapons were in themselves enough to cause pessimism in the minds of many. But there were other symptoms of the century to counteract the pleasurable ones which have so far been rehearsed. If the cultural, intellectual and social achievements were on the plus side, many, nonetheless, would rate the century's spiritual progress as a minus. In many areas of the world, most of all in Europe, great cities and great monuments of art lay in ruins, destroyed by the wars of the cen- tury; in Asia and Europe millions of people were homeless and fed below the nourishment level; an earlier belief in continued progress had given way to scientific determinism; society deemed science amoral; individual irresponsibility seemed the norm and was often coupled with a demand for security; the total influence of the church and religion had clearly declined and nothing had taken its place; xvi Foreword moral conduct seemed to have decayed, and this seemed especially apparent in the actions of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, both of which had formally repudiated religion. The good results of applied science, as recounted earlier, could be matched by bad ones such as the guided missile, gas warfare, bacteriological warfare, the atomic bomb. The deeds of Belsen are not readily dismissed—man had learned again to torture man in a way he had apparently long ago forgotten. This attitude has been summed up by Henry Steele Commager in a recent article.” The distinguished historian first quotes the editor of the new World's Work writing at the beginning of the century, “The keynote of life is the note of joyful achievement.” Dr. Commager then goes on to say, “Looking back on the last half century we can find little ground for joy, and little evidence of achievement, except in the ma- terial realm. Indeed, if asked what we achieved, we might say that we survived.” " At the time when the Convocation was planned, this latter view was clearly the predominant one. It pervaded conversation and thought and it was inevitable that any program of discussion would take ac- count of it. Moreover it was perfectly clear that many people were blaming these untoward results on science or at least on applied science. Nor could those who deal with applied science shrug this off completely as 15 “1900–1950: From Victorian to Atomic Age,” The New York Times Maga- zine, December 25, 1949. 16 Though the bulk of Dr. Commager's Christmas article describes the pessi- mist's point of view, he does not end on such a note. “Notwithstanding war, ruin and misery, the first half of the twentieth century saw spectacular developments in medical science that saved millions of children, extended life, wiped out plagues and diseases, and alleviated pain. It saw a general spread of education and, on a somewhat obvious level, of enlightenment. It saw, for the Western world at least, an improvement in standards of living, a decline in child labor, a release from long hours of drudgery for adults and a general diffusion of new methods of entertain- ment and recreation. For the majority of mankind, and except in time of war, life was easier and pleasanter than it had ever been before. “And not only can we say that we survived, but that the principles and ideals of Western Christendom somehow survived. For it was those peoples who clung to the older traditions of the dignity of man and the authority of law who weathered best the great crises of depression and war. In what was assuredly the greatest conflict in history, it was the forces of right that triumped over the forces of evil. This conclusion is an expression neither of vanity nor of chauvinism. That it may be a premature conclusion cannot, however, be denied by anyone who looks soberly to the future. For though Western Civilization has survived, we do not know how long is its lease on life.” Foreword XVii an unjust allegation. It was therefore reasonable that an institution which emphasized science and engineering should sponsor fora to con- sider vexing problems which bore some close relation to science and technology; it was particularly appropriate that these fora should be held at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which had tradi- tionally essayed to pay serious attention as well to the humanities and social sciences; and which in the year 1949 recognized with all hu- mility the kind of obligations which now seemed to rest on a techno- logical university. When scholars hold meetings for the advancement of knowledge they can do better without a listening public; without a host of Naphtalis waiting to carry the news. But when scholars and men of affairs meet to exchange views on existing situations, it is better that these views be aired in public. Thus it was quickly decided that the Convocation should not be scholarly in the conventional sense but only in the sense that those invited to take part should all have first- class minds. Thus it was that scholars in the literal sense and men of business and men of politics met together in small groups to discuss a half-dozen critical subjects, and in an enormous group to listen to two statesmen talk of the problems of statecraft. The rest of this book is essentially an annotated verbatim account of what the speakers said about these subjects. It was put together in this way. Almost all of the participants complied with the request of the pro- gram committee to furnish advance scripts. These served as primary material. But a few did not comply with this request and spoke only from notes; others departed substantially from their prepared texts. Accordingly every word spoken in every one of the sessions was recorded on tape. These recordings were later transcribed into a verbatim account. The individual addresses were then compared with the original texts. Where changes were minor, what the speaker actually said was introduced into his original manuscript. Where they were extensive, both the spoken and the written texts were retained; one or another of the versions was set off appropriately in the text. Which version was used as text and which as inserted extract depended upon the nature of the versions; in general the one which seemed to make the better statement was kept in the text; where there was little choice, the spoken words were always retained. Whether the material which confronts the reader was spoken or written has, I hope, always been made perfectly clear. xviii Foreword The discussions were then arranged by chapters, each covering a single session. They were put into chronological order so that the reader might be able, in effect, to come on the words as they were spoken. Then a further editorial process began. The writer was completely responsible for the first stage of this process. It had two aspects. On the one hand, relatively brief intro- ductions and transitions were supplied to connect up the texts; on the other hand, relatively elaborate footnotes were prepared. These footnotes are of many kinds. There are, of course, straight bibliographical references which have been supplied freely but not to the point of profusion; there are a limited number of brief explana- tions of references with which many readers might be unfamiliar; there are a good many cross-references to other parts of the program; there are elaborations or alternative statements from the speakers themselves; there are a considerable number which deal with rami- fications of the ideas proposed by the speakers, drawn either from other of their own published works or more frequently from the pub- lished work of others (some of the longer of these have been put into appendices); finally there are a few footnotes which are best called critical; these are naturally enough somewhat personal—others would certainly have other views; the only defense for them is that they, too, tend to tie the whole Convocation together into something as it appeared to one person. When this was all done the text was submitted to a number of checks; a copy of the chapter containing his own remarks was sent to each participant; * he was invited to amend his prepared address or his remarks in the discussion as he saw fit (amendments of this sort were minor and mostly in the interest of a more precise grammar than sometimes is used in hasty debate—on this count the text can be said to be a very fair repetition of what the audience actually experienced); he was also invited to comment on the footnotes, to criticize them, to suggest additions or deletions or to prepare comment for formal addi- tion to individual footnotes. Our collaborators at one or another place did all of these things. At the same time the moderators of the six panels were asked to look at the chapters covering their panels with the same end in view. Again three others of my colleagues were asked to review two chap- ters each, chapters which dealt with compatible subject matter; thus 17 The addresses of Messrs. Compton, Killian, Churchill and Stassen are excep- tions to this rule. Mr. Stassen had already published his address so this text was used; the others entrusted the Editor with free decision. Foreword xix Professor Charles P. Kindleberger criticized the chapters on “material questions,” Professor Karl W. Deutsch those on “spiritual questions,” and Provost Julius A. Stratton those on “intellectual questions.” Finally the entire manuscript was reviewed by my colleague and friendly critic, Professor Elting E. Morison. Through this extensive process of review, I think it is correct to say that the text presents the ideas of the speakers fairly; guided by this patient, tolerant and extensive criticism, I have been able to eliminate many errors; those which remain as well as any footnote comment to which the reader takes exception are directly chargeable to me and to no one else. In addition to the participants and those mentioned above, I am indebted to many other people. As has been the case with every book I have worked on for twenty years, I owe a great deal to a continu- ously understanding collaborator, Mrs. Margaret Hopkins. I am also indebted in unusual degree to Miss Margaret Hazen, Associate Ref- erence Librarian at M.I.T., who put together for me extensive and useful files of newspaper comment; to my editorial associate in The Technology Press, Miss Beverly Brooks, who during all the many months between the first completion of the manuscript and the bind- ing of the printed pages took the responsibility for seeing to it that my mistakes were corrected and the lacunae filled; and to a team of three careful craftswomen who engaged themselves with the details of this operation, Miss Pauline Sutermeister, Mrs. Helen Wambaugh and Miss Nina Bick. I wish it might also be possible in this place to extend individualized thanks to the many people of M.I.T. who, acting with me, made the Convocation itself a smooth-running affair. They are too many and this is not the appropriate place but each of them can be proud of his performance. And it would be overmodest to deny that we at M.I.T. are proud of our Convocation too. Something approaching the golden sun of a miracle seemed to bathe the three days. Distinction was provided per- force by the guests. But beyond distinction there was something very hard to express, probably impossible to express. After times when many of the world's intellectuals had spoken with despair, the prevail- ing optimism which flowed on the words of almost every speaker was like a cooling stream. The exact words are easily enough repeated. But beyond the words there was something indefinable, something almost benign, something from which to take heart. It was as though spring had come again. This is the atmosphere that I am entirely un- XX Foreword able to convey and upon which I have already lavished too many lush words without avail. This book is, of course, a very long one. Few readers are likely to peruse it from cover to cover. But I must say that familiarity with the material has not bred in me any sense of the banal but rather an increasing respect. The stimulus in the material is yet undimmed. Some of this I hope may come to one or another of you, the readers, who here meet these speeches for the first time or here have an oppor- tunity to relive days which I believe you may recall with pleasure. JoHN ELY BURCHARD Cambridge, Mass. January, 1950 Mid-Century CHA PTE R I The State of Science R. JOHN A. ROCKWELL, Class of '96, was the patron and D promoter of athletics for Institute students for more years than most M.I.T. men can remember. His labors began when the proud boast of General Walker that Tech “is a place for men to work, and not for boys to play” was the unmitigated slogan of Institute ad- ministrators, faculty, alumni and students alike. Now the new Athletic Cage, the scene of three of the Convocation meetings and the Inaugural, fittingly bears his name. Built in 1948, designed by Anderson and Beckwith,” the Rockwell Cage is one of the first permanent buildings to occupy the West Campus, a stone's throw from the monumental steps of the Rogers entrance. It affords an excellent example of the ingenious use of war surplus. To build it, two great hangar roofs were dismantled in Vir- ginia, shipped by water to South Boston, and re-erected on the campus, supported by a new structure consisting of a steel frame and cinder- block wall 8 inches thick capped by a 19-foot band of glass extending 1 Walker, Francis A., Annual Report of the President and Treasurer, December 12, 1894, page 49. The text has deliberately quoted the small section of General Walker's total statement and designated it as a “proud boast” because that is the usual concept of the totality of his remark and of the nature of its implication. It is worthwhile at this time, perhaps, to indicate what General Walker really said with enough context to illuminate it: “. . . At the same time, the position of athletics here is not by any means un- satisfactory. The students in general understand perfectly well that this is a place for men to work, and not for boys to play; and they organize their athletic teams and carry on their contests in a very sensible and practical spirit. It is, of course, impossible to organize championship teams without a very large sacrifice of scholar- ship; but our young men, without, for example, entering any foot-ball league, play with all comers for sport and exercise. This is the spirit in which athletics should be pursued in an institution like our own, where the demands of scholarship are severe.” * A firm of architects made up of two Professors of Architecture at the Institute, Lawrence B. Anderson and Herbert L. Beckwith. They have designed a number of other important Institute buildings including the Radiation Laboratory, the Sloan Automotive and Aircraft Engine Laboratory, the Field House and the Alumni Swimming Pool. l 2 State of Science all around the building and offering a very large amount of daylight. Its 165 by 200 feet of floor, interrupted only by a single row of columns, provides facilities for track, baseball, softball, tennis, and badminton. It is also large enough for a convocation of the whole student body. At Commencement it accommodates up to 500 faculty on the platform and about 4,000 graduates and their guests on the floor. Its dirt floor, its band of glass, its open-truss ceiling, its fish-net protection for the win- dows, have an elegant and simple beauty serving their natural func- tions. But there were doubts as to how suitable such an ambiance might be for a great assemblage of people, or for the inauguration of a new president. Would the glass let in too much western Sun? Could an appropriate platform be created, to seat 500 visiting delegates and members of the faculty for an inaugural and yet serve as a reasonable rostrum for the groups of six or seven who would be the cynosures at the panel discussions? Most of all, could any of the spoken words be heard in this echoing abyss? Fortunately, the ingenuity of one of the original architects, long demonstrated in matters of this kind, was at command. Professor Beck- with, who prefers to achieve his effects by simple means, hung a single translucent curtain across the west wall, built a set of large stairs ac- commodating seven tiers of seats across all of that same wall, and in the center of these transverse ranges created a central dais backed by a planting area of larch, cedar, birch, and forsythia in flower, a semi- circular podium made of birch plywood, and a low platform for a few seats. In front of the stage were flowering lilacs, laurel and other shrubs, interspersed with several hundred jonquils. The lower platform accommodated the speakers at the opening session, the panel speakers at two meetings, the television screen for the overflow meeting of Thursday night, and the speakers at President Killian's Inaugural. De- pending upon the event, flags of appropriate nations added to the platform decor while at the Inaugural huge flags of the United States and of the Commonwealth, together with the newly designed flag of the Institute, adorned the rear wall. It might as well be admitted that M.I.T. does not always score full marks in solving its local technical problems. The elevator in the School of Architecture is frequently out of order. The Institute's principal doors, operating by photoelectric signals, are sometimes tied open by simple rope. Its public address systems have not always been either clear or impressive. But given a free hand as to equipment, and a lib- eral budget, the subcommittee performed brilliantly. So, in point of fact, with rolled earth for the aisles, folding chairs for the audience, Prelude 3 the simple stage, and an elaborate microphone and amplifier system,” the 4,500 or more people who crowded the hall at each event were able to see and to hear, and to do so in relative comfort.” It was on the Rockwell Cage that the audience began converging at three o'clock on Thursday afternoon, March 31. They were entertained by the M.I.T. Concert Band, under the direction of John Corley," until 3:30 when the afternoon speakers" entered the hall from behind the dais and took their seats on the platform. The capacity audience was notable and attentive. Dean Burchard, Chairman of the Convocation, and therefore Chairman of the First General Assembly, introduced Dean Baker," who delivered the Invocation: “Wisdom and spirit of the universe, God of our fathers, the urge in men prompting constant search for truth, ever-living image of integrity, guide our thinking, mold our understanding, inspire our purposes, en- noble all of our endeavors. We gather to trace the mean and vulgar works of men, and to measure our defeats in the wreckage of our hopes; to weigh the ambitious plans of men in the balance of wisdom and truth; to seek knowledge that in time to come we may build better the walls and doors of our world's communities; to discover disciplines for the elements of feeling and of thought that hate and fear enjoin; to search, perhaps to find, enduring things in life and nature that shall be ours, impressed upon our lives in character more noble; to ponder the mysteries of our earth and of man's mind, that with humility we may seek more lofty heights to scale. Amen.” 8 Developed under the direction of Professor Jerome B. Wiesner, who also man- aged the high-fidelity recording of all the proceedings. * Note, however, the demurrer of Hailey to this statement about comfort: “I am sorry that I, myself, at all events cannot offer that part of the audience which oc- cupies those somewhat austere seats at the back a little solace for the austerity they have to suffer. I sat there yesterday, Mr. Moderator, and I know what they are. I remember that somewhere Shakespeare says, “There's a divinity that shapes our ends.’ I think that when the divinity set to work on my end he did not foresee what I might have to endure yesterday afternoon.” (See page 135.) 5 The program: Overture Die Fledermaus Strauss Irish Tune from County Derry Grainger March Opus 99 Prokofieff Polka and Fugue from Schwanda Weinberger Processional: Military March Beethoven Recessional: Crown Imperial Walton * Compton, President-Designate Killian, Baker and Burchard. Killian was seated on the platform at all General Assemblies, but, save for his brief presentation of the appointment as Honorary Lecturer to Churchill on Friday evening, he reserved his words until his Inaugural address on Saturday. See Chapter x. * For a brief biography of Baker, see Biographical Notes, page 513. 4 State of Science Dean Burchard * then delivered the opening address of the Convoca- tion, as follows: - JoHN ELY BURCHARD On behalf of the Corporation and the Faculty of this institution, I am privileged to welcome you to our Mid-Century Convocation on the Social Implications of Scientific Progress. These three days are momentous in our history. As they go by we shall be erecting another milestone. Here we shall say farewell, hap- pily but a partial farewell, to a great man who has guided the destiny of the Institute for nearly twenty years, guided it with imagination and conspicuous success, but who in addition to that will always be remem- bered by us with an affection which matches our respect. Here, in this same time, we shall welcome the new helmsman, a man of great promise, one whose energy, intelligence, judgment, and good will we admire not from afar nor as the result of hearsay, but from close at hand and as the result of personal experience. These events in themselves would be significant enough but we have elected to make this milestone still more conspicuous. For some time now the world has been actively discussing the dilemmas presented to the human race by spectacular advances in applied science. With little discrimination some have called for a moratorium on science, some have asserted that science had no responsibility for the misuse of its achievements, and some have insisted that scientists should as- sume a much larger role in determining the final uses of their knowl- edge, to the end that science may be a benefit to society, and not a bane. That is why it has seemed appropriate to us to hold this Con- vocation on the Social Implications of Scientific Progress. That is why we have invited you to join with us in discussing, through these days, six major issues, issues which have all been influenced by or even created by an advancing technology, but also issues not one of which is even close to being exclusively technological. Your wholehearted re- sponse to our invitation has been stimulating. It has confirmed us in the notion that it would be significant to hold a conference on this sub- ject, at this time, in this place. Nearly half a century ago, in 1905 to be precise, Henry Adams, a brilliant if lonesome American, was seeking answers to major questions of education. Though an historian by trade, and professing scant un- derstanding of science, Adams was perpetually curious and more in- * For a brief biography of Burchard, see Biographical Notes, page 515. John Burchard 5 formed than he liked to admit. Also he had a powerful intuition. Per- haps it was only the latter which prompted him so early to predict, from his knowledge of what was then coming out about radium, that we were in the dawn of an acceleration which would cause humanity to work very hard if it were to survive. Adams, like other prophets, was not always right in his prognostications. He said, for example, “If the acceleration, measured by the development and economy of forces, were to continue at its rate since 1800, the mathematician of 1950 should be able to plot the past and future orbit of the human race as accurately as that of the November meteroids.”" The Convocation Committee has been unable to locate that mathematician and that is why we have to deal with these problems at less rigorous levels. But Adams also did say, as we remind you in the printed program, when he was speaking of the acceleration of new forces and of the move- ment from unity to multiplicity, “Prolonged one generation longer, it would require a new social mind. . . . Thus far, since five or ten thou- sand years, the mind had successfully reacted, and nothing yet proved that it would fail to react—but it would need to jump.” ” May our speculations in these next hours be imaginative and bold—may we es- say at least part of this jump. It is interesting to wonder, for example, what effect the writings of men like Adams and the almost simultaneous scientific propositions of Einstein had on the men of Whitehall and the Quai d'Orsay who were managing the world in those days. Did these ideas blow like a hurri- cane through the chancellories of Europe?" They were hurricanish ideas. But such evidence as we find suggests no such implication. Did 9 Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1918), page 501. 10 The full text as printed in the program reads: “. . . The law of acceleration was definite, and did not require ten years more study except to show whether it held good. No scheme could be suggested to the new American, and no fault needed to be found, or complaint made; but the next great influx of new forces seemed near at hand and its style of education promised to be violently coercive. The movement from unity into multiplicity, between 1200 and 1900, was unbroken in sequence, and rapid in acceleration. Prolonged one generation longer, it would require a new social mind. As though thought were common salt in indefinite solu- tion it must enter a new phase subject to new laws. Thus far, since five or ten thousand years, the mind had successfully reacted, and nothing yet proved that it would fail to react—but it would need to jump.” Op. cit., page 498. 11. In a cable to Churchill sent at his request, the suggestion was made that he might care to deal with the problems introduced by this question, either explicitly or as part of a general discussion of the kind of training now required for a top- flight career in politics. Other questions, however, engaged his attention so we have not gained the benefit of his views on this important subject, the pith of which is whether politics can become a science or must remain an art. 6 State of Science hundreds of writers hasten to warn society what was afoot? Certainly writers of popular science did not—writers of fiction, men like H. G. Wells, may have been more daring. But did anyone treat such con- cepts as anything but romance? And is anyone here prepared to assert that world planning took serious cognizance of the meaning of that work of 1905 many months before the actual events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Was the time lag in this appreciation of the world implications in- evitable? Was it harmful? If not inevitable and if harmful, are there better ways of organizing such things today? For we may be reasonably sure that we have not reached the end of the road, that we will not see any early moratorium on science, and that the consequences of future discoveries, wrongly used, could be even more forbidding than the con- sequences of the one big present threat. Without assuming any mantle of prophecy, which would be inappropriate for a man who is not a scientist, it is still meet to suggest that the early conquest of space is probable, that large-scale biological controls are possible and that abil- ity to control man's thoughts with precision is by no means out of the question.” Any of these is more awesome in its implications than was the mushroom cloud of 1945. What are the circumstances under which discoveries such as these, dominating discoveries, have been made? What was the moral and the political climate in which natural science could thus flourish? Are the 12 This little sentence afforded the headline writers a field day. It was the “thought control” idea which touched them off. It is an interesting commentary on contemporary journalism that the disastrous and the foreboding are always worth more space, and especially more paper-selling headlines, than other things, which may be intrinsically of far greater importance. There were at least three examples of this in the three days of the Convocation, the example cited, the overemphasis on the atom bomb as deterrent, from the Churchill address (see page 67), and the fantastic stretching of Killian's Inaugural address to make it seem like a war speech (see page 452). A lesser example of the same thing is to be found in the treatment of Compton's address, and a still lesser example would be afforded in the treatment of Mudaliar's speech (see page 129). As will be seen, this statement applies more to the creators of the headlines than it does to the creators of the news stories, though they too elect the emphasis which is most startling. In this connec- tion, see Canham on the objectivity of contemporary news (page 257) and on the other hand observe how the headline writers overlooked an equally startling statement by Compton about hormones, delivered from the same platform on the same afternoon as that about thought control (pages 27, 28). The news, headline and editorial coverage of this remark ran over so wide a gamut and illustrates so well the virtues and the vices of American journalism that it seems worthwhile to provide typical samples, even though neither the remark nor what was said of it would intrinsically justify this much consideration. Despite what Canham said elsewhere in the Convocation about objectivity in John Burchard 7 conditions changing or changed? Do they promise a more flourishing science or a less flourishing science? Looking first backward through the fifty years, we shall try in these days to examine some of the questions just propounded; and then go on, remembering what we can of the past that is useful, to discuss a half dozen current problems. The discussion of these problems may prove even more significant than is obvious. For in the solution of such problems in detail, it is possible that we shall find the solution to the greater apparent problem. These problems are problems which have long been with the world; many of them were discussed in antiquity and no doubt many of the things we shall say here could be found to have been said long ago, almost verbatim, and to lie now unread in some musty volume. But for our time it is necessary to explore them again. And so we shall ask our- selves tomorrow whether it is true that man has so destroyed the re- sources of his world, and been so clever about prolonging the span of his years, that, spawning ever afresh in geometric progression, he is doomed to die of starvation; we shall attempt to discover whether the problem of world production to yield at least a minimum living to the world population can be solved. Then, recognizing that even a world production at a satisfactory level will not suffice by itself, we shall ex- plore how we may adequately bring about an equitable and benign world distribution, laying special emphasis on areas of the world which at the present time we regard as underdeveloped. Adequately fed and clothed as the peoples of the world might be- come, would it be a decent world and one in which it was worthwhile news coverage (page 256 et seq.), and regardless of what the news dispatches may themselves have said, it was true that the majority of the headlines ran like the following: “A-Bomb Horror Seen Dwarfed by M.I.T. Dean” . . . The Woonsocket Call (R. I.) “M.I.T. Dean Sees Horrors Greater than Atom Bomb” . . . The Portsmouth Herald (N. H.) “Scientist Warns That Horror Hangs over the Earth” . . . Tribune (Lawrence, Mass.) “Space Conquest Predicted at M.I.T. Science Parley” . . . The New York Times (N. Y.) The last listed was attached to a highly sober account by an ace writer of The New York Times, William L. Laurence, syndicated in many papers; the headline is usually not syndicated. The recurrent suggestion is, of course, that the speaker was a scientist, that his association with M.I.T. qualified him on this point, that the emphasis of his speech was in this direction. None of these things, as the reader can see for himself, was true. Much of this comment is so revealing that it is re- capitulated in Appendix A. 8 State of Science to be well fed and well clothed if these animal satisfactions remained the sole accomplishment of man? We think not, and so will look too at matters of the spirit. Has the growth of science, no matter what its benefit to man in practical things, strangled something higher; what common faith can man have in days like ours; what position of personal confidence may the individual achieve in a day which sees the magni- fication of the power of large institutions almost by the minute? And finally, what shall we say of the education needed to bring about a wiser, a healthier, a safer, and a happier world? Is this to be found in specialization? Is there risk that in the process of creating brilliant specialists, we shall have created a race of “learned ignora- muses” as Ortega y Gasset likes to call us; a race in which the most im- portant decisions made by man will ultimately have to be left to the meaner intellects because the stronger ones have all been distilled into one or another concentrated essence, each of which is incompatible with the other? Is there risk that in the growth of large organizations, and especially of government, the true free spirit of inquiry which has brought us thus far on our road will be diminished, or even extin- guished altogether? These are the six questions which we shall ask tomorrow. There are, of course, many other questions, equally important questions, which we shall not ask at all. Such omissions were inevitable if we were not to spread ourselves far too thin. Each has been the occasion of regret.” The greatest regret perhaps is that this conference will not explore the meaning of contemporary art. This omission has at least been deliberate, not accidental. This does not mean that the question seems unimportant. Rather it reflects our impression of the futility of comparable discussions of art in the last few years, discussions which have ranged over many days, and not a few hours. Of them, one cannot but feel with Emily Dickinson: * 18 Among these regrets was the fact that it was necessary to eliminate any more extensive music from the program than was provided incidental to the addresses. The Boston Symphony Orchestra, for example, generously offered to give a special concert and this would have been a distinguished note in the last year of Koussevitsky’s conductorship. The producers of the great modern musical play, South Pacific, with Ezio Pinza and Mary Martin offered a special performance for the guests of the Institute, including Churchill. Other similar opportunities were available. The Committee had great difficulty in resisting them, but since the two and one-half days were packed full of events from morning till night it was impossible to have any more in that period, and the Committee felt it unwise to extend the days of the celebration to cover a longer period of time. 14 Poems of Emily Dickinson (Boston, Little, Brown and Co., 1987), LIx, page 29. John Burchard 9 I aimed my pebble, but myself Was all the one that fell. Was it Goliath was too large, Or only I too small? Since no larger stones are to be cast at this target during this Convoca- tion, may I be pardoned the venture of one little pebble. There has perhaps never been a time in the history of man when his formal art has seemed to require more literary annotation. Certainly the great masses of Bach, the pictorial sculptures of the Gothic west fronts, the frescoes of the fifteenth century, needed no such explana- tion even to the common mind; certainly the secular painting of the later centuries was equally self-explanatory.” This poses a troublesome question. The contemporary artist, if he adopts some form of realism, is either content with banal restatements of relatively unimportant subjects or portrays for us concepts which are clearly frightening; if he flees to abstraction he uses symbols which, unlike those of primitive man, are no longer common currency. If non- objective painting is to be taken simply as a matter of pleasing decora- tion, this too suggests a low level of art significance. Returning once to the frightening canvases, they are disturbing no matter how one chooses to interpret them. If, as art has often been, these paintings constitute the sharpest interpretation of our time, then we are suffering unwittingly a mass neurosis or a cult of ugliness from which escape would seem difficult. If, again, as artists have often done, the painters are foretelling with amazing foresight a near future, the * On the other hand, the argument is frequently made that any advanced form of expression in a highly developed civilization is bound to be aimed at an esoteric few and incomprehensible to the rest. This is one of the oldest bases for controversy in the field of aesthetics. These strictures on modern art were not easy for the speaker to make since he has long been its protagonist, and numbers many more personal friends among the “moderns” than among the “eclectics.” It may well have been the most important point in the address insofar as it is the only ref- erence of this sort in the Convocation, save Bixler’s comment on it (page 204). But it went virtually unnoticed in the press, which rarely has time to deal with “static” ideas. The Worcester Gazette (Mass.), however, in its issue of April 2 and in an editorial entitled, “The Scientists Ask Themselves a Question,” coupled Compton's comment on the number of people an average man would know (page 17) with these lines about art, ending with the words which follow shortly about “mass neurosis,” and went on to say: “He didn't add, but might have, that our civilization has produced a situation in which more than half our hospital beds are occupied by people with mental disease of some kind.” [I am not sure that I would have, I wouldn’t know whether this was because our culture had produced a real increase in mental patients, or be- cause we had reached a stage where we were interested in mental disease and able to do something about it beside consigning the flagrant cases to Bedlam. ED.] 10 State of Science implications are equally unpromising. Finally, if this art has nothing to do with reality, existing or forthcoming, then it indicates that artists, despairing of our culture, have already withdrawn themselves from it in the fashion of Epicurus. This also could be no cause for content. If, on the other hand, the trouble is entirely with the artists and not with the culture, this too is unpleasantly suggestive. It would mean that we are in a period, of which there have been others through history, when the creation of beauty has become a thing of negligible conse- quence. It would suggest that in one way or another our sense of the first-rate in matters of the spirit had decayed. This theme can and will be explored on the morrow and though approached from another point of view it should be relevant to the assessment of art, since art is, after all, but one facet of the spiritual attitudes of man. Regardless of the hypothesis, the conclusions from art of our time are not promising. But this result is surely not a consequence solely of the growth of science, or even principally such a consequence. It re- lates rather to the total morality of the time, of which, like art, though at the other pole, science is but a part. One more thing perhaps needs to be said about the relations of scientific progress to the meaning of art. Since the most primitive days there has never been a time in the history of man when it has been possible for art and music to come so fully into the life of every man. The common man of the Middle Ages or of the Renaissance was chained to his locale; he might participate freely enough in the local riches where there were any, but he was at the mercy of his geography. And with the growth of secular art and personal patronage, and above all of the museum and the art gallery and the concert hall, art and music became steadily and more the privilege of the few. Now applied science through developments in photography, printing and electronics has made it a common experience, in the Western World at least, for any man to be able to see in his home first-rate reproductions of painting and to hear first-rate reproductions of music. It would be unimaginative to insist too firmly on the fact that they are reproductions and ipso facto inferior. Though this opportunity has been partly embraced, it can hardly be alleged that it has been exploited as a major aspect of our cultural life. The great popular art of today is quite likely advertising art and not gallery painting. The great popular music of today is probably neither folk song nor great composition. In this failure both the artist and the entrepreneur would seem to share the blame. On the whole the best artists and composers seem not to have been prepared to em- John Burchard II brace the new media as their primary outlets, taking advantage both of the possibilities and of the limitations of the medium as great art has always done hitherto. Rather they have contented themselves with painting and composing originals for enjoyment in the old ways and have let the matter of reproduction be what it will. But it is likely that the artists themselves might have been more moved to work for the new popular media had they been more vigor- ously encouraged by those who manage the media, by the publishers of magazines, by the makers of records, by the designers of cinema, radio and television programs. There have been notable exceptions to this generalization and enough dramatic experiments to show what might have been the case. This again means one of two things; either the entrepreneurs are shrewdly right and have properly assessed the cul- tural instincts of our time, or they have disobeyed the cultural will of the people by their misinterpretation of that will.” We can scarcely determine the facts of these issues in these few minutes. But I have felt it worth while to elaborate this point because it shows so clearly how ridiculous it would be for society to demand of scientists and engineers that they take all the responsibility for the use of their discoveries and their designs. Should it have been expected, for example, that the men who made radio technically possible should thereupon also have insisted on taking charge of the use of radio, and somehow have devoted their time also to persuading the creative artists 16 In this connection the Editor had an opportunity but a few weeks later to discuss the movies as member of a panel including some of the leading and most thoughtful producers in Hollywood, “A Round Table on the Movies” (Life, June 27, 1949). The attitude of these enlightened producers was revealing. Desiring to make “better” pictures and proud of the few they had made, they nonethe- less took comfort in the excuse that the public, the exhibitors, the Legion of Decency, in short, every one but themselves, inhibited the rapid development of the motion picture as a powerful mass art medium. This comes down to blaming the contemporary culture. Yet it is pretty certain that the masses in any culture were not hurrying toward the dawn of a new art. More Athenians were probably to be found sitting on the curb, sucking their thumbs and waiting for something to turn up than walking in the Stoa or anticipating the next play by Aeschylus. Not every Italian in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was a Leonardo or a Cellini, or even appreciated the work of such men. The new factor is that cinema and radio are businesses as well as arts and have trouble saying which they want to be most. That the two things are not compatible has not in fact been demonstrated for certain. The attitude which the editor recalls was taken by one of the most progressive people at the Life panel, “The best pic- tures are those which make the most money,” is pretty discouraging; and it is hard to accept the notion that he believes it himself. This quotation was tomed down in Life to read, “The best pictures make money,” and this definition is perhaps be- yond cavil. Harold J. Laski's chapter “Press, Cinema and Radio in America” in his book The American Democracy (New York, The Viking Press, 1948), prejudiced as it is, certainly offers a sharper diagnosis of the movies than Life's Round Table. I2 State of Science to exploit the medium to their full benefit? Is it even plausible to sup- pose that the results would have been good, had the technological man gone off on this ridiculous tangent? The broader conclusions from an- alogy seem to me self-evident.” So we may return to our six questions which will be discussed to- morrow, with the aid of distinguished panels of men from all over the world, from universities, from business offices, and from the seats of government, men who have studied these problems long and wisely. We think there is good reason to hope that as you remember these days you may say with the poet, Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit.” The pattern of these meetings is simple and direct. Shortly we shall have an assessment of the accomplishments of science since the turn of the century, provided by a distinguished American physicist" who has rendered a varied and conspicuous service to his nation both in scientific and in non-scientific matters; this evening we shall examine the political panorama of the same period through the eyes of a hero” who could appropriately say, with Aeneas, “all of which I saw, and a great part of which I was.” Tomorrow we shall, with the aid of the panels, consider the questions just outlined; then on Saturday we shall set the milestone firm when we inaugurate Dr. Killian as the tenth president of this Institute. We are grateful to the many busy persons from so many lands who have been willing to leave their important affairs and come here to 17 This, of course, was the point of insisting earlier that worse things might come from science in the future than had in the past; with the corollary that if they turned out badly the responsibility would belong to scientists only as they were in- dividual citizens in the society and not because they were scientists. It took more than scientific knowledge about fission to make and use an atomic bomb. It took the representative will of the Allied or at least of the American society; it took hundreds of millions of dollars; and even millions of man-hours of labor by non- scientists who (and this could be frightening) were quite prepared to work on some mysterious “war winner” without having the foggiest notion of what it would be like or what it would do. (They could as easily have been working on a ma- chine for controlling thought, had there been such a machine, and might well have done so with equal lack of reserve.) And even if the atomic bomb is an evil thing (which is surely debatable), it could not become evil until the temptation it of- fered was too great and it was detonated over an enemy. The decision to do this was not a scientific decision, of course, and relatively few scientists had a share in making it. But there is nothing to suggest that scientists would have made a different decision from that of the society. 18 Vergil, Aeneid, Book 1, line 203. 19 Karl Taylor Compton. 20 Winston Spencer Churchill. 21. A common paraphrase of the literal translation. The original Latin reads, . . . quaeque ipse miserrima widi et quorum pars magna fui.” (Vergil, Aeneid, Book II, lines 4 and 5.) << Karl Compton 13 share their wisdom with us. We think there is reason to expect that when it is all over this may prove to have been another demonstration of the saying of Aristotle,” “Search for truth is in one way hard and in another easy, for it is evident that no one can master it fully, nor miss it wholly. But each adds a little to our knowledge of Nature, and from all the facts assembled there arises a certain grandeur.”” >k >k >k >k >k Dean Burchard then introduced the principal speaker, Dr. Comp- ton,” and handed him a translucent plastic gavel, symbolic of the fact that Dr. Compton would preside at the two subsequent General Assemblies. Dr. Compton's address, “Science at the Mid-Century,” fol- lows: KARL TAYLOR COMPTON As I contemplated the task of preparing for this occasion an evalua- tion of science at the mid-century, I quickly came to a conclusion which became more firmly established as I proceeded, and which I shall now demonstrate to you. It is that I am inadequate for the task. I am reminded, by analogy, of the negro sprinter who, when com- plimented on his running 100 yards in 9% seconds, replied: “I could run that race in 9 seconds if it wasn't for the longness of the distance and the shortness of the time.” I am handicapped by the bigness of the subject and the smallness of my capacity to do it justice. 22 This quotation from Aristotle, Met. A. 10:998 a. 30, is carved in Greek on the frieze of the building of the National Academy of Sciences at 2101 Constitution Avenue N.W., Washington, D. C. 28 On this general point The Christian Science Monitor (Boston, Mass.) for Thursday, March 31, 1949, said: “Leading world thinkers and men of affairs from widely scattered points of the globe have converged on Cambridge, Mass., for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Mid-Century Convocation. “They have taken leave of their desks as statesmen, natural scientists, newspaper editors, philosophers, industrialists, and college professors and presidents to give their views on the social implications of 20th century progress in natural sci- €IlC6. . . . “. . . It may be asked just where all this talking will lead. Surely the mere dis- cussion of these challenges—even by speakers of recognized competence—will not solve the world's complaints. “But the Convocation is providing free men with an unusual opportunity to ex- change views and even encourage each other in the individual pursuit of world improvement. Dedication to this end, backed up with ‘know-how, is nothing to be dismissed lightly.” 24 For a brief biography of Compton, see Biographical Notes, page 517. 14 State of Science Were I a Man from Mars, visiting our planet à la Orson Welles,” I should have certain advantages. In the first place I should undoubt- edly be very intelligent, else I could not have contrived to make the journey and land safely. In the second place I could view this scene objectively. For the attempt to stand off, in time or space, and survey objectively our accomplishments and our shortcomings is a difficult one. Our sincerest efforts toward objectivity are unconsciously colored, not only by our own convictions and philosophy, but by those fields to which we have allied ourselves, so that the statesman tends to view everything as a political problem, the priest, as a spiritual one, the economist, as a social one, and the scientist, as a problem for his labora- tory. Nor am I, as we shall see later, any exception to this rule. But for the moment, let us look at the world through the eyes of the Man from Mars. This, his latest invasion, is timed for the rounding of the mid-century, an accounting time when one tends to review the past for the progress made to date and to contemplate the future specula- tively as to what may lie ahead. Let us suppose our Martian had prepared himself for his trip by a study of history. He would first of all be struck by the long existence of the earth itself as a physical entity in contrast to the brief span of time in which man has played a significant role, an estimated two or three billions of years for the earth and a brief million and a half for man. He would be further astonished by the tiny fragment of time we call “history” in contrast to the endless millennia of prehistory. He would note that all that modern man knows of prehistoric man has been cleverly deduced from the mute evidence left by his ancestors, often hidden in caves and dry river valleys. And finally, he could not fail to be astonished by the unequal march of history itself—the long eras during which man fought and struggled and moved along, to the slow pedestrian pace of two to four miles per hour—in contrast to this cen- * Referring to an event of October 30, 1938, still fresh in the memories of the audience but fading rapidly. Orson Welles, then at the height of his fame, director of the Mercury Theatre, at 8 P.M. E.S.T. from CBS in New York broadcast a radio script describing an invasion of America by Martians with very superior technical equipment. The script was based on H. G. Wells' War of The Worlds. It was ex- ceptionally graphic and by reference to actual places in New Jersey had a seeming authenticity that befuddled millions of listeners who tuned in late and who never bothered to check by turning to another station. Near panic resulted, followed by a spate of comment including much on the responsibility of radio. For a full text of the script, a full analysis of the event and an investigation and comment on the º see The Invasion from Mars, by Hadley Cantril (Princeton University Press, 1940). Karl Compton 15 tury in which he has accelerated his pace until it has exceeded the speed of sound.” Our Martian's perusal of history would have acquainted him with the various stages of civilization and culture through which man has passed—the nomadic civilization of the early Semitic tribes, the intel- lectual ages of Greece and Rome, the primitive agrarian culture of the middle ages, the emergence of the crafts and guilds, the cultural ren- aissance of the western world, and the rise of exploration and sea travel. And finally, he would view with some astonishment, no doubt, the in- dustrial revolution of the last hundred years and its kaleidoscopic im- pact on the succeeding decades. But he would be unprepared, I think, in his global survey, for the strange inconsistencies and incongruities of the modern world. Having observed in his study of history a slow progression through nomadic, agrarian, handicraft, and industrial stages of economy, he would likely be surprised to find examples of all these stages still extant in various parts of the world. Or, if he had been particularly interested in the social and political emergence of man, how would he account for the vestigial remains of ancient tyranny, the oppressive burden of auto- cratic rule, still existing side by side with the democracies of the modern world? In short, to borrow a figure from the biologists, he would find our present-day civilization the phylogenesis of human history. We might assume that this Mid-Century Convocation on the Social Implications of Scientific Progress, which opens today, has convened for the purpose of explaining to the Man from Mars the achievements, the trends, the problems and the anomalies of our times. And in so do- ing perhaps we shall be able to gain for ourselves a better understand- ing of the multiplicity of forces which have a bearing on our lives, and so achieve a better orientation for the resolution of those discords which threaten further progress. For my part, I am happy to be today the special pleader for the role of science in modern society. For I hold that science and technology are largely responsible for much that we find good in the world, and are capable of being the common denominator of many things we seek to accomplish in the decades ahead. To our visitor from Mars I would point out that the scientist and engineer are busy not only in the laboratory and library, but in many strange places on, above and below the surface of the earth. On one of * Churchill was not altogether confident that this speed meant anything. See page 55. I6 State of Science the highest mountain peaks in America one group of scientists meas- ures the effects of cosmic radiation, while many feet below the surface of the earth, in a dark tunnel or at the bottom of a lake, other scientists check on the cosmic bullets that pierce the surface of the earth. In bathyspheres, as strange in appearance as though they themselves had come from Mars, men try new fathoms of the ocean depths. And mis- siles of extraordinary shape and size hurtle hundreds of miles above the earth to seek new data on the upper atmosphere and the spheres that lie above it. So that if to our neighbor, Mars, we appear as a race of ants, busy with a complex and remarkable division of labor, we must also appear as the possessors of an extraordinary intellectual curios- ity—examining every aspect of our tiny globe and then projecting our- selves beyond it into the infinities of space. The marvels thus uncovered have been so numerous and so dazzling in recent years that we have come to accept each new announcement with a certain complacency—almost indifference—as though nothing were to be wondered at. Yet these things to which we adjust ourselves so quickly as to be almost unconscious of change, and which we quickly come to count as necessities and “rights” of life, are often things which were entirely unknown to our grandparents or our par- entS. It is not inappropriate, then, that we should take stock, at the mid- century, of exactly where we do stand in scientific achievement, and what is yet to be accomplished. For the scientist is not apt to find him- self in the predicament of Alexander the Great, who wept because there were no more worlds to conquer. We shall see, I think, that much needs to be done on an ever-widening scale toward meeting the physical needs and opportunities facing mankind, and that science is responsive, also, to those who see in it a method of approach to the deeper social problems of our times. In assessing the status of science and society today, it is a tempta- tion to use as a point of comparison the middle of the last century. Politically, the world then turned in an aura of unrest, not unlike that in which we today find ourselves. The revolutions which had swept across central Europe in 1848, with an upsurge of liberalism and self- determination, had been succeeded by counter-revolutions and strong reaction in 1849 and 1850. To those seekers of freedom who had sought to introduce new concepts of human rights into the ancient monarchies of Europe, it must have seemed that their work and sacrifices had been in vain. The efforts for a democratic federation of states in Ger- many had failed; Austria had regained autocratic domination of cen- Karl Compton 17 tral Europe; and the progress that had been made in Italy had been lost in the tide of reaction. Men like Garibaldi, Lamartine and Louis Kossuth became the dis- placed persons of their day, and many of them sought refuge in the United States. Yet though all may have seemed lost to these valiant liberals, the receding tide of revolution had left its mark, and the smell of change was in the air. In Great Britain Queen Victoria had only just completed the first decade of her long reign. Things were relatively stable politically, and the industrial revolution had passed its first stage. The long train of miserable social conditions which the first impact of the machine age had brought to the working classes had only begun to be ameliorated. But thanks to the zeal of social reformers and enlightened industrialists, such as Robert Owen, Britain was learning how better to utilize this vast new giant in its midst and, above all, was coming to realize that economic stability was intimately associated with well-being, and that increased ability to produce on the part of working people was basic to any improvement in their standards of living. It is hard for us now to realize from what depths these living stand- ards have risen thanks to the applications of science which produced the machine age. Just prior to the introduction of steam power, men, women and children labored between fourteen and sixteen hours a day in poorly equipped factories, enjoyed no transportation of any kind, lived in windowless and unheated houses, and could not afford the luxury of candlelight because candles were taxed. Even the least fas- tidious today would be horrified at the unhygienic conditions which everywhere prevailed in the absence of even the most primitive types of sanitary facilities. In the long, six-day weeks there was neither money nor leisure for any kind of recreation. The average number of a man's acquaintances during his entire lifetime was of the order of only a hundred. Intellectual and cultural activities among the poor were un- heard of. The rate of infant mortality was enormous and estimated life expectancy was about thirty years.” Moves to better these condi- tions can be traced in part to the strong emotional appeal of such tales as Oliver Twist, Bleak House and Martin Chuzzlewit.* * See Notestein's comment, page 97. Speaking of Asia, he reminds us that the risk of death there today, in a normal year, is such that there is but a 50–50 chance of living thirty-five years. The Asiatic situation today is thus similar to that de- scribed by Compton for western Europe in 1850. * This raises the question whether technological advance, economic power (not divorceable from technological advance, of course) or social will is most responsible for improvement of conditions. The best guess is that they go hand in hand, will 18 State of Science In 1850 the first industrial exposition in the world was held in the Crystal Palace in London under the patronage of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort. For the United States, which abounded in its great expanses of un- exploited land and endless national resources, there were no very diffi- cult adjustments to make to get into the swing of the industrial revolu- tion. It was just coming into full stride as a nation. Politically the sec- tional strife between the abolitionist north and the slave-holding south had come to an uneasy lull, based upon the compromise of 1850. For the time being, violently partisan points of view were submerged in the common desire to take advantage of a rapidly expanding economy. Arthur M. Schlesinger, in his chapter on Mid-Century America, writes as follows concerning that mid-century economy:” The amount of capital invested in manufacturing (including fisheries and mines) doubled, totaling more than a billion dollars on the eve of the Civil War. First in order of importance was the making of flour and meal, then boots and shoes, cotton textiles, and lumber products, with clothing, machinery, leather and woolen goods forging rapidly to the fore. In 1849, for the first time, the patents granted for new inventions passed the thou- sand mark, to reach nearly six times that number in 1860. He also points out that: “Of the new mechanisms employed in in- dustry the census officials in 1860 characterized the sewing machine as 'altogether a revolutionary instrument.’ ” From where we stand today, it is difficult to realize that a century ago perhaps the most significant tool in American industry was the sewing machine. With respect to science and invention, the world at the last mid-cen- tury stood at the threshold of far-reaching and significant discoveries which were to render the ensuing century unparalleled in human prog- TeSS. Whitehead has observed that the greatest invention of the nine- teenth century was the invention of the method of invention. He goes on to say,” “In order to understand our epoch, we can neglect all the details of change, such as railways, telegraphs, radios, spinning ma- chines, synthetic dyes. We must concentrate on the method in itself; that is the real novelty, which has broken up the foundations of the with capacity, and that one is useless without the other. The citation of Dickens, however, brings the artist into the scene. For it was the artist and not the engi- neer who stirred the public mind. * Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Political and Social Growth of the United States, 1852–1933 (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1933), page 4. 89 Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1926), page 141. Karl Compton 19 old civilisation. The prophecy of Francis Bacon has now been fulfilled; and man, who at times dreamt of himself as a little lower than the angels, has submitted to become the servant and the minister of na- ture.” In physics, at the last mid-century, the scientific world stood firmly on the solid foundation of Newtonian mechanics, unaware that just ahead a series of events was taking shape which would effect a revolu- tion in traditional thinking. In electricity, the basis had been laid by Franklin and Volta, while Oersted, Faraday and Henry had shown the relation between electricity and magnetism. Fresnel had established the wave theory of light, and Joule had just proved the equivalence of heat and work. But in 1850 the great evolution of the science of physics was about to begin. Dr. Robert A. Millikan summarized these events last year on the occasion of the Centennial of the American Association for the Advancement of Science by mentioning three great advances: (1) the establishment by Joule, Kelvin, Mayer and Helmholtz of the first and second laws of thermodynamics; (2) the quantitative proof of the ki- netic theory of gases by Clausius, Boltzmann and Maxwell; and (3) the publication by Maxwell in 1867 of his classic paper on electromagnet- ism. Millikan calls Maxwell the greatest ornament of his age and points out that “Maxwell's book has created the present age of electricity in much the same way in which Newton's Principia created, a hundred years earlier, the mechanical age in which we are still living.” ” 31 Robert A. Millikan, “The Progress of Physics from 1848 to 1948,” Science, Vol. 108, No. 2081 (September 3, 1948), page 231. Note, however, that others would regard this as a new age. See, for example, Norbert Wiener's division: “The thought of every age is reflected in its technique. The civil engineers of ancient days were land-surveyors, astronomers, and navigators; those of the seven- teenth and early eighteenth centuries were clockmakers and grinders of lenses. . . . The chief technical result of this engineering after the model of Huyghens and Newton was the age of navigation, in which for the first time it was possible to compute longitudes with a respectable precision, and to convert the commerce of the great oceans from a thing of chance and adventure to a regularly understood business. It is the engineering of the mercantilists. “To the merchant succeeded the manufacturer, and to the chronometer, the steam engine. From the Newcomen engine almost to the present time, the central field of engineering has been the study of prime movers. Heat has been converted into usable energy of rotation and translation, and the physics of Newton has been supplemented by that of Rumford, Carnot, and Joule. Thermodynamics makes its appearance, a science in which time is eminently irreversible; and although the earlier stages of this science seem to represent a region of thought almost without contact with the Newtonian dynamics, the theory of the conservation of energy and the later statistical explanation of the Carnot Principle or second law of thermody- namics or principle of the degradation of energy—that principle which makes the maximum efficiency obtainable by a steam-engine depend on the working tem- 20 State of Science The century drew to a close with four very great discoveries which have profoundly affected our own times. They are: (1) Roentgen's discovery of x-rays in 1895; (2) Becquerel's discovery of radioactivity in 1896; (3) J. J. Thomson's demonstration in 1897 of the electron as a fundamental constituent of all the atoms of the universe; and (4) the quantum theory of radiation enunciated by Planck in Berlin in 1900. During the period in which such strides were being made in physics, the other sciences, notably chemistry, biology and medicine, were not standing still. But, whereas research in physics had enjoyed a steady growth for the two centuries preceding the opening of the nineteenth, the other sciences lagged somewhat in their development. This was partly because in both chemistry and biology there had been a strong tendency to cling to the classical teachings of the past. But, more sig- nificantly, progress in these fields and in medicine also was dependent to a large extent on the tools and processes being evolved by modern physics. If one were to review even a partial list of the great names in the growth of chemistry prior to this century, it would be necessary to mention the Norwegians, Guldberg and Waage, who stated the law of mass action; the great Swedish chemist, Arrhenius, who advanced the theory of electrolytic disassociation; and the American, Willard Gibbs, whose phase rule contributed so much to the development of industrial chemistry. There would be the Russian, Mendelyeev, who first classified the elements in the periodic table, and the Polish Marie Sklodowska who, with her French husband, Pierre Curie, made the important dis- covery of radium. Von Liebig and Wöhler would stand for organic chemistry, and mention should be made of Hofmann, who may be re- garded as the father of the German dye industry. To aspiring young scientists of today it should be of interest to note that one of Hofmann's students, W. H. Perkin, a boy of seventeen, is credited with discovering the first synthetic dye. The chemical industry in the United States to- day owes much of its start to basic work in dyes and synthetics which was done in Germany prior to World War I. peratures of the boiler and the condenser—all these have fused thermodynamics and the Newtonian dynamics into the statistical and the non-statistical aspects of the same science. “If the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries are the age of clocks, and the later eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries constitute the age of steam-engines, the present time is the age of communication and control.” Norbert Wiener, Cyber- netics; or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (Cambridge, Mass., The Technology Press, M.I.T.; New York, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; Paris, Hermann et Cie, 1948), pages 49–50. Karl Compton 21 The emphasis which modern industry and modern warfare also have laid upon physical sciences has tended to obscure somewhat in the public eye the less spectacular advances of biology and medicine. The use of atomic power for both constructive and destructive purposes has greater interest for the public imagination than that mysterious process by which green plants convert the energy of the sun into the substance of life. But who can say whether the answer to the secret of photo- synthesis may not have more far-reaching effects on our lives and on those of generations to come? C. E. Kenneth Mees, whose book, The Path of Science,” presents a succinct review of the growth of scientific ideas, places the beginning of modern biology in 1838 with the publication by two Germans, Schleiden and Schwann, of the cell theory. Biological sciences developed enormous impetus from the publica- tion in 1859 of Darwin's Origin of Species, but Darwin died without ever learning of the important work of Gregor Mendel, whose great study of heredity shed such interesting light on Darwin's theories. The science of genetics, which rests upon the foundation so brilliantly laid by Mendel, owes much to the Belgian zoölogist Beneden, who discov- ered the double sets of chromosomes in each nucleus except the repro- ductive cells. It was also in this latter half of the nineteenth century that the great German pioneer bacteriologist, Robert Koch, discovered the bacilli of anthrax and tuberculosis, that the great French chemist, Louis Pasteur, did his pioneering work on germs and ferments, and the British Lord Lister developed antiseptic surgery. Astronomy at the end of the nineteenth century was largely observa- tional, with the discovery and cataloging of stars and nebulae, examina- tion of the appearance of sun and planets, and precise calculations of orbits. Stellar spectra and brightness were measured with routine per- sistence but without interpretive theories to guide and give significance to the observations. In the foregoing sketch of science up to the beginning of our twen- tieth century I have made no attempt at complete coverage; I have even omitted entire fields of science, like geology and psychology. I have not discussed practical applications, like engineering and medi- cine. I have only used these few examples to serve as “springboards” for the jump into the twentieth century, in which scientific progress has forged ahead with ever-increasing acceleration, and in which the fields 82 C. E. Kenneth Mees, The Path of Science (New York, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1947). 22 State of Science of science, hitherto almost separate in their development, have merged more and more toward a single all-inclusive and all-interrelated Science of the Forces and Materials of Nature. The physicists and the chemists both started their twentieth-century research with the atom. The physicists have looked into the atom to discover how it was constructed and how its parts behaved. The chem- ists piled atoms together to form molecules of all degrees of complexity. The work of each reacted on the other, and physicists had to learn more chemistry and chemists more physics. And the discoveries of each provided new tools for both. The major interest of physical science in the first dozen years of the century was in the attempt to explain natural phenomena by the be- havior of electrons under the influence of electric forces. Such theories were very successful for some phenomena, and had some very impor- tant practical applications, namely our entire modern electronics in- dustry. But the electron alone was far from adequate to account for the universe. Then Lord Rutherford proved that each atom has a heavy nu- cleus of positive electricity surrounded by electrons. Moseley in Eng- land proved by x-rays that these atomic nuclei are characterized by simple numbers: 1 for hydrogen, 2 for helium, 8 for lithium, and so on up to 92 for uranium, and these numbers were soon identified with the electric charges on the nuclei or the number of electrons outside the nuclei in the respective atoms. Thus quantitative meaning was given to the periodic table of the chemists. Next, Bohr in Denmark and Sommerfeld in Germany applied the quantum theory to the Ruth- erford-Moseley atom and found the basis for the explanation of the spectra of light and x-rays. Henceforth spectroscopy became the most powerful tool for further atomic structure research, and such research became a major preoccupation of physicists in the 1920's. But all during this time other scientists were experimenting with radioactivity, an interesting and puzzling subject whose only practical uses had been for making watch dials luminous in the dark and treating with moderate success certain types of cancer. But when Rutherford in 1920 succeeded in transmuting one chemical element into another by bombarding it with fast particles from a radium source, and thus made real the ancient dream of the alchemists, a new era in science opened up. It opened slowly at first, and it was not until 1931 that such a transmutation was effected by the use of a high-voltage machine. This was done by two pupils of Rutherford's in Cambridge University. In that same year Ernest Lawrence at the University of California Karl Compton 23 invented the cyclotron, which has proved the most productive of all the atom-smashing machines to date. Also in the same year Chadwick in England discovered another very important subatomic particle, the neutron. And still in that same year Fermi in Italy showed that neu- trons are extremely potent in producing atomic transformations in the atoms which they strike. The quick result of the atomic nuclear research stimulated by these discoveries was the new discovery, or production in the laboratory, of more than twice as many species of atoms as had been previously known to exist. Furthermore, although it was formerly thought that only a very few of the heaviest types of atoms were radioactive, it is now possible in these “atom-smashing” machines to produce at least one radioactive modification, or isotope, of every kind of chemical atom, and several radioactive modifications in many cases. Now we jump to the fateful time, just ten years ago, when the dis- covery of nuclear fission opened the way to the atomic bomb and atomic energy. In early January, 1939, two Germans, Hahn and Strass- mann, found that an isotope of barium is produced when uranium is bombarded by neutrons. This news promptly reached Copenhagen, where it was given the true explanation as being a hitherto unsus- pected phenomenon, nuclear fission, by two refugee scientists, Robert Otto Frisch and Lise Meitner, who had fled Germany to work with the great Danish scientist, Niels Bohr. On January 19, Bohr arrived in the United States to deliver some lectures, and brought with him the news of this discovery of nuclear fission. By January 26 this discovery had been confirmed and extended in four laboratories in the United States, in Copenhagen and in France, and there had been a scientific conference on the subject in Washing- ton. All of this had happened within the short space of less than one month. By the end of a year more than 100 scientific articles on nuclear fission had been published. Then, in 1940, the clouds of war shrouded the further developments in a degree of secrecy never before imposed in the field of science. This secrecy was at first entirely self-imposed by the scientists them- selves, who conceived of the military applications of nuclear energy before either officialdom or industry even knew of the existence of this new phenomenon. The project barely survived the skepticism with which it was initially received by many of the non-nuclear scientists and engineers who became concerned with it, but by the end of 1942 its potentialities had become well established and the great Manhattan Project was undertaken, with close collaboration between the care- 24 State of Science fully selected scientific groups in the United States, the United King- dom and Canada. The rest of the story is now written into the history of the dramatic ending of the war with Hiroshima and Nagasaki; of the efforts to turn atomic energy into an instrument, through international control, for the maintenance of permanent peace; and of the current work under our Atomic Energy Commission to develop peacetime uses of atomic energy and radioactivity which are already beginning to influence the processes of industrial production and medical practice, and to open entirely new fields of exploration in chemistry, geology, metallurgy, physiology, botany and agriculture. On the horizon, still uncertainly, loom the possibilities of useful production of power for ship or air- craft propulsion or other special applications of heat and power. In this story we see the sudden merging of the results of many lines of investigation which had previously proceeded almost independently: fifty years of research on radioactivity; twenty years' development of high-voltage machines; the equivalence of mass and energy announced by Einstein as early as 1905 as part of his theory of relativity; several decades of study of cosmic rays; fifty years' development of electronics; the whole modern art of chemical separation; the science of radiology, whose impetus had come from medical applications of x-rays and the rays from radium; the most modern refinements of metallurgy, of chem- istry, of electrical engineering. And the practical consummation of the atomic energy objectives has called upon the highest skills in engineer- ing design and instrumentation. It is truly an exciting pictureſ I might have described many other scientific achievements of our century, such as the synthesis of complicated organic chemicals; the developments in aerodynamics or those like radio, radar and television in the field of communications; the exciting new discoveries of hor- mones and their influence on physiological and emotional processes in animals and man; or the growth of the automobile industry which has so profoundly influenced our personal lives and our business opera- tions. But I elected to dwell at length on this story of atomic energy for several reasons. It is the most striking scientific and technological development of our century; it best illustrates the methods of scientific discovery and its practical application; from it can be drawn many les- sons, some of which I would mention.* * The next few paragraphs constitute, in the mind of the Editor, the most im- portant message in the Compton address. The press seized on the “scientific Mar- shall Plan,” sometimes called the “Compton Plan,” as the point of emphasis. But these conclusions as to the nature of scientific progress, read from a lifetime of sensitive observation by a man who stood at the center of scientific progress and Karl Compton 25 The first lesson is the coöperative character of scientific progress, de- pending on the stimulating interplay of ideas and the accumulation of facts and skills contributed by many scientists. In my survey of nuclear science progress I mentioned only some of the most significant steps in this progress, but back of it all and filling in the gaps was the work of some thousands of other research workers. A second lesson is the unpredictable and uncontrollable origin of the new ideas and discoveries which produce scientific progress. It was to emphasize this point that I mentioned the origins of the major dis- coveries which led up to the atomic energy program. Many scientists from many parts of the world contributed the building blocks which, piled each on the ones below, completed the structure. The fact that it was done so quickly is explained by the quick and free channels of communication, often supplemented by personal acquaintance, which have traditionally characterized the scientific fraternity the world over. It is more than tragic that any nation should seek to restrain the great flow of knowledge across the world or, within national boundaries, should seek to direct its course or make it subservient to the current politics of the state.* That such a policy will ultimately stifle the birth and development of scientific ideas is scarcely open to dispute. For no- where more than in science is Donne's statement true: “. . . everyman is . . . a part of the maine,” “” and the killing off of scientific ideas in one area impoverishes the world. Engineering developments can usually be carried through in accord- ance with a plan carefully prepared in advance, and often this can be done most effectively by a competent self-contained group like a com- pany or a bureau. But scientific discovery, in its very nature and as proved by experience, does not progress according to preconceived plan and is stifled if attempts are made to control the free initiative of the research workers or to limit the freedom of their communication. who consistently occupied positions of administrative scientific leadership, these conclusions, to which no scientist would demur, contain the kind of understanding of the nature of science which the intelligent layman needs to have if a demo- cratic Society is to make wise decisions as to how to foster a continued scientific progress. Such understanding is far more important for most of us than general knowledge of the facts which science has uncovered. It is worthwhile as well to ponder how far they are applicable to other sorts of human action. The italicizing of these passages is by the Editor. * It would be natural to draw the facile conclusion that the speaker was think- ing only of the U.S.S.R., and, for example, the Lysenko affair. But it is worth- while imagining how far the statement may apply as well to current nationalist or “practical” attitudes, including those of the United States. 35 See Chapter III, footnote 18. 26 State of Science This is one reason why most of the fundamental new scientific dis- coveries have originated in the free environment of the universities, rather than in the quite properly more controlled atmosphere of in- dustrial or governmental laboratories. When, however, it comes to practical applications and engineering developments, then thorough planning and control are essential to efficiency. Thus the third lesson which I would draw is this: to the extent that we wish fundamental science to advance, we must maintain the maximum of opportunity for competent scientists to follow their own bent and to communicate freely with each other. The fourth lesson is, at first sight, in apparent contradiction with the last, but actually it is not. It is that teamwork has proved extraordina- rily effective in producing results. To a certain extent, of course, team- work implies control, which I have just decried. But what I mean by a team is a group of competent and imaginative project leaders whose skills and knowledge supplement each other and are supported by the technical assistance required to carry out their ideas. Such groups actu- ally provide the maximum opportunity for quick initiative and for stimulating exchange of ideas. As science becomes more complex, or as its practical applications come more and more to the fore, the ad- vantages of such team organization become more pronounced. The fifth lesson, which needs no amplification, is the increasing ex- tent to which a basic advance in theory or technique in one branch of science is likely to provide new concepts, or new tools, which can open up new frontiers for exploration and exploitation in other fields of science or art. This is not a new idea. It was for this reason, for ex- ample, that the Rockefeller Foundation established, under the National Research Council, the great program of National Research Fellowships which were largely effective, within a decade or two, in raising the United States from a third-rate, perhaps a fourth-rate, to a first-rate position in science. The Rockefeller Foundation hoped, by this stimu- lating advance in the fundamental sciences, to uncover new avenues of approach to the medical sciences—a hope that has been brilliantly justi- fied. And another lesson which can be drawn comes from the realiza- tion that an astonishing proportion of today's leaders in American science, and of the project leaders who were the key men in our great scientific program during World War II, were men who had received their inspiration and training in independent research under this Na- tional Research Fellowship program. Let me now conclude this address by a look to the future. I might discuss this in terms of current scientific programs. I could describe Karl Compton 27 the race between the cosmic ray scientists who, from mountain top, airplane and balloon, seek to utilize the still unknown energies of the cosmos to search out even more of Nature's fundamental secrets of matter and energy, and the high-energy-machine scientists who, with Van de Graaff generator, cyclotron, betatron, and synchrotron, are re- producing cosmic ray phenomena in the laboratory. It remains to be seen which group can discover the most for the fewest millions of dollars.” This much can be said: both groups are meeting with excit- ing successes, and each stimulates and supplements the other. Or I could try to describe some of the opportunities for the use of radioactive chemical isotopes, produced by cyclotrons and atomic piles, as tools in other lines of research. Of this Dr. Shields Warren, Director of the Division of Biology and Medicine of the Atomic Energy Commis- sion, said at the Eighth Annual Science Talent Dinner in Washington this month: . an event, the scope of which can be but dimly appreciated, has re- cently occurred: the development of atomic energy. First, a revolutionary concept in physics has been developed, proved; active experimenta- tion as to its potentialities is well under way. Second, a method of tagging atoms by radioactivity so that chemical and biologic processes can be fol- lowed through in great detail is now at hand. Through this radioactivity accurate measurement of minute quantities is now feasible, for as little as one million billionth of an ounce of radio phosphorus may be detected. Third, advances in knowledge of biologic effects of radiation permits chang- ing some hereditary characteristics in plants or animals. Or I could venture on some speculations on the possible future role of synthetically manufactured hormones which, administered like in- sulin to a diabetic, could control the tendency to cancer, or produce a * The spirit of competition has never been absent from science, else scientists would have been less than human. History offers many examples. The long-running disputes between Newton and Hooke and the debate as to whether Leibnitz or Newton had invented the calculus are but extra-dramatic examples. It is disad- vantageous if it leads to attitudes which will not admit the results scored by an- other (national, racial, or related to competing institutions) and this has some- times happened, notably in applied fields. But even this liability, this block to the highest attitudes of science, is obviously preferable to an official position from which there can be no appeal. It remains to be demonstrated whether the theoretically possible competitive attitude can be retained in the non-competitive state. What we know is that it has not been possible in the police states of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, or Shinto Japan. There is some evidence that it is not possible in the U.S.S.R. and if this be true it is perhaps the strongest asset of the democracies. All we know now is that it has been possible in states which have kept their hands off the management of science, as Compton's impressive roll call of the contributions of many different nationals will have made manifest. 28 State of Science race of giants, or turn a general into a pacifist,” or cure a schizophrenic. Or I might review the interesting theories of the universe. Is it finite; is it expanding; is it still being created; what maintains the heat of the stars and how old are they; what is their internal constitution and what forces and energies account for their condition? But such considerations are ruled out by the limitations of both my time and my knowledge. I shall therefore approach the future more as I introduced the past, in terms of some of the problems which face our society and in whose solution science may be able to assist. In view of the prodigious strides which science and technology have made in our century, what remains to be accomplished? From our own point of view the United States might appear to be at the summit of its industrial greatness. The young country which, in 1849, was sending its first railroads across an undeveloped territory and pouring eager thousands of its citizens into the frantic California gold rush, in 1949 has spread across a continent and developed the land from coast to coast. Its teeming agriculture has reached new heights of productivity, so that we have been able to feed not only ourselves but much of the war-torn world as well. Our industries thrive, the majority of our people are employed at good wages, and the chief danger seems to be that we may overextend ourselves and push prosperity beyond the point of stability. At a glance, this picture would not seem to leave much for our creative energies. A closer examination of the facts leaves less room for complacency. Not only do we have left to solve many problems of our own areas, but we have facing us also the inescapable fact of one world. Even if we were disposed to pursue our own destiny, unmindful of the rest of mankind, we have recognized that it is impossible to do so, and that our national good is strongly linked to the good of the rest of the world. This has been the philosophy underlying the Marshall Plan and much of our post-war thinking. One of our principal causes of concern, as scientists, is the grave in- terruption that foreign science suffered by the war, and we are anxious for its rehabilitation. The destruction of institutions and implements of ** No one who knows Compton and is familiar with his cordial relations with men of the General Staff can misunderstand this remark. He knows that generals are for the most part tomato-raising pacifists—the strategists, at least; the tacticians may have a different attitude. It is an interesting commentary on the vagaries of journalism that the remarks of a non-scientist on thought control were bait for hysterical speculation while the equally ominous suggestion by a better informed commentator, i.e., the possibility of use of hormones to change people's attitudes, could pass unnoticed. See page 6 and footnote 12. Karl Compton 29 learning has been a source of distress to scholars throughout all the ages, and American scientists have viewed with a sense of personal loss the destruction of libraries, laboratories, and other important tools of learning, as one of the sad by-products of the war. We should like to see foreign science restored to its pre-war vigor, not only in the interest of fundamental knowledge everywhere, upon which we and everyone else may draw, but also because of the way in which a healthy body of science can contribute to the economic and social recovery of all nations. To my way of thinking, it would be a helpful and legitimate thing if those countries whose progress in scientific research was most seriously disrupted by the war would see fit to include funds for the rehabilita- tion of those programs in their requests for United States aid under the provisions of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1948. I believe that such requests should be sympathetically received, since sound plans for economic development must rest upon technology supported by funda- mental research. It is not difficult to envisage the ultimate practical good to be derived from renewed investigation in such fields as: utiliza- tion of human resources, food and nutrition, medical sciences, chem- istry, physics, metallurgy, geology, meteorology, hydrology, engineer- ing, soil mechanics, etc. If only a small proportion of Marshall Plan funds were invested in this manner, I believe there can be no doubt that rich returns of a long-range nature in material matters and in good- will could be anticipated, beneficial alike to the countries concerned and to the United States.** The purposeful employment of science and technology to aid in eco- nomic reconstruction following a period of disaster is not a new thing. Louis XV established the first significant school for civilian education in engineering as part of a program prudently directed to restoring the French economy from the depression brought on by the extravagances of Louis XIV. In similar fashion, the great École Polytechnique was established in Paris in 1795 as part of the government's program of scientific and technical education to repair the economic ravages of the French Revolution. For a century, at least, L'Ecole Polytechnique was 88 This so-called “Compton Plan” is obviously the most important political point made by Compton, just as his five points relating to the progress of science were the most important philosophical passages. The press found this the leading idea in his address. The unfortunate journalistic situation whereby there are very few seri- ous evening newspapers in the United States made it inevitable that Churchill’s evening speech, also available to the morning press, would submerge the vitality of this idea so far as press items were concerned, save for a few leading papers, but this type of idea fortunately can be fostered without the benefit of headlines. 30 - State of Science the world's outstanding center of pure and applied science, and pro- foundly influenced French social and economic progress. In Germany, where the statesmen had a peculiar appreciation for the practical values of technological education, this type of school was established in part as a recovery program from the economic chaos brought on by the Napoleonic Wars, and in part as an aid in competing with Great Britain in industry and trade. The famous technical schools in Germany became the very foundation stone of its industrial progress, and of them. Whitehead has said: . . . the Germans explicitly realised the methods by which the deeper veins in the mine of science could be reached. They abolished haphazard meth- ods of scholarship. In their technological schools and universities progress did not have to wait for the occasional genius, or the occasional lucky thought. Their feats of scholarship during the nineteenth century were the admiration of the world. This discipline of knowledge applies beyond tech- nology to pure science, and beyond science to general scholarship. It repre- sents the change from amateurs to professionals.” Closer to our own day, we have the admirable example of the Brit- ish, who, following World War I, established the million-pound re- search fund for stimulating renewed industrial activity. This marked the beginning of a great program of scientific research, under private management but with government support, which, in the results of fundamental research and creative invention, has been claimed to ex- ceed that of the United States, at least on a per capita basis. It follows, then, that one important task confronting science and technology today is to assist in rescuing worldwide economy from the setback suffered by the war. This applies not only to the other war- devastated countries, but also to our own country, where also the war seriously diminished the normal supply rate of new scientists and en- gineers and of new scientific discovery for those stockpiles of trained 39 A. N. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, page 142. On the other hand, some close students of German education would find that this idea was not a good one. Taking Whitehead by his own metaphor, followers of sports know that when athletes are equal, and they sometimes are, amateurs will beat professionals. Amateur armies have consistently defeated professional armies when the chips were down, at least up to now, but amateur generals (save perhaps Cromwell) have lost to professional generals with equal consistency. For a most serious consideration the reader would do well to peruse a close analysis of Ger- man (non-Nazi) educational theory and progress by a Convocation speaker, Fred- eric Lilge, entitled The Abuse of Learning (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1948). The Whitehead reference seems in part to contradict Compton's important second and third points (see pages 25, 26). Karl Compton 31 technologists and new ideas which should be our most important future aSSet. It is to be hoped that our leaders of public affairs, in government and business and the professions, will be no less far-sighted than were those statesmen of earlier days. The post-war interest in research shown by our military departments, the favorable prospects for a National Science Foundation, and above all the recently increased liberality of American industrial corporations in support of fundamental research within and without their organizations, are all encouraging signs. An aspect of such problems which is in the traditional spirit of American altruism, but which is also of long-range bearing on our own welfare, was ably stated by the President in point four of his In- augural Address when he said: * . we must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of Our Scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improve- ment and growth of underdeveloped areas. More than half the people of the world are living in conditions approach- ing misery. Their food is inadequate. They are victims of disease. Their economic life is primitive and stagnant. Their poverty is a handicap and a threat both to them and to more prosperous areas. For the first time in history, humanity possesses the knowledge and the skill to relieve the suffering of these people. Already notable steps along such lines have been undertaken by a number of industrial companies which have been convinced that their long-term profitable business in relatively undeveloped areas is closely linked to the improvement in the living standards of the populations of those countries, for reasons both economic and political. Hence we see skillful programs in progress,” not only to raise wages but, more im- portantly, to apply the most modern arts of medicine and public health, soil utilization, seed selection and agricultural technique, education and recreation for improving the health, prosperity and morale of the peoples with whom they deal. The more of this that is done, the better and safer the world will be. One of the lessons of history is that the improvement of man's physi- cal and environmental well-being does much to contribute to the elim- ination of political and social unrest, and that the reverse promotes revolution. We know also that the constructive applications of science 40 Harry S Truman; January 20, 1949. 41 Compton refers to the program of the United Fruit Company, and those of various oil companies as described by Robert P. Russell, Convocation speaker (see page 104), or of the International Basic Economy Corporation described by Nelson Rockefeller, Convocation speaker (see page 170). 32 State of Science do improve man's environmental well-being if the gains from science are fairly distributed among the people. Hence we see, in the program advocated by the President, not only a program of altruism but also of utilizing technology in the interests of political stability and peace.” This subject will be given expert treatment in one of the panel dis- cussions tomorrow. So, in fact, will many other goals of our current technological programs, about which I had originally thought of speak- ing. And I can obviously do little justice to much in my few remaining minutes. I would therefore simply state my credo and my conclusions by quoting two paragraphs from my recent Wallberg Lecture at the University of Toronto: * The people of our countries crave peace and security. They want pro- tection against the perils of Nature, like floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, and droughts; and against man-made perils of transportation, fire, and group violence. Labour strive for steady employment at higher wages, shorter hours, and more comfortable working conditions. They want the quality of goods to go up and prices to go down. People want better and more ade- quate housing. Those in business want larger profits. Governments, in our expanding civilization, need more tax money. Everybody wants better health. Those who think much beyond the present envisage ahead what I believe to be the greatest ultimate challenge to mankind, and that not many genera- tions in the future. It is the problem of maintaining our growing populations in the face of rapidly depleted natural resources without descent into a final world epoch of struggle for bare survival. If we were to take the time to examine into all these needs and desires of men we would discover two facts. One is that science and engineering have positive contributions to make to every one of these requirements. The other is even more striking. I believe that technological progress is the only com- mon denominator to them all—the only solution which can simultaneously satisfy these statements of human needs. Laws, ideologies, economic theories, ethics, and brotherly love can provide orderly distribution, reduce waste, and promote goodwill among men, but they can not create the wherewithal to satisfy all the apparently conflicting demands listed above. We must be prepared to take each step as it comes in these vast new fields that are opening before us. The fact that all the answers are not **An important commentary on this point is provided in the panel on Under- developed Areas, pages 147 and 157. Note the difference of opinion between Ryckmans, “Political science, as such, has nothing to do with economic advance- ment. Stable and efficient government have; but stable and efficient government is not synonymous with self government,” or “From the economic point of view, self government is no substitute for good government,” and the attitude of Mudaliar. Many other speakers called for the necessity for raising material stand- ards before expecting underdeveloped peoples to develop other qualities of ad- vancement; e.g., Contreras, page 268. ** Karl Taylor Compton, The Scientist and the Engineer, The Second Wallberg Lecture (Canada, The University of Toronto Press, January 11, 1949), page 21. Karl Compton 33 immediately at hand is no reason for pessimism. It is in the American spirit of things to want to accomplish everything overnight, and in view of past triumphs of technology perhaps we may be forgiven for being sanguine of success in this venture. In the long run, I think it is not likely that this confidence will be disappointed. In any event, today, as in every other time, the scientist still stands on the threshold of the unknown. Perhaps that is his greatest joy— what Huxley more than half a century ago called “the supreme delight of extending the realm of law and order ever farther towards the un- attainable goals of the infinitely great and the infinitely small, between which our little race of life is run.” 44 sk >k >k >k >k Dr. Compton concluded his address at about five o'clock and the vast audience spirited itself away, a few to dress for dinner but none to dine at leisure, for the unrelenting clock reminded all that in the mod- ern world of split-second radio scheduling they must be in their seats in the Boston Garden by eight forty-five if they were to hear the long- awaited address by Winston Spencer Churchill. 44 T. H. Huxley, The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century (New York, D. Appleton and Company, 1887), page 20. Reprinted from The Reign of Queen Victoria, a Survey of Fifty Years of Progress, Thomas Humphrey Wood, M.A., London, ed. CHA PTE R II The Twentieth Century—Its Promise and Its Realization tion, arrived in South Station, Boston, at six fifteen the morn- ing of Thursday, the thirty-first of March. His party of fifteen made up of family, friends, guards, secretaries and servants had been accommodated in two private cars, attached to “The Owl,” the New York, New Haven and Hartford's best overnight train from New York. At nine o'clock Dr. Compton called at the train with Edward L. Cochrane to welcome Mr. Churchill officially to M.I.T. and to con- duct him and his party to Mr. Churchill's Boston residence, the Ritz- Carlton Hotel, facing the Boston Public Garden. A crowd of some five thousand stood about the station and greeted the visitors with applause and shouts. The contingent of police was large and swept the party forward relentlessly; their determination was appropriate, for Mr. Churchill was in fine fettle and often slowed his gait to smile or to doff his black hat. He was armed with his cane, with his omnipresent cigar, and attired in sober business dress but without a bow tie. At the sta- tion entrance, the party entered limousines and under a siren-blowing motorcycle police escort was whisked to the hotel. Here the police had roped off a substantial area to restrain a second crowd. The wartime Prime Minister elected to dismount from his car on the street side, strode to the middle of the open area, acknowledged the cheers with lifted hat, a smile and a wave, and then disappeared from sight in the hotel, not to appear again for twelve hours. People are always busy at times like these. Someone had tied plac- ards on School Street parking meters, “Churchill Wants War—We Want Peace.” A Miss Norma Williams, from Rutland, Vermont, stu- dent at a local art school, had set up an easel and palette in the Public W. STON SPENCER CHURCHILL, the lion of the Convoca- * Vice-Admiral, U.S.N. (retired), now Head of the Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at M.I.T., Cochrane had had a distinguished war career as Chief of the Bureau of Ships, U. S. Navy. He was Chairman of the Convocation's subcommittee in charge of the movement of important guests. 34 Prelude 35 Garden across from the hotel. A sign on the easel read, “Reserved for W. Churchill.” Miss Williams said she thought Mr. Churchill might take a walk in the Garden. He did not, but Miss Williams got her name in the papers. Some of the papers got the story wrong,” and had the easel set up in Mr. Churchill's suite. There was a piano in this suite—wags said that it was there in case Mr. Truman should change his mind and drop in. Other things were in the news that morning. The mayor of Blenheim, Germany, Herr Josef Kuchenbauer, announced that he would forward to E. H. Huxley, mayor of the Royal Borough of Kensington, London, some walnut wood from a tree which had witnessed the historical victory of Mr. Churchill's ancestor in 1704.” Then the tree was just a sapling. Now this piece, twenty-eight inches long and two and one- half inches thick, would be made by Kensington into a baton copied after the one carried by John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, in the Blenheim affray. It would be presented to Winston Churchill later. President Truman, who had been having arguments about remodel- ing the White House, was suggesting that the remodeling commission make souvenirs out of the tons of old nails, charred timber, antique hardware and bricks which would be salvaged from the old White House and give them to any citizens who might apply. Britain announced a loan of thirty-six million dollars to Russia so that the U.S.S.R. could buy non-military supplies from the United Kingdom; Greek troops were again reported to be routing the guerrillas; President Truman again warned newsmen that a Federal deficit would be more dangerous to the economic welfare of the nation than in- creased taxes; the “Voice of America” had weathered a storm of in- quiry and an Advisory Commission on Information was recommending that the State Department's radio facilities be promptly expanded; Senator Taft was demanding that ECA funds be cut by ten per cent, and was voicing grave fears over the Atlantic Pact as the possible cause of a new world war (this he had done both in the Senate cham- ber and over the radio the night before); top leaders of the American Federation of Labor were meeting to gear their political unit, “Labor League for Political Education,” for a drive in the 1950 Congressional * For an accurate account see The Christian Science Monitor (Boston, Mass.), March 31, 1949. * Blenheim is a tiny village of 700 in the district of Swabia in Bavaria, situated on the left bank of the Danube some 30 miles from Ulm and a few miles below Hockstadt. At a battle fought there on August 18, 1704, the English and Austrians under Marlborough and Prince Eugene defeated the French and Bavarians under marshals Tallard and Marsin. 36 Twentieth Century elections; locally, the Pyramid Club craze had reached its peak and shared the headlines with Mr. Churchill's arrival; a Mrs. Hart, of Oklahoma City, a widow with a heart disease, who was asking how to spend her ten thousand dollars during the last year of her life, was still on the front page; ostriches in the Bristol, England, zoo were breaking their eggs as soon as they were laid; an armed pair had robbed a bank in nearby Leicester, Massachusetts; fifteen Catholic nuns had been beaten by bandits near Canton, China; as usual, several people had been killed in car crashes in Boston; Archbishop Cushing was warning against socialized medicine; the Massachusetts General Court “ was taking contradictory action on various anti-vivisection bills; the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox were preparing for the American League baseball season in Florida; Ed True, a druggist of Bath, Maine, was reported by Portland Express as finding Churchill's presence excuse for long-deferred closing of his house to let paper- hangers and painters in; the weather man predicted rain and snow for the evening, but was wrong; M.I.T.’s weather luck held and all the days of the Convocation were fair. Tragedy struck the Convocation in the morning, when a good friend of the Institute, Dr. Willard H. Dow, President of the Dow Chemical Company, together with Mrs. Dow, Mrs. Calvin Campbell, Pilot A. J. Bowie and Co-pilot Fred Clements, were killed as Dr. Dow's private plane, carrying him to the Convocation, crashed in Ontario, Canada. It was characteristic of Mr. Churchill that he was concerned and so- licitous when he saw this news, although he had never met Dr. Dow. But in all of these local and world events Boston seemed to stand still as it awaited the evening address. The local papers had all carried editorials welcoming Mr. Churchill. Their tone was, for once, unani- mous. The Boston Daily Globe summed it up under the heading, “Dis- tinguished Guest”: “For the third time, Winston Churchill, who might have been a Duke except for his love of fighting as an embattled Tory in the House of Commons, comes to Boston. His first appearance here in 1932 was in- cident to a lecture telling America what was wrong in the world. Events proved that he had made a correct estimate of the perils of our civiliza- tion. Then he came to Harvard in 1943 as a foremost leader in the most fearful war ever to drench this planet with blood. And today, as the principal guest and the chief speaker at the mid-century convocation of * The official term for the state legislature in the Commonwealth of Massachu- SettS. Prelude 37 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he will be listened to by countless millions all around the world. “Boston has always loved a fighter and welcomes Winston Church- ill as the hardest hitter and the ablest writer now in public life. There are many who beg to differ with him, but that fact will cheer him be- cause he has never sidestepped controversy. Whether ardent admirer, determined foe, or merely an interested bystander, all are agreed that Mr. Churchill is one of the great figures of this age. His coming here makes the occasion memorable for Boston, for Massachusetts, and for all New England.” Throughout the nation the anticipation and the speculation were in- tent. Trivial picketing had occurred in New York when the Queen Elizabeth docked, and pickets appeared again outside of Mr. Baruch's New York apartment, at the South Station in Boston and once again on the way to the Boston Garden, but all this was clearly perfunctory, almost good-humored." In the United States Senate, Senator Langer of North Dakota had made the accusation that Mr. Churchill had fought against the United States in Cuba in 1898. Mr. Churchill had promptly answered this charge. The answer had been read in the United States Senate by Senator Connally.” Even Mr. Churchill's politi- 5 The pickets were duly reported in a Reuter's dispatch which was printed in many British papers but the dispatch was as decorous as the pickets. It appeared in The Northern Daily Mail (West Hartlepool, England) and described the pickets scattered along the route to the Boston Garden as “several . . . carrying banners declaring ‘It is Time to Retire and ‘Tell Your Story to the Tories, Winnie.’” The Boston Post (Mass.), April 1, reported that these pickets were “well- dressed” and “in a single line.” The significance of pickets, however, may depend on how one looks at things. The Soviet Army newspaper in Berlin, Tägliche Rundschau, as reported in The Shields Gazette (South Shields, England), April 2, from an Associated Press message, asserting that Churchill went to the United States “to stir up the Ameri- can people for a new crusade against the Soviet Union and a new world war,” went on to find comfort in the thin, well-dressed line, saying that he had failed in this, that pickets who demonstrated against him in New York “showed him that the American common people want no war and that he should go home.” 6 See Congressional Record, Vol. 95, Part III, pages 3269, 3490, 3547, 3593, et seq. On March 28, 1949, the United States Senate was debating the Foreign Aid Bill. Senator Langer (Republican, North Dakota) interrupted Senator Jenner (Re- publican, Indiana) to ask whether he knew that during the Spanish-American War “the same Winston Churchill who brags that he is half American, took up arms for Spain, and fought against the United States, and did all he could to de- feat us?” The comment naturally reached the Smaller headlines and was brought to Churchill's attention. He wired to Senator Connally (Democrat, Texas), Chair- man of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as follows: “The statement made by Mr. Langer is entirely devoid of truth. I visited Cuba 38 Twentieth Century cal foes in America (he probably has few personal ones anywhere) were curious, perhaps apprehensive, as to what he would say. This speculation reached to great lengths. Most of the papers and probably most of the public were expecting that Mr. Churchill would make pronouncements on the world situation. And in the light of the foresight which he had revealed in his Zurich and Fulton speeches three years earlier, there was also considerable expectation that what he would say would be cosmic. This anticipation was quite as great in the United Kingdom as in the United States although expressed in more restrained terms. Typical per- haps of all the comment but quieter than most was that of the Wash- ington dispatch in The Times (London), reporting Mr. Churchill's din- ner with President Truman, on March 24: “In or out of office Mr. Churchill's popularity in the United States is undimmed. A crowd met him at the station yesterday, though the time of his arrival had not been announced, and further crowds watched him arrive for dinner and leave for the British Embassy again later in the evening. His speech next week at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is being awaited expectantly by many who, having complained three years ago of his words at Fulton, have lately re-read them and find them mild compared to what is now being said every day.” Others were not so enthusiastic, among them most of the delegates to the ill-fated Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace which was being held in the Waldorf-Astoria the week Mr. Churchill was in and was with the Spanish Army as an observer during the months of November and December, 1895. There was then no question of the United States being in- volved in a war with Spain. This war did not in fact begin until February, 1898, or more than two years after I had left Cuba. “I should be grateful if you felt able to contradict this false charge by stating the facts to the Senate so that the truth appears in your Records.” Senator Connally did in fact place this in the record and said that he had noti- fied Senator Langer ahead of time that there would be something to interest him. Senator Langer then tried to get the floor but, being unable to, left the chamber. Although there were many news items about this passage of arms, few took the matter seriously. The Langer episode was also noted by the British press. After commenting on the ineptitude of the remark and the enormous popularity of “Winston” in America, the Cambridge Daily News (England) for April 2, 1949, said: “In describing the Senator's statement as ‘devoid of truth,” Mr. Churchill scrupu- lously confined himself to the retort courteous. Winston has considerable command of what is popularly known as ‘Army vernacular, and privately no doubt expressed himself in more terse and vigorous phraseology. The Senator's allusion to Mr. Churchill as ‘bragging that he is half American' was a peculiarly offensive remark. It will be vehemently resented by Americans.” Prelude 39 New York." One of the U.S.S.R. delegates to this conference, the novel- ist A. A. Fadiejew, was quoted in the South Wales Echo (Cardiff), for March 28, as having said, “It seems to me that the American people did not issue the first Declaration of Independence to the world, in order that 170 years later they might receive Churchill with his racial theory, and his preaching of war, as their teacher.” Those who viewed Mr. Churchill's visit with less than enthusiasm were not limited to Communists and could be found, though in a minor- ity, among Americans as well as the British. A characteristic comment of this sort was provided by columnist Frank Kingdon writing his column “To Be Frank” in the New York Post, March 28, 1949: * “Win- ston Churchill will roll out his magnificent periods in a glut of speech at M.I.T. this week. He is a constant reminder of the advantage that automatically accrues to a man who is articulate. The words of his ut- terances are far more persuasive than their arguments, but they have the magic of eloquence in them which makes their impact woo men from their reason. “Churchill is the chief advocate of the 19th century still alive. He is the ringing echo of memories which, awakened by his words, rise up within us to enlist us on his side. He speaks the prose on which we were weaned and the authority of our childhood makes his every word Seem true. “His words marched like legions to save Britain from Hitler because his native land lives on its remembrance of past greatness. He lured the feet of his countrymen with the rhythms of the King James ver- sion of the Bible, the trumpets of Shakespeare, the pomp of Johnson, and the artfulness of Disraeli. Seeped (sic) in the heady brew of Eng- lish utterance from Elizabeth to Victoria, he breathed its intoxication on his nation and fired its spirit to its greatest hour. 7 This conference was also picketed. For a complete account of the difficulties see The New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune for the days March 24–28. Called by Americans as a follow-up to the Breslau Conference (see page 499), the Conference ran into trouble when the State Department refused visas to a number of the non-Russian conferees. Loaded with Americans who were apparently willing to listen to endless vituperation by Russians without reply, the conferees were most insulted when Norman Cousins, one of the first American speakers, took the opposite tack, the only time a dissenting voice was heard. The dissent arose in an opposition con- ference hastily put together and held at the same time under Sidney Hook (page 811), one of the participants in the M.I.T. Convocation. For a comparison be- tween the New York and the Boston conferences see footnote 7, Chapter Iv. * Kingdon subsequently found his worst predictions had come true and reported the Churchill address adversely in a later account. See Appendix C. 40 Twentieth Century “He is a legend in his lifetime because he has made himself spokes- man of every legend that has survived the centuries in England. He is massive as the cliffs of his native land. He is volatile as its changing skies. When men speak of England hereafter they will speak of Church- ill as when men speak of Rome they speak of Caesar. “To say all this is to pay inadequate tribute to his genius. Yet to say no more would be to confess that the times are not greater than the Iſla Il. “Churchill's chief affront against our world is that he is still a 19th century man with all his boldness, unaware that the 20th century world has dawned.” “He is the thunder of a dead past. Our business is a living future. “MARCELLA SAYS: Churchill is a monument, not a sign-post.” While The New York Times, April 1, was calling Mr. Churchill a “world statesman and a seer whose prophecies have been vindicated by 9 Although favorable to Churchill, Alistair Cooke, noted American correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, in a dispatch from Boston dated April 1, 1949, con- veyed much the same impression of Churchill's personality when he wrote [the dispatch was reprinted in The Huddersfield Examiner (Huddersfield, England)]: “It may be hard for British correspondents who see him daily sniping in the House of Commons to understand the rapt horror that overcomes a newsman who misses a Churchill sentence, or the hunger of a dramatic and generous people, bereft of commanding leadership since Roosevelt died, for the mere sight of this squat and ebullient figure which appears everywhere in its mythical form with bow tie, the bulldog jaw, the black hat, the cigar, and the victory salute, and enough of the intransigent air of a Commodore Vanderbilt or a Teddy Roosevelt or any other of the American Elizabethans to make Americans see in him the true American half of him, the supreme individualist, the nineteenth-century buccaneer.” Up to this point Churchill had been called everything but a Victorian. He re- ceived that accolade too in an editorial in the Springfield Republican (Mass.), for April 3, 1949, entitled “Twilight of an Era.” This writer found his address a lesser effort and estimated that the days of Dunkirk were over, “. . . unreal as it may seem, those days themselves are in retrospect now. A new type of leader is in charge of Britain's beaches. “That Mr. Churchill realizes this goes without saying, and his Boston speech seemed to be an acceptance of his new role as elder statesman, of Churchill as an historic figure instead of as a resplendent St. George, sword at throat of dragon. What this means to the new Britain and to the rest of us we cannot tell, but to Churchill at least it must mean that the Age of Victoria is really dead beyond re- call, that the wind no longer brings the call of trumpets from the four corners of the earth, but the first faint strains of Götterdammerung. “With Churchill courageously accepting the new order of things, even paying a graceful compliment to Foreign Secretary Bevin, he passes on the torch to other hands. But the voice of Churchill, out of the past though it seems to come, reminds us that all is not yet well. Christianity is erecting what seems to be an impreg- nable wall, but we will need new Richards, new Godfreys, new Churchills at the gate.” Prelude 41 events,” the Moscow radio was saying that the expected applause would “not drown the voice of the people. The peoples opposing war and supporting the policy of peace are stronger than the warmongers, and this should not be forgotten by those who, on behalf of the Brit- ish people, are today speaking in New York in support of a war policy.” This English-speaking commentator went on to argue that it was no accident that Mr. Bevin and Mr. Churchill were in the United States at the same time: “One is about to sign a pact of aggression and war, the other is about to address Americans hoping to intensify the cold war which he started two years ago.”.” But the most completely anticipatory story which, incidentally, did a great deal to explain M.I.T. to general English readers, was written by Stanley Burch and appeared in the News Chronicle (London) un- der a New York dateline of Wednesday, March 30, 1949, with the head- line “Stage is Set for Churchill.” “The voice that was the war trumpet of England will sound tomor- row night from Boston—from a hall that is as near to the landing beach of the Pilgrim Fathers as Brighton is to London. “Its immediate audience will be 15,000 men and women, who stand at the summit of America’s education, culture and science. But it will be broadcast across this broad continent, echo across the seas (and be analyzed in the Kremlin) as once it carried from a secret room under the London bombs across shattered frontiers into the whispering radios of Occupied Europe. “The first time Winston Churchill's voice was heard in America was in New York 49 years ago as a precocious 26-year-old starting a lecture tour—with Mark Twain as his chairman. “His last famous appearance was the ‘Fulton speech’” on March 5, 10 The American newspaper and Russian radio stories were printed side by side in the Western Evening Herald (Plymouth, England) on April 1, 1949 (though probably not in Moscow papers), and under a heading, “Their Master’s Voice,” The Star (Sheffield, England) on the same day remarked about the Russian comment “the applause will not drown the voice of the people” that “coming from a country where there is neither freedom of speech nor freedom of the Press that is curious—indeed, amusing. “In America and Great Britain today there is complete liberty for people and newspapers to say and publish what they wish about Mr. Churchill, comment is unrestricted, discussion is open. “Dare the rulers of Russia give their people a similarly free hand to write and say what they like, not only of Mr. Churchill but of Mr. Stalin? “In that fact lies a fundamental difference between Democracy and Communism. Russia's voice is not that of the people . . .” 11 From the Fulton speech: “. . . It is my duty to place before you certain facts about the present position in Europe. . . . - “From Stettin to the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has de- 42 Twentieth Century 1946, when to the shock and dismay of many he spoke of an iron cur- tain descending across a continent, and called for the ‘fraternal asso- ciation of Britain and America to preserve Western civilisation. “It is the prophetic proof of that Fulton speech—maturing in the in- tervening three years—that is making Churchill's Boston address an event of major weight and portent, and surrounding it with the liveliest advance speculation. “The Fulton oration was delivered in the gymnasium of a university little known to the world—Westminster College, in the heart of mid- Western Missouri. It held only 2,500 or so people and its parallel bars and other gymnastic paraphernalia were inadequately shrouded by curtains and flowers. “This setting is popularly believed to have been chosen because Harry Truman is faithful to his native Missouri and recommended it to Churchill. “Today's address will be before one of the most famous institutions in the world—the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or ‘M.I.T.’ for short. “This great 'scientific university' is holding a mid-century convoca- tion on the Social Implications of Scientific Progress, and Churchill is delivering the star opening speech. scended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. “. . . The Communist parties which were very small in all these Eastern states of Europe have been raised to pre-eminence and power far beyond their numbers, and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control. Police governments are prevailing in nearly every case, and so far, except in Czechoslovakia, there is no true democracy. “. . . A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied vic- tory. Nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organiza- tion intends to do in the immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their expansive and proselytizing tendencies. “. . . I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their powers and doctrines . . . our difficulties will not be removed . . . by a policy of appeasement. “. . . From what I have seen of our Russian friends and allies, during the war, I am convinced that there is nothing they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than weakness, especially military weak- IleSS. “. . . If we adhere faithfully to the charter of the United Nations, and walk forward in sedate and sober strength, seeking no one’s land or treasure, seeking to lay no arbitrary control upon the thoughts of men, if all British moral and material forces and convictions are joined with your own in fraternal association, the high roads of the future will be clear, not only for us but for all, not only for our time but for a century to come.” Prelude 43 “So prodigious have been the demands for Churchill seats' from over 200 universities and from innumerable M.I.T. graduates that organisers have given up any idea of accommodating them in any of the institute buildings and have hired the Boston Garden.’ “This auditorium is big enough for circuses, but even its 15,000 seats have not proved enough to take all the delegates and graduates who wanted to attend (there won't be any general public). “Britain has nothing resembling M.I.T. If you took all the scientific departments of Cambridge, the industrial and technical departments of Leeds and Manchester Universities, added any other top-rank tech- nological training centre you could find, and rolled them all together into a self-contained scientific university, you would get an idea of M.I.T.’s character and scale. “Only in California does the United States itself possess anything comparable. “M.I.T. began operations after the Civil War—as an institute in which scientific pursuits should predominate. Today it occupies a magnificent range of colonnaded buildings on the bank of the Charles River, its degrees are treated with the greatest respect the world over, and it has five thousand students and a teaching staff of 1,298. . . . “It ranks as a university in its own right and none of America's con- ventional universities can rival it in its own concentrated field of scien- tific education. “The Institute does not (as Westminster College, Fulton, does) con- fer honorary degrees. But to honour Winston Churchill, who already has enough university parchments to fill all his hats, it will on Friday bestow on him the title of honorary lecturer.’ “It is widely felt that his lecture today will have qualified him.” But now the hour had come and speculation could be at an end. The audience was assembling in the great arena. This indoor stadium can seat 13,909 persons, and every seat was to be occupied by an invited guest. The stadium is the center for professional and amateur ice hockey, which are taken very seriously in Boston; for boxing, when a ring platform is erected high in the center of the floor under the pitiless spotlights; for the Ringling Brothers circus; for the various ice shows, when it becomes a temporary fairyland. It is seldom used for a gather- ing where the attention is to be focused on a single man whom every- one, everywhere, wishes to hear. The decision to place the event in the Boston Garden had been a hard one to take, for this was an M.I.T. and not a Boston occasion, and it was important that this be understood. 44 Twentieth C entury Great as the Churchill address was expected to be, it was still a part of a larger plan and this also was not to be forgotten if possible. But had the meeting been held on the M.I.T. Campus, in the largest pos- sible hall, the Rockwell Cage, the 4,500 seats there available would have been grossly inadequate. Too many people with legitimate claims to see and hear Mr. Churchill would have been frustrated, so, with considerable reluctance, the meeting was moved to the larger hall.” This again placed a problem before Professor Beckwith. How could this great modern circus be transformed into a temporary M.I.T.? His solution was characteristically simple and elegant. The seating capacity of the Garden is determined not by its area but by the capacity of the fire exits. When the floor is used for seats, some of the stationary seats in the upper balconies cannot be occupied. Thus it was possible to serve both security and amenity simultaneously by roping off an un- used pie-slice-shaped block of seats radiating from the back of the platform at one end; to throw across the void thus created a great screen covered with a photomural of M.I.T. as seen by air, 12 feet by 24 feet, enlarged 50 times from the original negative; to mount the speakers' platform high before this handsome and reminiscent back- ground; * to design a simple, shapely lectern, and two symmetrically disposed gangways, suggesting those used for entering great air- ships but also adequately nautical. When the red-coated United States Marine Band, 80 strong, was seated on a lower platform before the rostrum, the effect was brilliant, colorful, and dignified; and it stated for the audience present, for the press photographers and television cameras alike, that Mr. Churchill had come to M.I.T. in the Boston Garden. The United States Marine Band conducted by Major William F. Santelmann, is generally accepted as America's finest military band. It travels traditionally with the President. It was engaged when the *And even this hall was not adequate for all who could have been legitimate guests. In order to accommodate those who had to be disappointed, the Institute set up in the Rockwell Cage a large television screen and there projected the en- tire Boston Garden affair to an additional audience of 4,500. See footnote 17. The motives for moving to the Garden were usually but not always understood. A friendly, characteristically British and also unfortunately false interpretation ap- peared in the Hartlepool, Northern Daily Mail, the Herald & Express (Torquay, England), and others for April 1, 1949: “Boston, proud of its ancestral associations with Britain, went out of its way to provide a British atmosphere for the speech. The Garden itself is rather like a large version of the Wembley Empire Pool in London.” * Life magazine elected to say of this backdrop that it confused the television audience. On what evidence Life made this statement is not apparent. Most people seem to have felt that the backdrop did in fact serve its precise purpose, which was to say that Churchill was speaking at M.I.T. Prelude 45 President was expected to be a speaker. When this became impossible, the President, as a gesture of goodwill, permitted the band to keep its two engagements at M.I.T. On this Thursday evening the band played a program of British music “ending just before nine o'clock, when it stood for the entrance of the platform guests.” 14 The program: “Entrance and March of the Peers” from Iolanthe Sullivan Rhapsodic Dance “The Bamboula” Coleridge-Taylor Overture “John and Sam” Ansell “Toccata Marziale” Vaughan Williams A Coronation March, 1987 “Crown Imperial” Walton 15 In the order in which they mounted the platform, and in which they sat, they were John Thomas Toohy, President of the Senior Class at M.I.T., Dean Bur- chard, Bernard M. Baruch, Karl Taylor Compton, Winston Spencer Churchill, President-Elect Killian, Governor Dever, and Dean Baker. The music program had included the “March of the Peers” from Iolanthe. Fol- lowers of Gilbert and Sullivan, writing human interest stories, pounced on this to a man and with friendly glee quoted the words, “Bow, bow, ye lower middle classes, bow ye tradesmen, bow ye masses.” Since Churchill has by choice re- mained a commoner, the relevance of the reference was strained to say the least. On this part of the occasion the most amusing commentary, albeit one purpled with license, was in an editorial by William Loeb, publisher of The New Hamp- shire Morning Union (Manchester, N. H.), April 2, 1949, under the title, “Win- ston Churchill, His Secret.” The writer asserted that many leaders seemed unsure of their beliefs but Churchill was not and that that accounted for his magnificent presence. He went on, “When the band struck up ‘God Save the King' [wrong, the entrance was to ‘Rule Britannia. ED.], the president of the M.I.T., the presi- dent-elect, the governor of Massachusetts, and several other distinguished guests, along with America's elder statesman, Bernard M. Baruch, began to ascend the stairway to the platform. As they came in sight, they had that undistinguished and unemotional quality, which characterizes so many modern-day leaders of American and European life. “Then suddenly, as the music reached a crescendo, a round, bulbous, bulging head arose above the staircase. The effect, in contrast, was as strong as would be the contrast between the rich, red color of blood and the pale, sterilized, washed- out eerie shades of some dead substance. [Although the Editor hates to be re- ferred to as resembling a dead substance, it must be admitted there is something in the comment even if any of the other people on the platform had wished or dared to try to up-stage Churchill. ED.] “The crowd sensed immediately that this was not merely the former prime minister of England or one of the distinguished civil servants of our day, but that this was the most vivid, the most vibrant, and most alive man of our century. . . . “Churchill's physical presence gave emphasis to the contrast between his ap- proach to life and that of the cold, dry scientists. [There were eight people on the º of these only Compton was a scientist; and he is neither cold nor dry. ED. “Noticeable about the occasion was the colorlessness of the platform decorations. With the exception of the red coats of the Marine Corps band below the plat- form, the only vivid spots of color on the platform were the Star Spangled Banner and the Union Jack. [The background of the mural was a brilliant yellow. Ed.] The backdrop of the platform was an immense aerial photograph of the cold and 46 Twentieth Century Mr. Churchill, the other platform guests and their wives had been conveyed to the Boston Garden under police escort, and driven directly into a large covered area just behind the platform, an area which serves to house the menagerie when the circus is in town. When notified of this, Mr. Churchill made a characteristic quip as he left his car, “The cages are open, the animals are set loose, let us enter the arena.”” Mrs. Churchill and the other ladies were quickly escorted to their front-row seats by a specially constituted guard of M.I.T. seniors, and the band struck up “Rule Britannia” as the platform guests entered the Garden and mounted the rostrum. As soon as Mr. Churchill appeared on the platform he was received with the expected ovation. He ac- knowledged it briefly, walked deliberately to his chair, let himself down heavily, and shut his eyes. He seemed for the moment very old, very tired, an impression which was to be belied by his subsequent per- formance. The band played the British national anthem. Dr. Compton, presid- ing at this meeting, approached the lectern; the awaited moment had arrived. The microphones were turned on, the news cameras began to turn, the television cameras to scan.” Dr. Compton began as follows: “Mr. Churchill, Mr. Baruch, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gen- tlemen: cellular buildings at M.I.T., which have always impressed this writer with a com- plete lack of beauty. They have neither the appeal of a completely simple utilitarian structure, such as the Golden Gate bridge at San Francisco nor of the George Washington White Stone spans in New York. [Neither of these would make a useful building at M.I.T. ED.] Nor did they have the beauty of classical architec- ture. Against this dead and ugly background, Churchill was as vivid as a red rose on a gray day. “Finally, the ceremony was over and those on the platform and in the audience stood at attention as the ‘Star Spangled Banner' was played. Wooden and at least outwardly unemotional, those on the platform stood with that seemingly bored expression that so many people have when the national anthem is played. “Not so Churchill, whose lips not only moved vigorously as he sang, but whose every expression of eye and face gave indication that he was singing with all the grateful fervor his being was capable of. He stepped to the edge of the platform and raised his fingers in his famous salute of victory, and, as the audience roared its approval, stepped sprightly from the platform. “Would that we had more such leaders.” 16 Possibly apocryphal; as an example of how difficult it is to report extempo- raneous remarks accurately, note Paul M. Kennedy's version of the Churchillian quip in The Boston Sunday Globe for April 24, 1949. “Very few saw him get out of his car, shake the folds of his coat and heard him exclaim, ‘Ah, the cages are opened and the animals out for an airing, briskly walking up and down as he spoke.” See Hailey's analogous remark the next after- noon, page 185. 17 The British press was often impressed with the technical arrangements, which were in point of fact impressive even to the sophisticated American press. The Prelude 47 “May I first read the following excerpts from a letter received from the White House, dated March 25, My dear Dr. Compton: I certainly regret exceedingly that conditions developed to the point where I had to make a cancellation at the last minute for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology appearance. I hope you will express my sincere regret to the members of the faculty of the television coverage was the largest yet achieved for a single program. Even such a sober journal as the New Statesman and Nation (London) in its issue of April 9, 1949, had the following paragraphs: “Mr. Churchill's speech in Boston was re- markable for its skill and eloquence. Also for the fact that the 70 million malig- nant Huns' of the war have already become desirable allies! The presentation of the speech in America was also a technical landmark. “‘Here I sat in my armchair, writes a friend from Washington, and there was Winnie peering over the top of his notes in Boston. Thanks to the telephoto lens you could even see the last hairs on his head. I realized then just what television can become. On hundreds of thousands of sets, all over the Eastern States, there was the flickering picture of the Boston Assembly. Each of Washington's four sta- tions, as I turned the switch, showed Churchill in one perspective or another while the familiar voice boomed. From Boston to New York, the image was transmitted by micro-waves on a line-of-sight system from towers on hills between 30 and 60 miles apart. They bounced Winnie down to us from hill to hilltop.’” The Irish Times (Dublin) for March 31, 1949, said: “The ‘live programme will be available to an audience estimated at 80 to 35 millions, living in the area bounded by Boston-Richmond, Virginia-New York-Milwaukee and St. Louis. This is about one-quarter of the United States and its most populous quarter. “Thousands of American viewers have arranged parties for the evening to let their friends look in at the great man. The bars, which have taken up television with great enthusiasm, are expecting a bumper night.” Not all the gatherings were in bars. The Framingham News (Mass.) reported that the children and adults of Ashland, a small town in Massachusetts, met to- gether in their civic center to hear Churchill and to dedicate the center's new tele- vision set. The overflow crowd at M.I.T., presided over by Edward L. Moreland, held in the Rockwell Cage, presented 4,500 persons with their first experience with television as it is likely to be in motion picture theaters. With the coöperation of the Radio Corporation of America, these people saw and heard the speaker on a 10-by-18-foot television screen, and no doubt many had a better view than those in the far nooks and crannies of the Boston Garden. The television editors were enthusiastic about this largest television coverage yet offered anywhere. Said Merrill Panitt in his column in The Philadelphia In- quirer (Penn.), April 4, 1949: “Winston Churchill's address to the Mid-Century Convocation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was as thrilling a tele- vision experience as any this viewer has seen. “Like all great orators, Churchill must be seen to be appreciated, and the camera-handling at Boston was excellent. “Wisely, the director, armed with an advance copy of the speech, saved his close-ups for the most important parts of the speech. He also caught the audience as it applauded and laughed at the statesman's humorous asides. “The program left nothing to be desired, and we will be able to tell our grand- children that we saw Churchill make one of his most important addresses in the United States.” 48 Twentieth Century Massachusetts Institute of Technology and make it perfectly clear to them that the cancellation was not a voluntary one but was a case of necessity. I had a most pleasant evening with the former Prime Minister of Great Britain. Mr. Churchill, I am sure, will give you something that will be historical for this period. (signed) HARRY S TRUMAN.”” This was an important message, intended to set at rest much idle newspaper and radio speculation as to why President Truman had, at a very late and embarrassing hour, revoked his decision to speak at the Convocation. These speculations had not usually been kind as to the President's motives or as to his skill. What seemed critical to the Con- vocation at the moment has, with the passage of time, ceased to be important. Consequently, we may appropriately leave detective work as to the President's reasons to some later biographer. Dr. Compton then went on: “And now, to introduce our very distinguished guest from overseas I shall call upon his old friend, a very distinguished American. With deep feelings of respect and affection, he is called ‘Chief by all of those who have had the rare privilege of working under him. Those who have not had this privilege also admire him for his great wisdom, high integrity and unswerving devotion to the welfare of our country. The adviser to presidents, America's elder statesman, Mr. Bernard M. Baruch.” " Mr. Baruch spoke as follows: “Dr. Compton, Mr. Churchill, Ladies and Gentlemen: “Last Sunday from the windows of my house we watched a parade celebrating the anniversary of Greek independence. Men, women and toddling children marched through cheering crowds composed of all races, creeds and colors. The man who honors us tonight turned sud- denly to me and said with deep emotion, ‘You see, you cannot quench freedom.” That thought is the driving force of this peace-hungering man who feels so deeply for those who suffer the blood, sweat and tears of life. With a deep sympathy for the unfortunate, he has a daring 18 Note that the reading of this letter, not scheduled originally, probably was the cause of Churchill's very slight overrun on the radio time, and not the more colorful reason that he took a $30,000 drink of water, as reported by the press. Said the Daily Express (London), April 8, 1949, “A drink of water that Mr. Churchill took during his Boston speech last week cost one broadcasting company £7500. The pause that refreshed Mr. Churchill delayed the end of his speech by 50 seconds. Rather than cut him off, the company cancelled the commercial show which was to have followed him. It had to reimburse the advertiser, and the cast of his show.” This story and others like it seem apocryphal. 19 For a brief biography of Baruch, see Biographical Notes, page 518. Bernard Baruch 49 contempt for the bully. Through the thirty years I have known him, in his darkest moments, although always mindful of his country's welfare, I have never known him to make an ignoble proposal. “I present the greatest living Englishman, the finest flowering of leadership and statesmanship that England ever produced, the Right Honorable Winston Churchill.” ” The expected ovation developed. It was restrained because the au- dience well knew that Mr. Churchill would be fighting against radio time and they were anxious to make certain that the absent audience would have an opportunity to hear all of his words. Mr. Churchill stood silently for a moment, hands dropped at his sides, peered over his glasses with a characteristic look,” and began: 20 Some of the press, at least in retrospect, thought Baruch's introduction too mild. Said the Cincinnati Times-Star (Ohio), April 1, 1949, “For once an intro- ducer was too restrained. Listening to that speech in Boston and recalling the amazing career behind it, how many would deny Winston Churchill the title of World Citizen No. 1P” For a brief biography of Churchill, see Biographical Notes, page 517. * Around the glasses revolves a story which was never told quite correctly. Some reporters, for example, credited M.I.T. men with having made a pair of glasses without ever seeing Churchill's, and so on. The circumstances were that the lights needed for full-scale television are motoriously bright. They have al- ways bothered speakers and President Truman, for one, was known to be especially sensitive to them. Accordingly, the M.I.T. engineers conceived the idea of polar- izing the light in one sense and using glasses polarized otherwise so that the amount of light in the eyes of the speakers would be materially reduced. While they could still read easily they would not be dazzled. At the same time the television cameras would receive their full quota. Tests were made to make sure this would all work out properly. The actual glasses a speaker would wear naturally had to have the optical characteristics of his regular reading glasses. The next question was whether President Truman would use the glasses. Ac- cordingly, the Chairman of the Convocation and John J. Rowlands, Director of M.I.T.’s News Service, telephoned to Key West where the President was then vacationing and talked to Charley Ross, who was evidently sitting next to the President, for from time to time parts of their conversation filtered through the receiver. The President was at once interested in the idea and finally indicated where an extra pair of his “specs” could be found in a top drawer of a bureau in his bedroom in the White House. These were in due course dispatched to M.I.T. where they were prepared for an event which unhappily never transpired. Naturally, when Burchard had several hours with Churchill on the Saturday and Sunday before the address, he took the opportunity to suggest that Churchill might like to try the same amelioration of the ordeal of television. Churchill was less enthusiastic than President Truman had been, but finally agreed. He entrusted his second (and only alternate) pair of reading glasses to Burchard, who flew back to Boston with them on Sunday afternoon and impressed his sons that evening with a personal object which in time to come could well ornament an historical museum. The next day they were delivered to Rowlands who, with the assistance of the Polaroid Corporation, had them prepared. They, too, were not used for a 50 Twentieth Century WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL I am honored by your wish that I should take part in the discussions of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We have suffered in Great Britain by the lack of colleges of university rank in which en- gineering and the allied subjects are taught.” Industrial production depends on technology and it is because the Americans, like the pre- war Germans, have realized this and created institutions for the ad- vanced training of large numbers of high-grade engineers to translate the advantages of pure science into industrial technique, it is for that reason that their output per head and consequent standard of life are so high. It is surprising that England, which was the first country to be industrialized, has nothing of comparable stature. If tonight I strike other notes than those of material progress, it implies no want of ad- miration for all the work you have done and are doing, My aim, like yours, is to be guided by balance and proportion. The outstanding feature of the twentieth century has been the enormous expansion in the numbers who are given the opportunity to share in the larger and more varied life which in previous periods was reserved for the few and for the very few. This process must continue at an increasing rate. If we are to bring the broad masses of the people in every land to the table of abundance, it can only be reason which was basically as described in the following dispatch by Paul M. Kennedy in The Boston Sunday Globe (Mass.), April 24, 1949. “Their work was in vain, however, for the Scotland Yard Chief with Churchill said he couldn’t use them. This puzzled the Tech men, but they finally got the answer. The former Premier, it seems, is always taking his glasses off and putting them on as he speaks. Had he used the polaroids for any length of time he would have been blinded by the lights when he took them off.” The idea thus awaits its first full-dress test. 22 This was seized upon by the Bradford Telegraph and Argus (England), April 8: “The efforts of the Bradford City Council, and in particular those of the chair- man of the Further Education Subcommittee . . . in connection with the status of Bradford Technical College, received somewhat striking general confirmation by the statement of Mr. Churchill at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in America some days ago.” The article then goes on to refer to the problem of get- ting technological education adequately supported, as the control of such educa- tion seems to be divided between the University Grants Committee and the Minis- try of Education, a reference which is interesting in connection with John Dale Russell's remarks, page 407. It ends by saying, “May it be that the present serious situation, to which Mr. Churchill refers, arises from this divisional control? At any rate, in view of the importance of this problem to our national welfare, is it not unfortunate that there should be such long delay in arriving at a solution?” More recently (December, 1949) The Times (London) has carried several editorials and letters vigorously debating whether England should establish separate tech- nical institutes such as M.I.T., or associate expanded engineering training with the universities. The preponderance of opinion seems to favor the first course. Winston Churchill 51 by the tireless improvement of all our means of technical production, and by the diffusion in every form of education of an improved quality to scores of millions of men and women. Even in this darkling hour I have faith that this process will go on. I rejoice in Tennyson's celebrated lines:— Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new; That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do.” I was, however, a little disquieted, I must admit, that you found it necessary to debate the question, to quote Dr. Burchard's opening ad- dress, “of whether the problem of world production yielding at least a minimum living to the whole population can be solved, and whether man has so destroyed the resources of his world that he may be doomed to die of starvation.” If, with all the resources of modern science, we find ourselves unable to avert world famine, we shall all be to blame, but a peculiar responsibility would rest upon the scientists.” I do not believe they will fail, but if they do, or perhaps were not allowed to succeed, the consequences would be very unpleasant because it is quite certain that mankind would not agree to starve equally, and there might be some very sharp disagreements about how the last crust was to be shared. As our greatest intellectual authorities here will readily admit, that would simplify our problem in an unduly primordial man- ner.” Ladies and Gentlemen, I frankly confess that I feel somewhat over- awed in addressing this vast scientific and learned audience on the sub- 23 This quotation from Tennyson was commented on in The Yorkshire Post (England), April 1, by the Editor, W. L. Andrews, in an editorial diary: “I re- member hearing John Foster Fraser, when he was prospective Conservative candi- date at Huddersfield, declaiming the lines in a magnificent peroration at the local Town Hall. “Those who know their Tennyson—and in spite of changing fashions in poetry the Victorian laureate still has many admirers, including myself—will recognize the source of the quotation. It is ‘Locksley Hall,” and the lines are immediately fol- lowed by an even better known passage: For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales. “Tennyson was a true prophet. Unfortunately, matters have been complicated by the dollar situation. It is not much use the pilots of the purple twilight drop- ping down with costly bales if we cannot afford to pay for them.” 24 Scientists might deny this, and indeed it was the import of Burchard’s open- ing remarks that scientists should not accept responsibilities for such eventualities greater than those laid on other educated citizens. 25 This quip supplied some fuel to the few commentators who viewed the ad- dress as a doctrine of force. 52 Twentieth Century jects which your panels are discussing. I have no technical and no university education, and have just had to pick up a few things as I went along.” (Laughter) Therefore I speak with a diffidence, which I hope to overcome as I proceed (Laughter), on these profound scien- tific, social and philosophic issues, each of which claims a life-long study for itself, and are now to be examined, as schoolmen would say, not only in their integrity but in their relationship, meaning thereby not only one by one but all together. I was so glad that in the first instance you asked me to talk about the past rather than to peer into the future, because I know more about the past than I do about the future (Laughter), and I was well content that the President of the United States, whose gift of prophecy was so remarkably vindicated by recent electoral results (Laughter), should have accepted that task. We all regret that his heavy State duties pre- vent him from being here tonight. I shall therefore have to try to do a little of the peering myself. Ladies and Gentlemen, for us in Britain the nineteenth century ended amid the glories of the Victorian era, and we entered upon the dawn of the twentieth in high hope for our country, our Empire and the world. The latter and larger part of the nineteenth century had been the period of liberal advance (liberal with a small “I”). In 1900 a sense of moving hopefully forward to brighter, broader and easier days was predominant. Little did we guess that what has been called the Century of the Common Man would witness as its outstanding feature more common men killing each other with greater facilities than any other five centuries put together in the history of the world. But we entered this terrible twentieth century with confidence. We thought that with improving transportation nations would get to know each other better. We believed that as they got to know each other better they would like each other more, and that national rivalries would fade in a growing international consciousness. We took it al- * This facetious remark of course caught on enormously and seems to have been a great consolation for some. Churchill was in fact educated at Harrow and Sand- hurst. His statement is literally true, therefore, but deceptive. Like other remarks, it served later for weird purposes. In one case, as reported in The Banbury Guard- ian (England), April 7, 1949, it was seized upon by the Headmaster of the County Modern School at Brackley in England when he made an address at an art exhibition opened by the High Sheriff of Northamptonshire, Mr. Sacheverell Sitwell. A Mr. Taylor, who was representing the school Governors, said that he was struck by the remark which seemed to him “the essence of all education!” Sitwell then said that the exhibits were more creditable than many he had at home and went on to say, “I have never made much improvement in my drawing at school, as the teaching was wrong.” This may or may not be the reason, of course, that the talented Mr. Sitwell is not a painter, but a critic. Winston Churchill 53 most for granted that science would confer continual boons and bless- ings upon us, would give us better meals, better garments and better dwellings for less trouble, and thus steadily shorten the hours of labor and leave more time for play, and culture. In the name of ordered but unceasing progress, we saluted the Age of Democracy, democracy ex- pressing itself ever more widely through parliaments freely and fairly elected on a broad or universal franchise. We saw no reason then why men and women should not shape their own home life and careers without being cramped by the growing complexity of the State, which was to be their servant and the protector of their rights. You had the famous American maxim “Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed,” and we both noticed that the world was divided into peoples that owned the Governments and Governments that owned the peoples. At least I heard all this around that time and liked some of it very much. I was a Minister in the British Liberal Government (with a large “L” please this time), returned by a great majority in 1906. That new Liberal Government arrived in power with much of its message al- ready delivered and most of its aims already achieved. The days of hereditary aristocratic privilege were ended or numbered. The path was opened for talent in every field of endeavor.” Primary education was compulsory, universal and free, or was about to become so. New problems arising, as problems do, from former successes, awaited the new administration. The independence of the proletariat from thrall- dom involved at least a minimum standard of life and labor and secu- rity for old age, sickness, and the death of the family breadwinner.” It *7 Liberals (with small “I’s”) might say this was an over-optimistic and typically Conservative interpretation of the facts. The opportunity, they would say, was theoretically there but often practically absent. They might point to the Negro in North America or South Africa, to the Navajo in the United States, and to other similar examples arising from economic conditions or racial antipathies. The Conservative position is that the full bloom is inevitably slow; see the remarks of Hailey (page 136) and Ryckmans (page 153). See also Peter Viereck, Conserva- tism Revisited (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1949), page 6: “The conservative principles par excellence are proportion and measure; self- expression through self-restraint; preservation through reform; humanism and class- ical balance; a fruitful nostalgia for the permanent beneath the flux; and a fruitful obsession for unbroken historic continuity. These principles together create free- dom, a freedom built not on the quicksand of adolescent defiance but on the bed- rock of ethics and law.” The advanced Liberal wants the bloom to take place over- night. (See Mudaliar, page 157.) To the Conservative the Liberal seems im- petuous; to the Liberal, the Conservative seems at best over-patient. But Churchill's statement is clearly accurate if cast against the backdrop of the preceding periods. 28 See Compton, page 17. Science and humanism and politics here have marched hand in hand. 54 Twentieth Century was to these tasks of social reform and social insurance that we ad- dressed ourselves. Ladies and Gentlemen, the name of Lloyd George will ever be associated in Great Britain with this new departure. I am proud to have been his Lieutenant in this work and also later as a Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer and later still as head of the wartime National Coalition to have carried these same themes for- ward on a magnified scale.” That is how we began the century. Science presently placed novel and dangerous facilities in the hands of the most powerful countries. Humanity was informed that it could make machines that would fly through the air and vessels which could swim beneath the surface of the seas. The conquest of the air and the perfection of the art of flying fulfilled the dream which for thousands of years had glittered in human imagination. Certainly it was a mar- vellous and romantic event. Whether the bestowal of this gift upon an immature civilization composed of competing nations whose national- ism grew with every advance of democracy and who were as yet devoid of international organization, whether this gift was a blessing or a curse has yet to be proved. On the whole I remain an optimist. For good or for ill, air mastery is today the supreme expression of military power, and fleets and armies, however vital and important, must ac- cept a subordinate rank.” This is a memorable milestone in the march of man. The submarine, to do it justice, has never made any claim to be a blessing or even a convenience. Now, I well remember when it became an accomplished fact of peculiar military significance to the British Isles and to the British Navy, there was a general belief even in the Admiralty where I presided, that no nation would ever be so wicked as to use these under-water vessels to sink merchantmen at sea. How could a submarine, it was asked, provide for the safety of the crews of the merchant ships it sunk? And public opinion was shocked when old Admiral Fisher bluntly declared that this would be no bar to the sub- marines being used by the new and growing German Navy in a most * For further comment on the relations between Churchill and Lloyd George, see footnote 38, this chapter. 89A significant comment by the one-time First Lord of the Admiralty and a notoriously naval-minded person, although never so self-consciously nautical as his colleague, F.D.R. Proponents of air force found this exceptionally significant, of course. Frank Conniff, in his column “East Side, West Side” in the New York Journal-American for April 28, 1949, was ecstatic: “Many a manly little jig was danced around the Air Force section of the Pentagon in the hours following Win- ston Churchill's speech at M.I.T. on March 31, and no one hep to the present intra-service squabbling in Washington could blame the boys for their exuber- ance. . . .” Winston Churchill 55 ruthless manner.” His prediction was certainly not stultified by what was soon to happen. Here then we have these two novel and potent weapons placed in the hands of highly nationalized sovereign States in the early part of the twentieth century, and both of them dwell with us today for our future edification. A third unmeasured sphere opened to us as the years passed, which, for the sake of comprehensive brevity, I will describe as Radar. This Radar, with its innumerable variants and possibilities, has so far been the handmaiden of the air, but it has also been the enemy of the sub- marine and in alliance with the air may well prove its exterminator. Thus we see the changes which were brought upon our society.” In the first half of the twentieth century, fanned by the crimson wings of war, the conquest of the air affected profoundly human af- fairs. It made the globe seem much bigger to the mind and much smaller to the body. The human biped was able to travel about far more quickly. This greatly reduced the size of his estate, while at the same time creating an even keener sense of its exploitable value. In the nineteenth century Jules Verne wrote Around the World in Eighty Days. It seemed a prodigy. Now you can get round it in four; but you do not see much of it on your way. The whole prospect and outlook of mankind grew immeasurably larger, and the multiplication of ideas also proceeded at an incredible rate. This vast expansion was unhap- pily not accompanied by any noticeable advance in the stature of man, either in his mental faculties, or his moral character. His brain got no better, but it buzzed the more.” The scale of events around him as- 81. Several footnotes will show how Churchill’s phrases, like Biblical lines, can be quoted to many purposes. For example, seizing upon this sentence, The Isle of Man Times (England), April 2, 1949, quickly got over to Churchill's books and to references in them and then going to the story there about the U-boat peril and the gratitude Churchill expressed to Ulster, wound up with the following para- graph which is the meat of the editorial: “The British people may learn to forgive Eire, but they can never forget Ulster. She helped to save us in this grim hour. She has the right to decide her own destiny, and we must not betray her.” 82 Radar, unlike the submarine, has peacetime applications. * This was naturally a very popular phrase, often quoted. It was also used as a springboard for many different ideas. For example, Alastair Forbes in his column “Behind the Political Scene” in the Sunday Dispatch (London), for April 3, 1949, explained it this way: “Socialism, as well as science, has played its part here. Its materialism is par- ticularly seductive to the half-educated. And now the levelling process is to be carried farther in education. “In the Commons last week we heard how the State is to reach out its long arm in order to hold back the promising young. The lowering of standards in every 56 Twentieth Century sumed gigantic proportions while he remained about the same size. By comparison therefore he actually became much smaller. We no longer had great men directing manageable affairs.” Our need was to discipline an array of gigantic and turbulent facts. To this task we have certainly so far proved unequal. Science bestowed immense new pow- ers on man and at the same time created conditions which were largely beyond his comprehension and still more beyond his control. While he nursed the illusion of growing mastery and exulted in his new trap- pings, he became the sport and presently the victim of tides and cur- rents, of whirlpools and tornadoes amid which he was far more helpless than he had been for a long time.* Hopeful developments in many directions were proceeding in 1914 on both sides of the Atlantic and they seemed to point to an Age of Peace and Plenty, when suddenly violent events broke in upon them. For more than twenty years ” there had been no major war in Europe. Indeed, since the Civil War in the United States, there had been no great struggle in the West. A spirit of adventure stirred the minds of men and was by no means allayed by the general advance of prosperity and science. On the contrary, prosperity meant power, and science field is on the increase. Yet the sweeping away of more and more ‘class distinc- tions, the debate showed, has left ‘class' and party hatreds more unpleasantly strong than ever before, and has merely cultivated a growing intolerance of all minorities and individual rights. “Still, if the Government seeks to kill enterprise and self-reliance, it is probably quite right to nip it in the bud in the classrooms. “In any case the pampering of inefficiency by the State seems now to be gem- erally accepted. It would be considered shocking to hold the view that the film in- dustry, for instance (whose affairs were under discussion in both Houses last week), may be in trouble of its own fault or that the quota system is a monstrous imposition on the public and exhibitor.” From this Forbes goes on to discuss the film industry at length. 84 The Catholic press found this ironic. Others did not agree with Churchill. For example, referring to this statement the Newark News (New Jersey), in its editorial of April 1, 1949, “Mr. Churchill in Boston,” said: “Mr. Churchill pretty much left it there. It was his task to describe the prin- cipal dilemma of our times, not to pursue it into the future. The men of science at the M.I.T. convocation are attempting to do that. They may come to less pessi- mistic conclusions, for Mr. Churchill's opinion about the absence of great men is of questionable validity. He has overlooked, for instance, the career and attain- ments of Winston Churchill.” * Some writers felt this left too much to chance and that the “whirlpools and tornadoes” were in fact man-made. See footnotes 52, 54, 55, 58. 86 The original text read “forty years” which would carry back to the Franco- Prussian war. If this was not a slip of the tongue, it is hard to guess what inter- vening “European war” Churchill had in mind. Winston Churchill 57 offered weapons. We read in the Bible, I hope you still read the Bible,” “. . . Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked.” For several generations Britan- nia had ruled the waves—for long periods at less cost annually than that of a single modern battleship. History, I think, Ladies and Gentlemen, history will say that this great trust was not abused. American testimony about the early period of the Monroe Doctrine is upon record. There was the suppression of the Slave Trade and piracy. During our prolonged naval supremacy, undeterred by the rise of foreign tariffs, we kept our ports freely open to the commerce of the world. Our Colonial and oriental empire, even our coastal trade, was free to the shipping of all the nations on equal terms. We in no way sought to obstruct the rise of other States or Navies. For nearly the whole of the nineteenth century the monopoly of sea power in British hands was a trust discharged faithfully in the general interest. But in the first decade of the twentieth century, with new patterns of warships, naval rivalries became acute and fierce. Civil- ized Governments began to think in Dreadnoughts. It was in such a setting very difficult to prevent the First World War, far more difficult than it would have been to have prevented the second. There was, of course, one way to prevent it—one way then as now— the creation of an international instrument, strong enough to adjust the disputes of nations and enforce its decisions against an aggressor. Much wisdom, eloquence and earnest effort was devoted to this theme in which the United States took the lead, but we only got as far as the World Court at the Hague and improvements in the Geneva Conven- tion. The impulses towards a trial of strength in Europe were far stronger at this time. Germany, demanding her “place in the sun,” was faced by a resolute France with her military honor to regain. England, in accordance with her foreign policy of three hundred years, sustained the weaker side. France found an ally in the Russia of the Czars and Germany in the crumbling Empire of the Hapsburgs. The United States, for reasons which were natural and traditional, but no longer so valid as in the past, stood aloof and expected to be able to watch as a spectator the thrilling, fearful drama unfold from across what was then called “the broad Atlantic.” These expectations, as perhaps you may remember, were not wholly borne out by what happened. 87 This was the only line in Churchill’s address which The English Churchman for April 8, 1949, seemed to find interesting. The familiarity of all our British guests with the Bible was quite as evident as the preoccupation of several of them with Sir William Osler's famous remark. 58 Twentieth Century After four years of hideous mechanical slaughter, illuminated by in- finite sacrifice, but not remarkably relieved by strategy or generalship, the victorious allies assembled at Versailles. High hopes and spacious opportunities awaited them. War, stripped of every pretension of glamour or romance, had been brought home to the masses of the peoples and brought home in forms never before experienced except by the defeated. To stop another war was the supreme object and duty of the statesmen who met as friends and allies around the Peace Table. They made great errors. The doctrine of self-determination was not the remedy for Europe, which needed then above all things, unity and larger groupings. The idea that the vanquished could pay the expenses of the victors was a destructive and crazy delusion. The fail- ure to strangle Bolshevism at its birth and to bring Russia, then pros- trate, by one means or another into the general democratic system lies heavy upon us today.” Nevertheless, the statesmen at Versailles, largely at the inspiration of President Wilson, an inspiration imple- mented effectively by British thought, created the League of Nations. This is their defense before history, and had the League been reso- lutely sustained and used, it would have saved us all. This was not to be. Another ordeal even more appalling than the first lay before us. Even when so much else had failed we could have obtained a prolonged peace, lasting all our lives at least, simply by keeping Germany disarmed in accordance with the Treaty, and by treating her with justice and magnanimity. This latter condition was very nearly achieved at Locarno in 1925, but the failure to enforce the disarmament clauses and above all to sustain the League of Nations, 88 In view of Churchill's glowing praise of Lloyd George earlier in his address, few Americans would expect that much of this failure on the British side was due to Lloyd George himself. The British press, however, did not forget this. For ex- ample, the Eastern Daily Press (Norwich, England), April 2, 1949, in a London Letter entitled “Remembering L. G.” said: “It has long been known that something of the old Radical survives in the present leader of the Conservative Party, and the mutual regard of Winston Chur- chill and Lloyd George which survived the divergence of their political paths deprived the House of Commons almost completely of duels between the two most accomplished Parliamentary swordsmen of their day. There is nothing surprising, therefore, in Mr. Churchill's Boston tribute to L. G. Yet at this moment it is hardly on the fight for the 1909 Budget that one would expect his memory to dwell. “He has referred more than once to the unfortunate failure of the attempt to strangle Bolshevism at birth. That was due mainly to Lloyd George's change of front. I remember the speech in which he announced the holding of the Prinkipo conference and the hopes he based on the “bulging corn bins' of Russia. Mr. Churchill proved by speech and writing that he had a far sounder idea of what the Russian harvest was likely to be, but he treated L. G. with a gentleness he would have shown nobody else in the same circumstances.” Winston Churchill 59 both of which purposes could easily have been accomplished, brought upon us the Second World War.” Once again the English speaking world gloriously but narrowly emerged, bleeding and breathless, but united as we never were before. This unity is our present salvation, because after all our victories we are now faced by perils, both grave and near, and by problems more dire than have ever confronted Christian civilization, even in this twentieth century of storm and change. There remains, however, a key of deliverance. It is the same key which was searched for by those who labored to set up the World Court at the Hague in the early years of the century. It is the same conception which animated President Wilson and his colleagues at Versailles, namely the creation of a world instrument capable at least of giving to all its members security against aggression. The United Nations Organization which has been created under the inspiring lead- ership of my great wartime friend, President Roosevelt, that organiza- tion which took the place of the former League, has so far been rent and distracted by the antagonism of Soviet Russia and by the funda- mental schism which has opened between Communism and the rest of mankind. But we must not despair. We must persevere, and if the gulf continues to widen, we must make sure that the cause of Freedom is defended by all the resources of combined forethought and superior science. Here lies the best hope of averting a third world struggle, and a sure means of coming through it without being enslaved or destroyed. One of the questions which you are debating here is defined as “the failure of social and political institutions to keep pace with material and technical change.” Scientists should never underrate the deep-seated qualities of human nature and how, repressed in one direction, they will certainly break out in another. The genus homo–if I may display my Latin, I have some—not much—the genus homo is a tough creature who has travelled here by a very long road. His nature has been shaped and his virtues ingrained by many millions of years of struggle, fear, and pain, and his spirit has, from the earliest dawn of history, shown itself upon occasion capable of mounting to the sublime, far above material conditions or mortal terrors. He still remains, man still re- mains as Pope described him two hundred years ago: Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great . . . Created half to rise and half to fall, * Some commentators thought this much too simple an explanation for the growth of Nazism or Communism. See, for example, footnotes 52, 54, 57, 58. 60 Twentieth Century Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled, The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.” In his introductory address, Dr. Burchard, the Dean of Humanities, spoke with awe of “an approaching scientific ability to control men's thoughts with precision.” I shall be very content, personally, if my task in this world is done before that happens.” Laws just or unjust may govern men's actions. Tyrannies may restrain or regulate their words. The machinery of propaganda may pack their minds with false- hood and deny them truth for many generations of time. But the soul of man thus held in a trance or frozen in a long night can be awakened by a spark coming from God knows where, and in a moment the whole structure of lies and oppression is on trial for its life. Peoples in bond- age need never despair. Let them hope and trust in the genius of man- kind. Science, no doubt, if sufficiently perverted, could exterminate us all, but it is not in the power of material forces, at present or in any period which the youngest here tonight need take into practical ac- count, to alter permanently the main elements in human nature and restrict the infinite variety of forms in which the soul and genius of the human race can and will express itself. How right you are, Dr. Compton, in this great Institution of technical study and achievement, to keep a Dean of Humanities and give him so commanding a part to play in your discussions!” No technical *9 Pope, Essay on Man, Epistle II, lines 1–18: Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of mankind is man. Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride, He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest; In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err; Alike in ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little or too much: Chaos of thought and passion, all confus’d; Still by himself abus’d or disabus’d; Created half to rise, and half to fall; Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl’d: The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! * The Editor, too, can be very content if his remarks offered merely a spring- board for the leaping phrases of W. S. C. on this point. For extended comment on what others thought of “Thought Control,” see pages 6, 7, 465–467. ** Most news coverage ignored this remark; those who did comment on it took it as highly significant. A noteworthy commentary appeared in The Lisbon Enter- Winston Churchill 61 knowledge can outweigh knowledge of the humanities in the gaining of which philosophy and history walk hand in hand. Our inheritance of well-founded slowly conceived codes of honor, morals and manners, the passionate convictions which so many hundreds of millions share together of the principles of freedom and justice, are far more precious to us than anything which scientific discoveries could bestow. Those whose minds are attracted or compelled to rigid and symmetrical sys- tems of government should remember that logic, like science, must be the servant and not the master of man. Human beings and human so- cieties are not structures that are built or machines that are forged. prise (Lisbon Falls, Maine), April 7, 1949, under the heading “Good Deal”: “We sat and listened to the radio when Winston Churchill was making his speech at M.I.T., and pondered rather well on his points. As we listened, we picked out what the morning newspapers would play up, and it turned out that we were a good judge. They played up, primus, the atom bomb and his remark that Eng- land would have been bombarded already if the United States didn't have the bomb. This, with several ramifications and numerous details, was the gist of the speech as far as the greater part of the people in this country got it from the newspaper reports. No matter how well his remarks were interpreted and reported, that was the average starting point for the reporters and editors. “Then we sat there and tried to consider what, in his speech, actually was the most significant remark. It was easy to accept the conclusive fact that the atom bomb, itself, was NOT the principal item—if only because so many people seemed to think it was. The fact that the newspapers picked that point renders it relatively minor—a way of saying that the newspapers are not to be trusted too well in these affairs. “We would like to suppose that Mr. Churchill's speech revolved, rather, around a casual, and probably ad-lib remark. [The remark was not ad-lib. ED.] That was when he turned to the Administration of M.I.T. and commended the institution for maintaining a Dean of Humanities. “Therein lies, in essence, a great lesson. The emphasis on the humanities at a technological celebration was so far afield that, naturally, hardly anybody noticed it. But Mr. Churchill supported his remark ably, and if anybody had listened to him at that point he might have had a complete answer to the ills that beset us. The thing is rather unwieldly in our day and age. We are at present whistling ourselves past the graveyard, and have no mental logic, philosophy, equanimity and moderation to support us. The things that we could rely on if we were col- lectively earnest students of history and philosophy are things we don’t seem to know much about. We can erect an equilateral triangle on a given straight line, and we can bounce electronic impulses off the moon, but as a company of way- farers we couldn’t tell Pindar from Sappho if we had to. So the thought could be developed, although Mr. Churchill only touched upon it, and returned to it only briefly. “In the end, of course, he was cheered largely, and received great space in the newspapers because he spoke about the atom bomb. And in the end, of course, it will be the atom bomb that will destroy us. Or something equally as scientific. It is hard for scientists and scientific people to pause and view the tiny flower in a crannied wall—but if we were to assay Mr. Churchill's remarks, we would feel he had told us it might be a good idea to. And that, probably, is a good deal more important than anything he said about destruction.” 62 Twentieth Century They are plants that grow and must be tended as such.” Life is a test and this world a place of trial. Always the problems, or it may be the same problem, will be presented to every generation in different forms. The problems of victory may even be more baffling than those of defeat. However much the conditions change, the Supreme question is how we live and grow and bloom and die, and how far each human life conforms to standards which are not wholly related to space or time.* And here I speak not only to those who enjoy the blessings and con- solation of revealed religion, but also to those who face the mysteries of human destiny alone. I say that the flame of Christian ethics is still our highest guide.” To guard and cherish it is our first interest, both 48 Compare with Ryckmans, page 153: “Man may bore for water and make deserts blossom, he may build a skyscraper in a matter of weeks—but it needs all the sunshine of a summer to fill and ripen one ear of corn.” 44 Quoting the lines to which the footnote refers, The Evening News (London), said, “And he gave us the philosophy which underlies all our really democratic convictions.” 45 This reference was widely hailed, and generally with approval. Writers in some of the Catholic press, however, viewed it with mixed emotions. For ex- ample, John Griffin in The Boston Sunday Post (Mass.), April 3, 1949, approved: “There was one aspect of the Churchill speech which was noteworthy. It was his recognition of the necessity for the exercise of Christian virtues and Christian ethics. He was speaking before the most distinguished gathering of scientists in many years, and some men of science seem to think that science is all. “They sometimes forget that there is a greater power, that the world cannot get along simply on what science provides. If science were the be-all and know-all of existence, there would be no hope for humanity. Churchill's insistence upon the fact of God and the need for acting in accordance with Christian ethics was a timely thought.” This argument of course was central to the panel on Science and Materialism (see Chapter v). . Other Catholic writers were not so enthusiastic. Andrew Forbes, writing under the heading “Two Boston Speeches” in The Catholic Times (London), April 8, 1949, found a good deal to suggest that Churchill did not understand Christianity, which is more than ethics; and for other points of the Churchill address he found it ironical that they should have been delivered at M.I.T. The whole comment, finally favorable to Churchill, is worth reading but some excerpts will have to suffice here. “. . . not even Churchill, with all his historical sweep, has the roots of Christen- dom in him. “. . . when Churchill exalts Christianity it is in the abstraction of ‘the Christian ethic,’ which might come from any liberalising clergyman, but which would not be understood by Duke Henry the Pious who died under the Tartar knives at Lignica, or by Don John of Austria who carried the Cross against the Crescent under the patronage of the Queen of Heaven. . . . “Perhaps the real significance of this address, delivered in the Institute of Tech- nology, was the deep underlying pessimism about technology itself. . . . “No doubt, long after the world at large has forgotten the political passages, Winston Churchill 63 spiritually and materially. The fulfillment of Spiritual duty in our daily life is vital to our survival. Only by bringing it into perfect application can we hope to solve for ourselves the problems of this world, and not of this world alone. I, Ladies and Gentlemen, I cannot speak to you here tonight without expressing to the United States—as I have perhaps some right to do—the thanks of Britain and of Europe for the splendid part America is playing in the world. Many nations have risen to the summit of human affairs, but here is a great example where new-won supremacy has not been used for self-aggrandisement but only for further sacrifice.4° the Boston speech will be remembered in the Institute of Technology as an inter- vention in a debate of even greater moment, when at the height of man's tech- nical achievement there is a cold doubt whether he has lost his own soul not by gaining the whole world but by destroying it. “. . . the fears of the technocrats go beyond man's conscious weapons of de- struction, for the most intelligent of the technocrats are now aware that they have destroyed the balance both of man and of nature, that to exploit natural resources with the ferocity exhibited by the present generation is to produce not wealth but scarcity, arising from soil erosion and fertility exhaustion. “Anyone who knows the high and triumphant tradition of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will sense the irony of the scene when the greatest living master of politics and war refers there to the debate within its walls ‘whether the problem of world production yielding at least a minimum living to the whole pop- ulation can be solved, and whether man has so destroyed the resources of his world that he may be doomed to die of starvation.’ “From all this, on reflection, we may after all be able to draw a more comfort- ing conclusion. Clearly this side of Churchill’s address is the one of long-range importance; and just as his clarity and humility in the large affairs of State do him honour, so it is a sign of intellectual honesty that the debate proceeds in the very headquarters of technology, as though to justify a random observation of Spengler that the technicians themselves may in the end desert their inventions.” 46 An editorial in The New York Times, on March 27, 1949, News of the Week Section, commented: “. . . In speeches, articles and statements in press conferences, Mr. Churchill has summed up his views about the United States. These are some of the things he has said: “In an address before Congress in 1941: ‘I cannot help reflecting that if my father had been American and my mother British, instead of the other way round, I might have got here on my own.” “At Harvard University in 1948: ‘I like to think of British and Americans mov- ing freely over each other's wide estates with hardly a sense of being foreigners to one another.’ “At Fulton, Mo., in 1946: “If the population of the English-speaking Common- wealth be added to that of the United States, with all such cooperation implies in the air, on the sea, all over the globe, * * * there will be no quivering, pre- carious balance of power to offer its temptation to ambition or adventure.” “Last week in New York: “I am particularly glad to come to America to ex- press the thanks we all feel on the other side—in many nations—to the United States for what she is doing for the world.’” 64 Twentieth Century Three years ago I made a speech at Fulton, Missouri, under the auspices of President Truman. Many people here and in my own coun- try were startled and even shocked by what I said. But events have vindicated and fulfilled in much detail the warnings which I deemed it my duty to give at that time. Today there is a very different climate of opinion. I am in cordial ac- cord with much that is being done. We have, as dominating facts, the famous Marshall Aid, the new unity in Western Europe and now the Atlantic Pact. How has this tremendous change in our outlook and policy been accomplished? Let us inquire into that. The responsible Ministers in all the countries concerned deserve high credit. There is credit enough for all. In my own country the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Bevin, who has come here tonight to sign the Atlantic Pact, has shown himself, like many American public men, above mere partisan interest in dealing with these national and world issues.” No one could, how- ever, have brought about these immense changes in the feeling of the United States, of Great Britain and of Europe but for the astounding policy of the Russian Soviet Government. We may well ask, “Why have they deliberately acted for three long years so as to unite the free world against them?” It is certainly not because there are not some very able men among them. Why have they done it? I will offer you my own answer to this strange conundrum. It is because they fear the friend- ship of the West more than its hostility.” They cannot, they cannot, 47 The attitude of Churchill towards Bevin throughout his stay, and in par- ticular this statement, drew general praise from the British Press. A characteristic comment is drawn from the Daily Mail (London), for April 1, 1949: “Mr. Churchill paid generous tribute to the work of Mr. Bevin in this great matter [i.e., signing of the Atlantic Pact. ED.], and his plaudits will be echoed in this country. “But it will not be forgotten, either, that it was Mr. Churchill himself who, in his Fulton speech of 1946, first advocated the ‘special partnership which has developed into the Atlantic Alliance. “His proposals then were received with fury not only from the Communists but from the Socialists. Now, when the Socialists are hailing the Alliance, let º admit the debt they owe to the man who was three years ahead of anyone €ISé. *This is a strong and prophetic statement. A good appreciation of it was of fered in an editorial, “A Peace Recipe,” in The Daily Telegraph (London), for April 1, 1949. “In the overwhelmingly important matter of Freedom versus Communism, we British are practically solid; and so are the Americans. “Nevertheless in both countries, and far more in some other countries associated with them, there remains a minority which cherishes the hope that Russian ambi- tions are not what they seem. The old sentiment that birds of Left-Wing feather should flock together dies hard. It is, moreover, stimulated, as Mr. Churchill sug- gested, by those ambitious and unprincipled enough to think that the Commu- mist waggon will be a tumbrel for others but for themselves a car to carry them to Winston Churchill 65 afford to allow free and friendly intercourse to grow up between the vast areas they control and the civilization of the West. The Russian people must not see what is going on outside, and the world must not see what goes on inside the Soviet domain. Thirteen men in the Krem- lin, holding down hundreds of millions of people and aiming at the rule of the world, feel that at all costs they must keep up the barriers. Self-preservation, not for Russia but for themselves, lies at the root and is the explanation of their sinister and malignant policy. In consequence of the Soviet conduct the relations of Communist Russia with the other great powers of the world are without precedent in history. Measures and counter-measures have been taken on many occasions which in any previous period could only have meant or ac- companied armed conflict. The situation has been well described by distinguished Americans as the “cold war.” “And the question is asked “Are we winning the cold war?” Well, this cannot be decided by look- ing at Europe alone. We must also look at Asia. The worst disaster since our victory has been the collapse of China under Communist at- tack and intrigue.” China, in which the United States have always taken a high interest, comprises an immense part of the population of the world. The absorption of China and of India into the Kremlin- controlled Communist Empire would certainly bring measureless bloodshed and misery to eight or nine hundred million people. power. The illusions of the wishful thinkers are, in the last resort, based upon the feeling that no sensible State could possibly condemn itself to isolation and de- vote itself to aggression as Russia has done, and that Russia therefore cannot willingly be doing either. “Mr. Churchill gave them the answer yesterday. All dictatorships of the total- itarian stamp fear contact with other systems. It must not be thought—and, if they are intelligent, they do not think it—that they endure automatically or free from anxiety. The rulers in the Kremlin may well remember that they owe their life to the injection into Russia of one kind of serum—in the shape of Lenin and Trotsky in 1917—and may well fear that they would owe their death to the injection of another kind—in the shape of Western ideas—today. As for aggression, they have spent over 30 years without more than tactical deviation from the doctrine of their founders that there must be irreconcilable conflict between Communism and other faiths. Many shared Mr. Churchill's hope that the war had made a casualty of this dogma. But it did not.” The United States Department of State has made a convincing report on Ameri- can efforts to break through the Russian wall against intellectual intercourse. Re- leased to the press as Department of State publication 3480 on March 24, 1949, it can be found in The Department of State Bulletin, Vol. XX, No. 509, for April 3, 1949 (page 403). It is called “Cultural Relations: US-USSR—Efforts to Estab- lish Cultural-Scientific Exchange Blocked by the USSR.” 49 Which the Russians accuse Churchill of starting. See page 75, footnote 62. 50 See Stassen, page 429. This was the phrase of which Senator Taft was quoted as being most certain he could approve. There are many who blame the collapse on the graft of the Nationalists as well. See footnote 54. 66 Twentieth Century On the other hand, the position in Europe has so far been success- fully maintained. The prodigious effort of the Berlin Air Lift has car- ried us through the winter. Time, though dearly bought, has been gained for peace. The efficiency of the American and British Air Forces has been proved and improved. Most of all the spectacle of the British and Americans trying to feed the two million Germans in Berlin, in their zone in Berlin, while the Soviet Government was trying to starve them out, has been an object lesson to the German people far beyond anything that words could convey. I trust that small and needless prov- ocations of German sentiment may be avoided by the Western Powers. The revival and union of Europe cannot be achieved without the earn- est and freely given aid of the German people. This has certainly been promoted by the Berlin Air Lift which has fully justified itself. Nevertheless, Ladies and Gentlemen, fear and its shadows brood over Western Europe today. A month ago in Brussels I spoke to a meeting of 80,000 Belgians. I could feel at once their friendship and their anxiety. They have no Atlantic Ocean, no English Channel, between them and the Russian Communist armored divi- sions. Yet they bravely and ardently support the cause of United Eu- rope. I admired them. I was also conscious of the hope and faith which they, like the Greek people, place in the United States. I could see the movement of this vast crowd when I spoke of the hand, the strong hand stretched out across the ocean by the great republic. You have great responsibilities there for much faith is placed upon you. We are now confronted with something quite as wicked but in some ways more formidable than Hitler, because Hitler had only the Her- renvolk pride and anti-Semitic hatred to exploit. He had no funda- mental theme. But these thirteen men in the Kremlin have their hierarchy and a church of Communist adepts, whose missionaries are in every country as a Fifth Column, obscure people but awaiting the day when they hope to be the absolute masters of their fellow-country- men and pay off old scores. They have their anti-God religion and their Communist doctrine of the entire subjugation of the individual to the State. And behind this stands the largest army in the world, in the hands of a Government pursuing imperialist expansion, as no Czar or Kaiser had ever done.” 51 Karl Marx seems to have predicted this long ago. A box in the Tribune (Lon- don), April 8, 1949, repeated the quotation from Marx given in The New York Tribune, April 12, 1853, as follows: “Will the giant Russian state ever halt in its march toward world power? Even if she wished to do so, conditions would prevent it. The natural borders of Russia run from Danzig, or even Stettin, down to Trieste, and it is inevitable that the Rus- Winston Churchill 67 I must not conceal from you tonight the truth as I see it. It is cer- tain that Europe would have been communized like Czechoslovakia, and London under bombardment some time ago but for the deterrent of the Atomic Bomb in the hands of the United States.” sian leaders should do their utmost to swell out until they have reached this bor- der. Russia has only one opponent: the explosive power of democratic ideas and the inborn urge of the human race in the direction of freedom.” Churchill himself might have found the warning earlier in strangely familiar terms of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, the Henry Reeve text as revised by Francis Bowen (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1945), Vol. I, page 434 (first published in 1885): “There are at the present time two great nations in the world, which started from different points, but seem to tend towards the same end. I allude to the Russians and the Americans. Both of them have grown up unnoticed; and while the attention of mankind was directed elsewhere, they have suddenly placed themselves in the front rank among the nations, and the world learned their existence and their greatness at almost the same time. “All other nations seem to have nearly reached their natural limits, and they have only to maintain their power; but these are still in the act of growth. All the others have stopped, or continue to advance with extreme difficulty; these alone are proceeding with ease and celerity along a path to which no limit can be per- ceived. The American struggles against the obstacles that nature opposes to him; the adversaries of the Russian are men. The former combats the wilderness and savage life; the latter, civilization with all its arms. The conquests of the Ameri- can are therefore gained by the plowshare; those of the Russian by the sword. The Anglo-American relies upon personal interest to accomplish his ends and gives free scope to the unguided strength and common sense of the people; the Russian centers all the authority of society in a single arm. The principal instrument of the former is freedom; of the latter, servitude. Their starting-point is different and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.” 52 This was perhaps the most spectacular remark made by Churchill as the newsmen saw it. It was the touchstone for many of the headlines. It was ap- proved directly or indirectly by most of the press which was not clearly left-wing. Senator McMahon (Democrat, Connecticut), Chairman of the Joint Congressional Atomic Committee, was quoted as saying in a foresighted statement in The Sun (New York), “Mr. Churchill correctly judges the part the atomic bomb plays in presently keeping the peace. However we shall not remain the exclusive possessor in the future and Mr. Churchill, unlike so many others, realizes it.” Senator Tydings (Democrat, Maryland), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Com- mittee, added that “we need other military arms to prevent World War III.” The pro-Soviet and the Communist press of course howled but reserved their bolts for other proposals rather than for this statement of affirmation. Not all of the criticism came from those who were friendly to Russia or unfriendly to Church- ill, and from such writers penetrating criticism sometimes emerged. One of these was presented by Michael Foot in his column, “Any Questions,” carrying in this case a large headline, “Atomic Nonsense.” This appeared in the Daily Herald (London, England), April 8, 1949, and read in part: “. . . to speak of the atomic bomb as our chief shield against the challenge of Communism is not merely a declaration of bankruptcy. It misses the whole sig- nificance of the argument now raging in Europe and throughout the world. “The appeal of Soviet Communism is based partly on a monstrous delusion about the real conditions in the U.S.S.R. and partly on the promise that it can 68 Twentieth Century Another question is also asked. Is time on our side? This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is not a question that can be answered except within strict bring a new and better social order to those suffering from poverty, unemploy- ment, the effects of war and the other afflictions of twentieth-century society. “Those who wish to prevent Europe being engulfed by the Stalinite form of tyranny have the duty not only to defend themselves and to expose the Soviet myth. The enduring demand upon them is to build a new social order by demo- cratic means. If we fail to pursue this ideal, atom bombs will not save us. “The war in Europe today is chiefly a war for men's minds. That is why the argument between democratic Socialism and Soviet Communism is the paramount issue and why most of what Churchill says is irrelevant nonsense.” A similar comment by a writer who likes Churchill less well but does not like Russia either, was made in a leading article in the Tribune (London), April 8, 1949, under the heading, “Stalin Has His Atom Bombs,” and reads in part: “An old fable tells how the animals came to give their thanksgiving to Jupiter. The peacock returned thanks for his sweet voice, the hog for his cleanliness, and the viper for his harmless nature. “It is now possible to make an addition to this menagerie of the self-deluded. Mr. Winston Churchill has laid aside the armour of a warrior and the mantle of a politician to appear in the toga of a philosopher and a sage. Speaking in Boston, Massachusetts, he has sought to unravel the profound mysteries of our tortured planet. “A chorus of acclaim has risen to greet the new prophet. Grandiloquence is hailed as if it were the same thing as sagacity. But we cannot join the tribute. . . .” “He portrays mankind as the victim of “tides and currents, of whirlpools and tornadoes.” There is nothing like a metaphor for concealing ignorance. For the truth is that these tides and tornadoes which have shaped our destiny were not the works of nature. They were made by men, by their ambitions, their folly and their inhumanity. “Incredible though it may seem, Churchill is able to describe the rise of Hitler- ism in Germany without even mentioning the mass unemployment and economic collapse which hoisted Nazism into the saddle. He speaks of the future while scarcely referring to the new social aspirations which are being debated in almost every land. “The bankruptcy of Churchill's faith is revealed in a single sentence. ‘It is cer- tain, he says, “that Europe would have been communised and London under bom- bardment some time ago but for the deterrent of the atomic bomb in the hands of the United States.” “Such a hypothetical claim cannot be proved or disproved. But the whole weight of the evidence is against so glib a certainty, and, indeed, for all Churchill’s disavowal of despair, what more despairing gospel could there be than the asser- tion that nothing but naked force and force alone had stood between Europe and subjection? “Is it the atom bomb which has prevented Soviet Communism from seizing power in, say, Finland or Austria or Norway, as it seized power in Czechoslovakia? Or is it not rather the fact that democratic and Socialist forces in those countries have been too vigilant and stubborn and alive to permit themselves to be under- mined and destroyed? The atom bomb did not save Czech freedom. Something more than atom bombs will be needed to save the freedom of the rest of Europe and the world. “. . . argument in Europe today is not solely, or even chiefly, concerned with the careful balance of armed power. The argument embraces the whole field of Winston Churchill 69 limits. We have certainly not an unlimited period of time before a settlement should be achieved.* The utmost vigilance should be prac- man's endeavours and hopes; his desire to build a new society in which he shall be assured of the fruits of his own labours; his fear of insecurity and unemploy- ment born of exploitation and anarchy; his dream of a real liberty, equality and fraternity. “None of these three is supplied in the Soviet Union, but it is the delusive promise of them which gives to Soviet Communism the potency of its appeal. The major business of the Western world is to prove by deeds how democracy can fulfil these hopes far more abundantly than the Soviet champions of the new des- potism. Here in Britain, where Churchill survives as an irascible anachronism, we have made a good start. “It is hard for Churchill and those who think like him to recognise that they are the Kremlin's dearest allies. But this is truly the role of all those who strive to strangle the new society which every adult political democracy must seek to create. If these obstructionists had their way, they would do for Sovietism a service be- yond anything which can be rendered unaided by the Soviet fifth columns. They— the Churchills, the de Gaulles, the Senator Tafts, and the rest—are, in fact, nothing less than Stalin's atom bombs.” Conservative journals generally believed in the warning. The Derby Evening Telegraph (England), April 2, 1949, reminded its readers, “The picture he painted was by no means exaggerated; the warning about London being bombed and Europe under a rule of tyranny was scorned 15 years ago, but it came true never- theless.” Churchill himself left the interpreting to the interpreters. On the sailing of the Queen Mary on April 2, there was a large press interview. Urged to elaborate this remark, he consistently remarked (as reported by the United Press), “Don’t you think it stands better in its naked simplicity?” 53 This is perhaps the most controversial sentence in the whole address and since it is open to various interpretations, it gave those who wished to joust with Churchill one of their best weapons. The most vigorous of these came not unex- pectedly from the pen of K. Zilliacus, the well-known Communist and Member of Parliament. Zilliacus prepared an article under the dateline of May 28, 1949, in the Forward (Glasgow, Scotland) under the heading, “Why We Should Fight For a Labour Victory,” and a sub-head, “Conservatives Want War.” His by-line stated for all to read that he had been expelled from the Labour Party the week before. After describing at great length the attitude of the Tories toward the Soviet Union, going well back into history, at least to 1936, quoting Harold MacMillan for the Party, and so on, none of this having anything to do with the Churchill address, Zilliacus then said: “The worst warmonger in the Tory Party is its leader, Mr. Churchill. He violently protested against the withdrawal of British troops from Burma, India and Egypt. Step by step, in a series of speeches beginning at Fulton, Missouri, in March, 1946, and ending in Boston in April, 1949, he has developed his doctrine.” Zilliacus then went on to quote, not from Churchill but from what was reported as the gist of his address appearing in, of all places, the New York Herald Tribune, Paris edition, April 9, 1949, not a news account but the interpretation given to the Churchill address by the brothers Alsop (Joseph and Stewart) whom Zilliacus characterizes as “two star Washington political correspondents, who are Mr. Churchill's fervent admirers and go with him all the way.” (The Alsops had said in effect that Churchill's address concealed his real thought, which was that there 70 Twentieth Century ticed, but I do not think myself that violent or precipitate action should be taken now. War is not inevitable.* The Germans have a wise Say- ing “The trees do not grow up to the sky.” Often something happens to turn or mitigate the course of events.” Four or five hundred years ago must be a show-down with the U.S.S.R. before it too developed the atom bomb.) This was an extraordinary performance. The full text of the address was avail- able in a number of the principal British papers and massive excerpts were in the rest. All these were available to Zilliacus but did not suit his purpose. He needed something more bitter than anything Churchill had actually said and for that he had to find an interpreter for a man who has never, whatever else may be said against him, been subject to the suggestion that he was a weasel. Perhaps no very serious indictment can be brought against the brothers Alsop simply because they were used by Zilliacus, for that gentleman would have found another way to dis- tort the case had this not been ready to hand. Unfortunately, however, their widely syndicated column appears in papers throughout the land, papers which did not carry any extensive coverage of the original text, papers of Bangor, Maine, and papers of Houston, Texas. Under these conditions what the brothers Alsop chose to say Churchill meant was more significant to the citizens of Bangor and Houston and countless other cities of the United States than was what Churchill said, even if they had fleetingly heard the text on their radios. This awesome responsibility unfortunately does not seem to deter even serious commentators, among whom the brothers Alsop must be classed. The student of this sort of thing may be in- terested to know exactly how they did interpret Churchill. The column is therefore quoted in full in Appendix B. 54 The Evening News & Times (Worcester, England), April 1, 1949, com- mented on this phrase. In general the editorial praised Churchill, but it did feel moved to say: “Mr. Churchill expressed the view held by most of us that these measures of unity in the West are the sole hope of averting a third war, though violent or precipitate action must be avoided. War, he agreed, is not inevitable, even in this darkling hour, but it is necessary to maintain the utmost vigilance in the present cold war. With that thesis few will quarrel. The one weakness in Mr. Churchill's approach is an inability or reluctance to diagnose the reasons why Communism has made the headway it has. To denounce its evils is not quite enough. Force and cunning are not its only weapons. When Mr. Churchill deplores the victories of Communism in China and its progress in South East Asia he neglects the con- sideration that in some degree they may be attributable to the faults of the régimes that have failed to meet the threat. Resistance to the force of Communism must have constructive and positive elements. Though almost anything is better than Communism, it is not quite realistic to assume that peoples everywhere will feel that anything is better.” See in this connection Mudaliar (page 157), Compton (page 81) and Con- treras (page 263). * The South Wales Evening Post (Swansea, Wales), April 2, 1949, also gen- erally favorable to Churchill, was disturbed that he relied so much on luck: “. . . Had he any comfort to offer at Boston? None, save a reminder of the sheer unpredictability of events. Something may turn up. There may be deaths of strong men, and the succession of weak men, too weak to bear the massive weight of a new world war. Against that, we are dealing not with individuals, a Genghis Khan or a Napoleon, but with a syndicate, a creed, a system, that, like the cult of Islam in its militant youth, will find new propagators to carry on the work. . . .” Winston Churchill 71 Europe seemed about to be conquered by the Mongols. Two great bat- tles were fought almost on the same day near Vienna and in Poland. In both of these the chivalry and armed power of Europe was com- pletely shattered by the Asiatic hordes of mounted archers. It seemed that nothing could avert the doom of the famous Continent from which modern civilization and culture have spread throughout the world. But at the critical moment something happened, the Great Khan died.” 56 This reference, a little loose in its historical precision, as is appropriate in an oration, left Churchill open to criticism by historical pedants and by insulted orientals both of whom drew the fallacious conclusion that he is weak in history, ignorant especially of any non-English history, and that this accounts for some of his “bad” political judgments. Here are the facts. Sunday morning before the address, in Mr. Baruch's New York apartment, Churchill asked Burchard to send him some information about the Great Khan who had fought nearly simultaneous battles in Poland and Hungary about the middle of the thirteenth century. He specifically said, “I don’t mean Genghis—it was another one.” The information was easily found and reported. Genghis Khan died in 1227, having achieved an empire stretching from the China Sea to the Dnieper. The conquest of China was incomplete. Contrary to the Mongolian rules of primogeniture, Genghis named his third son (the first by a non-Chinese wife) Chief or Great Khan. This was Ogadai or Ogotai, who thus became the Great Khan. “Great Khan” simply means the current overlord. Ogadai was a vigorous extender of the empire. In 1235 he sent out three armies, one against Korea, one against the Sung dynasty of South China, and one against Eastern Europe. The army sent to Europe was under the command of Batu, the son of Ogadai's deceased elder brother, Juji, and therefore a contender for the throne. Batu met with great success. After desolating Ryazan and Kiev in Russia, he divided his army and sent one division into Poland while he led the other into Hungary. He defeated the sleeping and badly placed Hungarians at Mohi and chased the king, Bela IV, to the Adriatic, captured Pesth, and crossed the Danube on the ice on Christmas Day, 1241. Meanwhile Ogadai had died on the 11th of December, 1241, and the news was sent rapidly to Batu who was summoned to return into Mongolia and who certainly would not have wished to stay away. Churchill knew that the battles took place 700 years ago, not 500; that one of them was near Pesth, not Vienna; that the Great Khan involved was Ogadai, not Genghis. He elected to use 500, probably regarding the number of years as un- important, and to say Vienna as more familiar to his audience than Pesth. This gave the pedants their chance, for Suleiman I, leading the troops of the Ottoman Empire, did fight battles near Vienna five hundred years ago. They were not so decisive and of course quite irrelevant. Nonetheless, this remark caused raised eyebrows and letters to The Times. A more interesting result to the Editor was the demonstration that American newspapers, reporters and commentators almost to a man assumed that Churchill meant Genghis Khan and so usually wrote the name in their dispatches without looking it up. It is possible to forgive the morning stop-press for not looking up something that takes five minutes of encyclopaedia reference; but columnists might have taken the time. One suspects that their habit of guessing at contemporary news has caused them to guess at history—where unfortunately they can more readily be found out. More important perhaps, were the editorial speculations as to what Churchill 72 Twentieth Century The succession was vacant and the Mongol armies and their leaders trooped back on their ponies across the seven thousand miles which separated them from their capital in order to choose a successor. They never returned till now.” We need not abandon hope or patience. Many favorable processes are on foot. Under the impact of Communism all the free nations are being welded together as they never have been before and never could be, but for the harsh external pressure to which they are being sub- jected.” We have no hostility to the Russian people and no desire to intended by the reference. Most of them thought he was looking forward to struggles of the pretorians on the death of Stalin. Several, like the editor cited in footnote 55, felt this was too optimistic, and learned was the discussion thereof. Indeed, the question of Stalin's death did not escape notice on Churchill's de- parture and at his interview on the Queen Mary on April 2 as quoted in the New York Herald Tribune he made the following categorical statement, “I was not thinking of changes in personnel. That makes no great difference.” 57 This paragraph seemed unhappy to the Eastern Daily Press (Norwich, Eng- land), April 5, 1949, which said in an editorial called, “Step by Step”: “What Mr. Churchill had to say recently about a possible return of the Asiatic invaders of Europe has been criticised as over-simplified and so it undoubtedly is. It is tempting to look upon Bolshevism as an Asiatic invasion of European culture. This was a language which could appropriately be used when European culture was self-sufficient and its civilisation felt to be co-terminous with human civilisa- tion. Mr. Churchill, in the very speech in which he appeared to accept these as- Sumptions, spoke of what has happened in China as the greatest of recent tragedies. He is the last man who can really imagine that what happens in Asia—in India and in China for example—is of no concern to us. However disillusioned we may be with the United Nations Organisation, it still exists and we are members of it and ready to bring our problems to the judgment of an Assembly in which all the Continents have their voice. All this makes it strangely out of date to discuss any problem in terms of driving people or problems out of Europe as though this meant driving them out of the world. “Perhaps the chief lesson we can learn from such impressive statements as that of Mr. Churchill is that the problem has now become too big and complicated to be dealt with in this way at all. However disappointed may have been our hopes of one world' as originally entertained, we remain committed to this conception in another sense. We shall be wise, therefore, to recognise that we are faced with problems which defy synthesis. The most we can expect of our statesmen is that they show the virtue which the late Lord Oxford once described as ‘walking in the light of common sense in the domain of realities.” If we need what has been called the Greek genius for asking the right question we need even more the Roman genius for finding the practical answer.” * The Evening Star (Ipswich, England), for April 1, 1949, remarked that though Churchill's speech would be a red rag to a bull, its bluntness could no longer be deprecated for now no responsible statesmen in the world enlarge upon the possibilities of adjusting differences between the East and the West. Then, re- ferring to such optimism as Churchill displayed, it quoted the preceding three sentences of the text and commented: “But hope on that basis, tangible as it is, has tragic limitations. It leaves a deadening prospect of a world divided into two armed camps, with Russia, de- Winston Churchill 73 deny them their legitimate rights and security. I hoped that Russia, after the war, would have access, through unfrozen waters, into every ocean, guaranteed by the World Organization of which she would be a leading member; I hoped that she would have the freest access, which indeed she has at the present time, to raw materials of every kind; and that the Russians everywhere would be received as brothers in the human family. That still remains our aim and our ideal. We seek noth- ing from Russia but goodwill and fair play.” If, however, there is to be a war of nerves let us make sure that our nerves are strong and are fortified by the deepest convictions of our hearts. If we persevere stead- fastly together, and allow no appeasement of tyranny and wrong-doing in any form, it may not be our nerve or the structure of our civilization terred from direct aggression, pursuing her insidious underground efforts to bring about the collapse of democracy in other lands. Under that incubus human prog- ress will be slow indeed. The great problem of our time is to devise something better than entrenchment against the ‘pressure to which Mr. Churchill alluded. The Western way of life can only prevail if by the example of its own social progress it can convince the world that it is the better way. And that object can- not be achieved unless means are found for carrying that conviction beyond the Iron Curtain.” 59 Churchill repeated this theme in a press interview in the Verandah Grill of the Queen Mary when she sailed on Saturday morning after his speech. The ac- count in The Scotsman (Edinburgh, Scotland), April 4, 1949, is typical: “In a jovial mood Mr. Churchill said goodbye to the United States at a crowded Press conference in the Verandah Grill of the liner Queen Mary shortly before she sailed for Britain yesterday. “Fellow-passengers watched the farewell Press conference through windows of the restaurant. Later, when Mr. Churchill slipped his overcoat over his famous siren suit and went out on deck to be photographed, they crowded round him eagerly. “‘I wore a suit like this in the Kremlin once,” he recalled in his talk with the reporters. It did not go so well; they thought that I was pushing democracy too far.” “Some of the comments on Russia were in similar light-hearted vein. ‘It’s ex- traordinary to have this Communist paradise in which they are afraid to open the doors lest all the cherubs fly out, or at least as many as have wings,’ he exclaimed. “But he spoke seriously when he was asked to discuss the background of his Boston address. Britain, he repeated, would be 'very very glad to stretch out the right hand of friendship to the Russian people, but you cannot get near them.’ “‘It is our dear wish, he insisted gravely, ‘to be friends with the Russian people. It is a great grief to the British and American people that the valiant Rus- sian soldiers, who fought so bravely in the war, have been misled into the position that their Government has put them in at the present time.” “How could Russian hostility towards the West be dissipated? he was asked. ‘Russia, he replied, ‘must open its borders so that people may come in and go out freely as in other countries.’ “Reminded that Moscow radio recently called him the No. 1 enemy of peace,’ he said: ‘I am not an enemy of the Russian people. I do not mind being called anti-Communist. Any rank they give me in that hierarchy I gladly will accept.’” 74 Twentieth Century which will break; something else will break and peace may yet be preserved. This is a hard experience in the life of the world. After our great victory, which we believed would decide the struggle for freedom for our time at least, we thought we had deserved better of fortune. But unities and associations are being established by many nations through- out the free world with a speed and reality which would not have been achieved perhaps for generations. Of all these unities the one most precious to me is, to use an expression I first used at Harvard six years ago, the one most precious to me is the fraternal association between the British Commonwealth of Nations and the United States. Do not, my friends, I beg of you, underrate the enduring strength of Britain. As I said at Fulton, “Do not suppose that half a century from now you will not see seventy or eighty millions of Britons spread about the world and united in defense of our traditions, our way of life, and the world causes which you and we espouse.” United we stand secure. Let us then move forward together in discharge of our mission and our duty, fearing God and nothing else.” >k :k >k :k :k During the delivery of this masterly address, Mr. Churchill, belying the stooped shoulders and halting gait with which he had first pre- sented himself, had employed the full talents of an orator in his prime. After he had finished he stood quietly, shoulders firm, hands at his sides, solid as a rock, almost belligerently for a moment, acknowledging the applause, and then returned to his seat and again sat down heavily. He arose with the gathering and alone of the people on the platform sang the words of the American national anthem as it was played by the United States Marine Band. This he did as tears welled in his eyes. There were those who attributed it to histrionics and to Mr. Churchill's ever-present sense of the dramatic and fitting. But Mrs. Churchill had 99 Since the address many people have reported sources for these words. The most common suggestion which has been made to the Editor is that they were first used, though admittedly not in exactly this order, by Catherine the Great of Russia. It is not at all hard to find a source earlier than the great Catherine and no doubt one could find an original source in classic literature. In French it ap- pears at least as early as the mid-seventeenth century: “Je crains Dieu, cher Abner, et n'ai point d'autre crainte.” Racine, Athalie, Act I, Scene 1. However, the precise source of these words is certainly not important. All of Mr. Churchill's prose, as has been frequently pointed out by friendly critics, has its roots deep in the great language of the past, in Shakespeare, in Carlyle, in Macaulay, and in the King James version of the Bible. The very general familiarity of his Sonorous phrases unquestionably adds to their strength. Postlude 75 a different explanation. When the wife of one of the committee said to her how nice it had been that Mr. Churchill sang, Mrs. Churchill leaned closer to be heard above the hubbub, and said, “He means it, my dear.” And now the guests left the arena, pausing only while Mr. Churchill acknowledged the ovation with the famed V-sign. Mr. Churchill's eve- ning duties were not quite completed, and two thousand of the audience were whisked to the Hotel Statler for a reception. Mr. Churchill's party was conducted directly to the same hotel by his special convoy, and immediately taken to the presidential suite on the thirteenth floor. Mr. Churchill thought he was going to his own hotel, the Ritz-Carlton, and remarked after looking for his comb and hairbrush, “Why, everything has been changed around here.” When matters were straightened out, according to his desire he returned briefly to his own chambers and then joined the reception. There was no receiving line. This would have been far too fatiguing. From a balcony he waved at the guests who were able now to see him at close range, some for the first time. Finally, it was clear that he would say a few further words. Here, then, he expressed his affection for his “motherland” as follows: * “Of course, I’ve never made any secret of the fact that I am out and out British. All the same, I can’t help feeling that the United States is in sentiment, as well as in fact, my own motherland. “. . . here we are, seeking more or less the same things, having the same ideals, wanting a free world, and a world where those who fall can be picked up and helped. We want all nations to have a chance— all colors, creeds and religions.” This was the end of the first day.” 61 The Editor had carelessly left his recording machines at home and so we do not have a verbatim text of Churchill's remarks, but the text quoted is as reported by The Boston Herald (Mass.), the morning after the reception. 62 Many of the more analytical comments on Churchill's address have appeared in previous footnotes but some do not readily apply to any single passage. The Communist press was naturally vituperative. Pravda, as quoted in the Glasgow Evening News (Scotland), for April 6, 1949, called Churchill “a wandering torch- bearer of new war” and “a political bankrupt.” Tägliche Rundschau, fulminating from Berlin, said “The Boston speech could be regarded as the absurdities of an old chatterbox, if it had not been inspired by malice and hate of an Imperialist against Socialism.” Pravda, as quoted in the Evening Express (Aberdeen, Scot- land), for April 6, said, “This ill-starred knight of the gloomy countenance again entertained curious Americans by having another fit of anti-Soviet hysterics” and averred that Churchill used the rostrum “as a hawker's stand for propagating the 76 Twentieth Century crusade against the Soviet Union.” The Daily Worker (London), April 1, called the address “his most savage and irresponsible attack yet on the Soviet Union” and added, “the hesitation in his own mind reflecting the confusion among the war-mongers.” Barnet Nover, writing a syndicated column, expressed more strongly than many newsmen their disappointment that the address had not been more strik- ing. In The Denver Post (Colorado), for April 3, 1949, under the heading “Cam- bridge Letdown,” he said: “The speech . . . did not, by a considerable measure, live up to its advance billing. . . . “Churchill spoke out of the accumulated wisdom of an extraordinary active and fruitful life and with the assurance of one who, perhaps beyond all others in our age, deserves the honored title of major prophet. “What was expected of him, however, was more than an oration. . . . “We have, as a result of a number of actions taken by the United States in common with the nations of the west, reached what might be described as some- thing in the nature of a plateau in concerted international action. “We cannot stop there. We cannot, even with our defenses strengthened, merely stand by and wait for the Bolshevist Grand Khan to die and with his death the subsidence of the new wave of aggression from the east. “The Marshall plan, western Europe, Rio, the Atlantic pact must, in the nature of things, not mark the end of our striving but a new beginning if at a higher level than we and our peace partners have ever reached before. “No one is in a better position to point the direction ahead than Winston Churchill, his soaring wings no longer pinioned down by the hesitations of office. He may undertake that task in other speeches. He clearly did not do so at Cam- bridge. This time the man and the occasion did not wholly meet.” But for one comment of this sort, comment from a man friendly to Churchill and the West but disappointed that something more earth-shaking had not de- veloped, there were hundreds in the Western press which praised the speech at its political level and many who found even greater import in the humanity of the address above its immediate political connotations. Extreme adjectives were by no means uncommon. For example, The World-Herald (Omaha, Neb.), April 4, 1949, said, after comparing the oratory of Churchill with that of F.D.R. in the former's favor: “Mr. Churchill is the greater virtuoso. He too, can range from calm friendliness to magnificent defiance. But his versatility does not end there. His humor is deft and kindly where Mr. Roosevelt’s was biting. And Mr. Churchill's speeches are always wholly and peculiarly his own, while Mr. Roosevelt depended upon re- searchers and ghost-writers, not always with the happiest of results. [As do all too many other great and near-great, with the same end. ED.] “Mr. Churchill's Boston speech, viewed as a work of art, was an almost flawless performance. Like almost all Churchill speeches, it was written in classical but always picturesque prose. It was written, moreover, to be heard; the spoken em- phasis was always right; the rhythms were as solid and inevitable as those of a Beethoven Symphony. . . . “In Boston, Mr. Churchill reached a peak which even he may never again at- tain.” The remainder of the comment is assembled in Appendix C. C HAPTE R III Men Against Nature–The Problem of World Production ANEL SPEAKERS, moderators, assistant moderators and stu- P dent aides met together Friday morning for breakfast at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. The main dining room was exclusively given over to six small tables, each for a different panel. As the participants quaffed the conventional juices they met each other for the first time, or renewed old acquaintanceships and friendships, sharpened their points for the forthcoming discussions. Wiser editors might have placed microphones beneath the napery and thus have had a richer book. Unhappily this supreme opportunity was overlooked. At first the conversation buzzed. People talked about Mr. Churchill's address. Especially they expressed opinions about the full-dress police convoy which had been a new personal experience for many. Every- one agreed that it had afforded an exciting and rapid way to get about even though on the noisy side. Pierre Ryckmans, the Belgian, remarked dryly that the merits of such a cavalcade depended a good deal on who was in the car and what manner of men were on the motorcycles. Dean Baker told of his experience when escorting Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar and Lord Hailey to the reception in one of the convoyed limousines. As the vehicles had dashed past the Park Street Church, escort sirens shrieking, the Boston fire department, hook and ladders, trucks, safety cars, chief and all had come roaring up Tremont Street in the opposite direction. All of the Americans in the limousine had said it was exciting; Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar was, as usual, impassive; Lord Hailey, with the calm that only a long-time British Colonial ad- ministrator can maintain amidst the clang and roar of opposing forces, had commented: “When I was in India, my carriage was drawn by six trotting camels; a seventh with drums trotted out ahead. I think that was an even more impressive arrangement!” After these brief general comments, each panel concentrated on its own problems. The one clear instruction which had been given to the 77 - 78 World Production moderators was that each was to conduct his panel as seemed to him most appropriate. This resulted in a considerable difference of tech- nique from panel to panel. Professor Padelford's group on Underde- veloped Areas, for example, elected to retain their full texts and this consumed all the available time so that there was no free discussion. On the other hand, Professor Maclaurin, moderator of the group on World Production, felt that if the discussion were to be lively, there would have to be some prodding. With this view, Dr. Vannevar Bush and Sir Henry Tizard agreed. Both of them enjoy the give-and-take of a lively exchange. Sir Henry had indeed been concerned on this point when he first met Professor Maclaurin at tea the day before, feeling that the audience would be too large and conglomerate to remain in- terested without some stimulus from the quip. As a result, Bush and Tizard abandoned their prepared remarks and spoke extemporane- ously, and more briefly than originally expected. In general each made the same points as he had previously planned, but sometimes each added or subtracted a point. On examining the record of what they said and comparing it with what they had written, it appears that the best way to present their views in print is to revert to their original texts but to interpolate in the text in brackets those parts of the speeches, as delivered, which illuminate, augment or enliven a point which is needed to make the later discussion comprehensible. The other speakers did not depart materially from their original manu- scripts. The subject of the panel as presented to the speakers beforehand, and as printed in the program for the Convocation, was “Men Against Nature, the Problem of World Production.” In the program the ques- tions were stated as follows: “Recently the doctrine of Malthus has been expressed in modern terms. According to this thesis, the consistent and continuing destruc- tion of world resources, coupled with the insistent increase of world population, promises nothing but disaster. Others argue that modern technology can refute such doctrine. “May the trend be reversed by closer attention to plant and animal diseases; by scientific consideration of the ecology of whole regions; by intelligent increase in the agricultural productivity of many areas through modern machinery; by the substitution of new for scarce materials; by other, as yet unprophesied applications of existent knowl- edge? “Is it not a fact that science can rescue those nations which are now rapidly depleting their raw materials? How may it do this? William Maclaurin 79 “An analysis of the extent of the current crisis, of the possible ameli- orations and of the methods by which these may be put into effect will be the concern of this panel.” The panel members were expected to bring to this question the major different points of view. They were a well-known conservationist, an outspoken advocate of the idea that conservation must be much more widely carried on now; a distinguished American electrical en- gineer, and a famous British physicist, each a leader of research in his own nation; a chemical engineer, one-time director of important petro- leum research, and later a practical experimenter in increasing the agricultural productivity of Venezuela and Brazil; and finally, one of the world's most important students of population, who had recently returned from the Far East, where he had been carrying on special studies. The moderator, William Rupert Maclaurin, Professor of Eco- nomics at M.I.T., has long concentrated his interests on the economics of technological innovations.” Plans made, the speakers left the hotel at half past nine and those of the Production panel entered the Rockwell Cage at ten. There they were greeted by a full house of forty-five hundred persons. Professor Maclaurin * set the tone for the way he would have his meeting go in his first remarks. Welcoming his guests, he made light of the idea that an informal discussion could take place in “this cozy little atmosphere.” “ He then explained the signals which the monitor might give to the speakers, and how the subsequent discussion would be run by cross- provocation within the panel. He added, “I thought originally I would have the pessimists on the right hand and the optimists on the left hand, but when I got them together for breakfast, I couldn't separate the sheep from goats. So I don't know where they stand. You will have to figure that out. “Now, as for our subject. Just as the hall frightens me, so does the subject. We can scarcely solve the problems that have been raised for us this morning, this afternoon, or in the next few years. We can, however, start a discussion of some of these important problems, start public discussion, and I would hope, the best I think that we could * Respectively, Fairfield Osborn, Vannevar Bush, Sir Henry Tizard, Robert Price Russell and Frank Wallace Notestein. * He is, for example, author of Invention and Innovation in the Radio Industry (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1949). * For a brief biography of Maclaurin, see Biographical Notes, page 522. *A pertinent reference to the vastness of the Rockwell Cage. It was pleasant but certainly not cozy. For a description see pages 1 and 2. 80 World Production hope, from a meeting of this sort this morning is that we will stimulate some new ideas concerning these questions and that out of that perhaps will come further research, further thought, and ultimately some sig- nificant contributions to raising the standard of living throughout the world. “We should recognize that until very recently, the United States's role in helping to raise world productivity has really been largely hit or miss, it has not been thought through, it has not been in any sense planned. And I might say that we at M.I.T., along with other scientific institutions in this country, have participated in the last forty years in exporting technology to the rest of the world. Before the war, about seven per cent of our student body came from foreign countries. These were young men who came here to learn our engineering and to take it back to their respective countries. I personally have visited some of these graduates of the Institute, in China, Japan, Malaya, India and South America. Many of them have risen to prominence and con- tributed very significantly to the economic development of their coun- tries. Yet it is impossible to visit China, Japan, India, and many parts of South America without being struck by what a very short distance in- deed down the population scale, modern technology has actually pene- trated. I think we can say, I think we must say, that large masses of the population are simply not affected. Moreover, as all of us, I think, are beginning to realize, the impact of modern medicine and sanitary regulations has decreased the death rate and stimulated growth. And there is a problem here of balance, if we are really concerned ulti- mately with raising the level—the standard and content of living—and of getting out from under this particular relationship that has so far been the current practice in the overpopulated regions of the world. Our problem then for discussion is how to apply modern technology in such a way as to break through to a higher standard of living for all. This is the subject of our discussion.” " Professor Maclaurin then introduced the first speaker, Fairfield Os- born." * Maclaurin's restatement of the subject before the panel laid emphasis on a nobler side of the question than had been implied in the formal and official state- ment. This concern as to the fate of all was characteristic of the Convocation. It can be found to some degree in the remarks of every speaker, and notably in those of Bush, Notestein, Rockefeller, Hailey, Ryckmans, Mudaliar, Churchill, Compton, Killian, Stassen, Contreras and Tuve. * For a brief biography of Osborn, see Biographical Notes, page 524. World Production 81 FAIRFIELD OSBORN There is nothing new about the question, “How do we get what we need to keep us alive?” One of our earliest predecessors, old Tritylodon, the oldest mammal, asked it. So did that sluggish appeaser Diplodocus, and that violent, swashbuckling dictator Tyrannosaurus, and those scorch-the-earth bands of Hyaenodons, and a host of others. Finding no answer, they perished. It is the question that has been on every man's lips since the dawn of history. With our full compliments to those who have arranged for this discussion, it cannot be said that they have hit upon an original theme. The experiences of these precursors of ours are, however, merely sug- gestive and should not be thought of literally. For man is adorned with a super-brain, the measureless asset that is his alone." He will need all his intelligence, and his wisdom, now, for in this supposed year of * That man's brain has been his measureless asset is undeniable. That this may not be an infinite asset begins to be suggested here and there. See, for example, the comment of Norbert Wiener: “Man, with the best developed nervous system of all the animals, with behavior that probably depends on the longest chains of effectively operated neuronic chains, is then likely to perform a complicated type of behavior efficiently very close to the edge of an overload, when he will give way in a serious and cata- strophic way. . . . “We thus see that the superiority of the human brain to others in the length of the neuron chains it employs is a reason why mental disorders are certainly most conspicuous and probably most common in man. . . . “. . . Now, the direct connectors between the hemispheres—the cerebral com- missures—in a brain as large as that of man, are so few in number that they are of very little use; and the interhemispheric traffic must go by roundabout routes through the brain-stem; which we know very imperfectly, but which are certainly long, scanty, and subject to interruption. As a consequence, the processes associ- ated with speech and writing are very likely to be involved in a traffic jam, and stuttering is the most natural thing in the world. “That is, the human brain is probably too large already to use in an efficient manner all the facilities which seem to be anatomically present. In a cat, the destruction of the dominant hemisphere seems to produce relatively less damage than in man, and the destruction of the secondary hemisphere probably more damage. At any rate, the apportionment of function in the two hemispheres is more nearly equal. In man, the gain achieved by the increase, in the size and complication of the brain, is partly nullified by the fact that less of the organ can be used effectively at one time. It is interesting to reflect that we may be facing one of those limitations of nature, in which highly specialized organs reach a level of declining efficiency, and ultimately lead to the extinction of the species. The human brain may be as far along on its road to this destructive specialization as the great nose horns of the last of the titanotheres.” Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (Cambridge, Mass., The Technology Press of M.I.T.; New York, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; and Paris, Hermann et Cie, 1948). The excerpts are drawn from pages 176 and 179–80. 82 World Production grace the primal question—in different guise—is pressing upon human- ity with a renewed and violent impact. Not within our times, perhaps never within human history, has civili- zation come face to face with a problem of such magnitude. Since the beginning of the century the dazzling advances of materialism, com- bined with the fantastic triumphs of the physical sciences, have dimmed our eyes to its urgency. We are commencing to sense, how- ever, that while we are probing inter-stellar spaces and bouncing radar beams off a near-by satellite,” we may be reducing our own planet to moonlike sterility. Apprehension is stealing over us. A searching doubt confronts us. “Is the productive earth capable of supporting this rapidly increasing human population?” Unfortunately, the words “moonlike sterility” are more than a figure of speech because, within recorded history, human beings have already reduced extensive regions in which they have lived to that condition. In China, in the Near East, in portions of southern Europe, in certain regions in Africa, as well as in Australia, and, worse even, within our so-new and so-fresh continent,” there are desert spots no longer cul- tivable and barely habitable, the result of blind misuse. We are forced to recognize, too, that our problem, unlike that of Tritylodon—and those others who came and went—is not one of food supply alone.” Man's super-brain has created a vast mechanism. Let's call it our economy, the structure of our civilization. When we consider how it operates, we need to face the fact that more than one-half of this world economy—manufacture, transport, labor, business in all its categories—is dependent upon the use and handling of organic prod- ucts from the land or the sea. These, as you know, are characterized as renewable resources. They are “what we need to keep us alive,” being 8 See Compton, page 18. * Every reader will unquestionably recall the most recent demonstration of this phenomenon, the dust-bowl years of the late thirties in the middle-western and southwestern plains of the United States, with the consequent hegira of the “Okies” to the promised California land and their reception there, events notably portrayed in Pare Lorentz's documentary motion picture, The Plow That Broke the Plains and John Steinbeck's novel, The Grapes of Wrath (New York, The Wi- king Press, 1989). 10 There is a tendency to treat the general problem as a food problem alone. Note Churchill's comment on Burchard’s question as to whether man is “doomed to die of starvation.” Said Churchill, “. . . the consequences would be very un- pleasant because it is quite certain that mankind would not agree to starve equally, and there might be some very sharp disagreements about how the last crust was to be shared. This would simplify our problem . . . in an unduly primordial man- ner.” The use of “food” as a justifiable oratorical metaphor runs the risk of leav- ing a wrong impression—and Osborn properly corrects it. Fairfield Osborn 83 the materials not only which the individual must have for subsistence, but also those which are required to support our economy, national as well as international. Consequently, the maintenance of the productiv- ity of the earth is a first essential. These brief observations lead to two questions which appear to go to the heart of this discussion. The first, though general in character, is implicit to our thinking: “Is man a part of the biological scheme of the earth?” There is another form in which this question could be posed, “Are the processes of nature essential to the continuance of our civiliza- tion?” “The second question is in reality a corollary of the first, and in its most extreme form might be expressed as follows: “Can modern technology substitute for the processes of nature?” Before considering these questions let us see whether we have agree- ment as to the nature of renewable resources. Such resources refer, of course, to the things that live and grow and to those that nurture them—plant life from bacteria to forests; animal life from protozoa to mammals; finally, productive soils and the water sources that nourish and support all life. All of these if wisely used can be available to us indefinitely. There is a compelling fact that the science of ecology, now a basic element in present-day conservation thinking, has illuminated. It is simply this—each renewable resource, whether forests or animal life, whether productive soils or the water sources that sustain them, is dependent upon one or more of the others. It is indeed more accurate to say that each resource is dependent upon all of the others. If we do not keep this governing principle in mind we cannot think straight about the problem and will fall into one error after another in attempting to resolve it. There would be little to discuss here today were it not for the explo- sive increase in human numbers resulting in present population pres- sures. The “great round earth” has become a childhood illusion. Now we can fly around it in days * and send a message around it in sec- onds—tangible symbols of its limitations. And people–oh! so many in- creasing numbers of people: from 400 million to more than 2 billion within the last, well, four life times, really, 300 years, with a net in- crease now of almost one per cent per annum! Barring an atomic cataclysm, the earth's population will probably stand at 3 billion or * The converse question, “Does the ecology of the earth require man?”, though exciting intellectually, is not relevant to the ensuing discussion, and no possible answer could offer much comfort to an ordinary man facing extinction. * See Churchill, page 55, “. . . but you do not see much of it on the way.” 84 World Production more by the end of the century.” You know, just overnight I thought of another and perhaps more striking way of expressing this expected population growth—namely that there may be another 600 million people on the earth within the next 50 years! We recognize, of course, that the population problem is a social as well as a biological one. In view of the fact that cultural, religious and national influences are all at work, population control is obviously most difficult of accomplishment.” For my part, I am not attempting to call the number of people that the earth or any given country is ca- pable of supporting. I presume we can all agree there is a limitation. Some may argue it is even now exceeded in view of the uncomfortable truth that one-third or more of the people of the earth are, even at the moment, precariously balancing on the minimum subsistence line. In any case, population pressures are not only here with us today but are likely to increase. Consequently, so far as the development of the con- servation movement is concerned and the programs that must be adopted in connection with it, we might as well face the cold, realistic fact that renewable resources will somehow have to be managed and used to meet the needs of increasing numbers of people. The question as to the number of people that the earth, or any given country, can support depends in large degree upon the extent to which existing technical knowledges can be put into practice. Presumably there would be no renewable resource problem today if the present knowledges regarding the use of these resources had been in practice in times past or were generally in operation now. Even in our own en- lightened country, however, we have barely begun to apply these knowledges. And I wish I had a minute to stop and get the illusion out of everybody's mind in this room that our own U.S.A. has still even begun to strike its balance in the matter of our own renewable re- sources. The great barrier composed of lethargy and ignorance, coupled with prejudices derived from custom and old cultures, still blocks the road. Once more, it is a question of education. Can we learn in time?” * This paragraph was frequently quoted by the daily press. As Notestein reminds us (page 99) such growths do not occur in areas where the civilization is advanced. See also Bush on the power of the exponential (page 88). 14. This is a heart question which could be treated scientifically but for the most part the panel tiptoed around it. It is interesting that the social scientist, Notestein, faced the issue most squarely, while the natural scientists, who might be expected to be the least squeamish, either did not think it significant or did not wish to dis- cuss it. See pages 89 and 109. 15 It was interesting in the succeeding summer to hear educated Frenchmen say that France was “overproducing food” in 1949, while in the same breath con- ceding that many Frenchmen would not have enough to eat. The drought, to such Fairfield Osborn 85 As a result of this immense recent growth in human numbers, prac- tically every habitable region of the earth is now occupied.” This poses a brand new question because up to the last century there were always new and naturally fertile regions available for exploitation. It would be kinder to say “use” but I’ve got to say “exploitation.” Today the boundaries stand within our sight. New types of rapidly maturing crops permit the extension of cultivation in colder regions, and while certain tropical regions may be made productive with extreme labor and at great cost, our earth-home is about ready to hang out the sign, “Fully Occupied.” " In the meantime, technologists are endeavoring to provide means for meeting the demands created by this dynamic and threatening situa- tion. Science, triumphant in the physical areas, is exploring methods of supplementing the biological processes of nature. It must do so. The situation calls for scientific exploration even into uncharted channels from which new sources of organic material might be drawn—sources of either land or marine origin. It would not seem sensible to rest upon the hope that inorganic synthetics as substitutes for food can be created. Certainly this pos- sibility lies a long way in the future. Further, it is unlikely that new and substantial sources of food of organic origin can be developed which will not depend upon the continuance of the earth's productivity. People, except for fasting saints, want and need to eat every day. Hope is a thin diet. Let us therefore deal with the situation as it is now, and form programs and act upon known conditions and premises. In conclusion, scientific activities aimed at supplementing or acceler- ating the processes of nature are practicable and indeed imperative. Science may even unravel the final secrets of photosynthesis and the mysteries of chlorophyll, but in these explorations we are apt to fall into the abyss of a fateful delusion and be deceived into believing minds, was almost a boon, it seemed. In the light of such attitudes, and they have been reflected elsewhere (Wallace's bonuses for not raising hogs), the prob- lem of world food supply is obviously not exclusively technological. 16 The standards of what is habitable, of course, change rather steadily. See Toynbee's climatic thesis, for example. Our attitude toward such places as Alaska or the Amazon Basin has changed notably in two decades. See also Bush, page 92, on this point. 17 This is hardly true, so long as plant and animal diseases are treated with less skill than human diseases. Although he did not explicitly answer this state- ment in the panel, Tizard had partly answered it on another occasion when he pointed out that we need to pay as much attention to plant and animal diseases as to human ones. Also in connection with this and the succeeding paragraph see Bush, pages 91 and 92. 86 World Production that modern technology has the power to substitute itself for the func- tional processes of nature. Allow me to recall here that our problem is not one of food alone but is essentially one of maintaining the natural economy of the earth. Plant life including forests, animal life in its myriad forms, productive soils and water sources—each of these is in truth an interrelated part of a unified whole which sustains this econ- omy and causes it to operate productively. In like terms, we are speak- ing not of the life of an individual but of the preservation of our civili- Zation. Its structure and nature's structure will continue or dissolve together.” :}; :k >k :}; >k The moderator next introduced Vannevar Bush.” This well-known alumnus of M.I.T., member of its Corporation, always at ease and 18 This paragraph was also frequently quoted by the press. Here we have a matter of one's fundamental beliefs. Science has gone a long way in small areas; but a poet, John Donne, saw the bigger problem long ago when he said not only, “Each is a part of the maine,” as quoted by Compton in another context (page 25), but more completely: “No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am in- volved in Mankinde; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” Devotions, xvii. This in turn poses a very speculative question. If, for example, random use of DDT for a single purpose may have an immediate small favorable result but a long- range unfavorable one, the scientific advance made in developing DDT may actu- ally result in a cultural retreat. The total effects of skillful work in improving the agriculture of Latin America, as described in this and the next panel by Russell and Rockefeller, respectively, beneficial as they currently appear, could have over- all effects deleterious to the world. This does not assert that they are likly to have, but only that they might have. To handle such questions skillfully and in the best interest of all mankind requires a large knowledge of the complex business of ecology, setting up in itself as Churchill reminded us, a need “to discipline an array of gigantic and turbulent facts,” a task to which Churchill felt we were as yet unequal. Faced with the unknown, laissez-faire philosophy permits the ener- getic to proceed with their designs in the hope that in serving their interests they will, on the whole, serve all society as well. It is scant wonder that humans re- coil from “planning” in favor of laissez faire. On the one hand there is the mass of “turbulent facts” with which the individual human may feel quite unequipped to cope; and on the other there is the feeling that even if the knowledge of what needed to be done were complete and uncontested, there might well remain the necessity for imposing a system of controls which in themselves would be either unmanageable or repulsive. It is at this point that many stick at the “scientific humanism” of, for example, Bernal, Hogben, Crowther, and Haldane. Here the thinking expressed in Chapters v1 and viii is highly relevant to this important and unresolved question—a demonstration, if one is needed, of the essential unity of all the discussions of the Convocation. t 19 For a brief biography of Bush, see Biographical Notes, page 516. Vannevar Bush 87 especially so on his home heath, spoke with his well-preserved New England accent, unadulterated by years of residence in the nation's capital. VANNEVAR BUSH Mr. Moderator. I hoped to settle back in the calm assurance that the speakers before me would certainly give me points enough into which I could insert a crowbar and make a speech. But since I am before you and early in the program, let's first see if we can set a time scale of what we are talking about to bring the matter into a little closer perspective. I am reminded of a lecture where a nice lady in the audience asked a question. She said, “Professor, did you say that the earth is coming to a cold end in two billion years or in two million years?” “Two billion years,” said the professor. “Oh, I feel very much relieved.” To my mind, there is a hazard in the general topic with which we are concerned. The pragmatic details of methods to meet immediate needs may by their very fascination become the focus. They may thus divert attention from the broad philosophical implications of the sub- ject. These philosophical implications are in essence a concern of all men, not simply of scientists or engineers. Hence I regard it as important to set out the philosophical point of view from which I regard the prob- lems that constitute our topic. For one thing, I am among those who believe passionately that, however hazardous the acquisition of knowl- edge may be, it is well worth the risk. Let me expand even though briefly. What does it mean, to say that we recognize that knowing is hazard- ous, but to declare it well worth the risk? That statement means that we recognize that the consequences of an advance in knowledge can- not be fully predicted, that some of them may bring difficulties and abuses, that they may also bring material and other benefits as well, but that apart from these the search for knowledge has its absolute justification in the fact that it expresses the fundamental urge of the human spirit to go forward in the long quest for truth. Further, as concerns point of view, I am of those who believe that, for all its vicissitudes and sorrows, for all its terrors and tragedies, for all the adversities imposed in the main by man's inhumanity to man, the life of man is a thing of potential beauty and dignity, and hence that to live is good. If this conviction be cast off, as I see it, the whole fabric of learning becomes an absurdity. And clearly, any consideration 20 Here the text reverts to Bush's prepared manuscript. 88 World Production of such a topic as the problem of world production should have as its basis this conviction, for the solution of the problem aims at the at- tainment of a good life for many.* The issue with which we are concerned, and which I consider from these two points of reference, is in essence the result of an upsetting of the nebulous something which we call the balance of nature. Ex- pressed in the bluntest form, the quandary runs about like this: The available means of subsistence—not food alone, but materials for shel- ter and for all the other needs of men—are limited; the number who must subsist on them increases geometrically; nothing can beat a con- tinuing geometrical increase; and we are doomed to starve. Freed by the applications of science from the controls of epidemic disease, pos- sibly freed by world government from the controls of war, population will increase exponentially without limit, exhaust the resources of the earth, and leave a few miserable remnants crawling about in barbarism. [Bush offered this in saltier language as he spoke extemporaneously: Now you have had from Mr. Osborn some few very restrained words about the power of the exponential increase of population. I think we ought to have a little more extreme example before us, for the power of the ex- ponential is enormous and we can think in better perspective if we can see that power. I computed last night that if Adam and Eve had started this game in 4000 B.C. and had been reasonably fertile, so that we had an in- crease of population of say ten or fifteen per cent or so per generation, which seems moderate, we would now have on the earth a population just about as densely packed as you are in this hall if we leave out the aisles and con- sider the dense packing only. This would cover the deserts, the oceans, the entire earth but worse than that, unless my slide rule slipped, we would have not one layer but fifteen layers of population, and of course those who were allocated over the oceans would get wet and the lower layers in the desert would be very much distressed, and it would be an entirely intoler- able situation, we would agree. Now the point is, we are not talking about such time scales nor are we talking about an uncontrolled exponential in- crease. If we were, I would immediately say, but science also increases exponentially; in the same way that men lead to more men and machines make more machines, so ideas create more ideas and science grows by geometric progression as well, but we do not deal with a contest between two exponentials. What has apparently occurred is something else again. We have had a population which in the last three hundred years has in- creased rapidly. In that same period we have had a great growth of science and its applications. There has been an intimate connection between the two, and every forward step in scientific application tending to raise the standard of living results in a consequent increase in population. Professor 21. By those who know him, it will be realized that these two paragraphs are fundamental tenets of Bush's personal creed. They were frequently cited by the preSS. Vannevar Bush 89 Notestein's making a note—you'll hear more about that in a moment. The point I think is this, that science gets there first.] The answer to the argument in this bald form is that science and its applications also increase exponentially.” As we look back over the past 60 years, we see that population has greatly increased, undoubtedly because of the release afforded by mod- ern technology, and in spite of great wars. At the same time, and for the same reason, the general standard of living has risen, taking the world as a whole, in spite of the insane destruction of war. In fact the sequence was in the other order: the application of science lifted the controls by raising living standards, and a burst of population followed. Those who see only disaster ahead either expect this se- quence to reverse, or they expect the trend to continue so violently that it will exhaust vital resources. Now there is indeed a problem here, and a serious one, facing the race. We can think of it on any time scale we please. Personally, I am thinking in terms of two or three generations ahead, not a thousand years. The upsetting of the balance of nature is not the result of any fortuitous natural cataclysm or catastrophe. It is we, mankind, who are making the changes. We have made it possible for more people to live, and to live longer, and in so far as we have done so as a result of planned advances in medicine, the accomplishment has been a deliber- ate and predictable one. I must say I can see no harm in this. And I think that our next moves are perfectly clear: we must vigorously press our endeavors to upset the balance of nature in still more ways. We have been doing quite a lot of this sort of thing anyway, and as we proceed the object should reside in making these more and longer lives not only more and longer, but also more useful and more satisfying.” * It is interesting that students of scientific advance have long pointed to its exponential nature. Friedrich Engels, for example, wrote to Marx to this effect in 1843. “. . . yet there still remains a third factor—which never counts for anything with the economists, it is true—namely, science and the advance of science is as limitless and at least as rapid as that of population. How much of the progress of agriculture in this century is due to chemistry alone, and indeed to two men alone —Sir Humphry Davy and Justus Liebig? But science multiplies itself at least as much as population: population increases in relation to the number of the last generation; science advances in relation to the total amount of knowledge be- queathed to it by the last generation, and therefore under the most ordinary con- ditions in geometrical progression too—and what is impossible for science?” This fragment of the Engels letter, taken from Marx-Engels Selected Corre- spondence (page 83) is quoted by J. D. Bernal in The Freedom of Necessity (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1949), page 350. * This paragraph was frequently cited with approval by the press. 90 World Production It is just a bit more than a century since the potato blight appeared on this continent, was communicated across the Atlantic, and worked havoc on the continent of Europe and in the British Isles. In Ireland, 1847 was the great famine year and was followed in 1848 by armed re- bellion echoing the overthrow of governments in nations on the con- tinent. In 1948, by contrast, the acreage planted to potatoes in the United States—and many of those acres are farmed by men whose fore- bears traveled westward across the Atlantic after 1848—was the smallest in 66 years. The surplus crop was the largest in history. I do not offer this as an example of planned increase in means of subsistence. It came about, indeed, in spite of planning to the contrary, for the Department of Agriculture had wanted things quite otherwise. I do offer it, however, as commentary on the change a century has seen, and on what plant selection, adequate fertilizer, and a reasonable amount of DDT can do toward increasing yields. Available now, more- over, is a hormone that prevents sprouting and facilitates keeping potatoes in storage in good condition, and the potato story is by no means ended. And while I am speaking of the Emerald Isle, let me point out a continued effort at upsetting another aspect of the balance of nature that was in 1948 nearing encouraging fulfillment. This project—the in- tensive cultivation of scientifically selected grass, in which expert coun- sel from New Zealand has been involved—is expected to double the stock-carrying capacity of the eight million acres of Irish pasture and to lead to a comparable increase in related food production. A gain of 25 per cent in agricultural output—and such a gain is confidently foreseen in five years—will, we are assured, double the surplus of food- stuffs available for export and in addition provide better for the home population. Gains of the same magnitude are in order also in England, despite its already concentrated agriculture, through the use of analo- gous improved techniques.” Now these are simple, elementary advances only. They make a vivid contrast with the famine year a century ago. They thus suggest stu- pendous contrasts even with the present, which can be foreseen from the more elaborate and powerful advances now possible of accomplish- ment. In swiftly mentioning a few among these, I shall stick to fact and eschew speculation.” 24 For confirmation of this point, see Tizard, page 111. * The reader will note how these remarks are relevant to the comment on changing standards of habitability in footnote 16, and will also wish to com- pare what Tizard says about medical advances on page 110. Finally, he will note in this comment a move toward agreement with Notestein that the important Vannevar Bush 91 [Bush expanded this substantially in his “free remarks,” as follows: Now let me give an illustration of what I mean. During the war, medical science made enormous progress. Undoubtedly the lives saved in the ulti- mate applications of the things they developed, which would not have come if there had not been an enormous burst in such activity, the lives saved were greater than those lost in battle and probably those lost from all causes during the war, and the medical men are very proud of that, and they should be. But this same advance is opening great areas of the earth because diseases of the tropics can be largely abolished, the standard of living from the medical and physical standpoint can be greatly increased, the labor capacity of great populations can be greatly strengthened, and there will be in the tropics an increase of population, but there will also be an increase in the standard of living; and I believe we can take this conclusion that whenever a great burst in science comes, a practical application of that sort, it will result ultimately in an increase in population, it will result more quickly in a rise in standards, and when we again level off, we should ex- pect to level off at a higher standard, and thus we go on. This is not to say that this is no problem, of course, but it is to say that the problem needs to be approached with a rather clear-cut idea of time scales and interactions, and that it is, of course, quite a fallacy to oversimplify. I have no doubt that from a strictly scientific or technical standpoint the means are now available, or will soon be available, to provide for a greater population on this earth than now exists and at a higher standard of living. But I do not believe that the problem is primarily scientific or technical in that sense.] Thus voluntarily I relinquish such fascinating possibilities as that science might change the intestinal flora of mankind and so enable it to digest cellulose as the termite does—a powerful if not enticing prospect. Choosing at random, I would remind you that we have today, thanks to hazardous wartime research, a cheap, efficient vaccine which pro- duces lifetime immunity to rinderpest. Given technicians and labora- tory equipment in strategic centers, it could rid the world's herds of this blight that now kills three million cattle yearly in the Old World. By forcing hand cultivation rinderpest speeds famine in China and other parts of the Far East. It confines more cattle in Ethiopia than can be of any use through quarantines that forbid the exportation of cattle from that region, for fear that the virus will be exported along with its hosts. We are in no sense bound to accept rinderpest as an inevitable accompaniment of the environment and wail dire doom be- cause of it. thing for science to do is not simply to maintain larger and larger populations at existing standards of living but rather to improve the standards of living of those populations which do exist. 92 World Production Nor are we compelled, willy-nilly, to accept bovine mastitis in the milk-producing herds of Europe, where it is estimated to cost us five million metric tons of milk each year, for new techniques utilizing penicillin permit control of that disease as well. And five million extra tons of milk per annum will feed a lot of babies. Nor, again, are we forced to agree to allow the tsetse fly to interdict vast areas of potentially lavish productiveness from use by man. And already men are at work and achieving success in the effort to over- come this ban, and, by freeing central Africa of nagana and sleeping sickness, to augment the world stock of provender by an amount suffi- cient to feed Africa and swell the supplies of other continents as well.” To move from this random sampling of the many instrumentalities available and already in use, I should like to mention one or two others, still more powerful, which are nearing realization or which may in due course be realized. Mankind relies ultimately for survival on photosynthesis, and there- fore on the chlorophyll central to this mysterious process. If–or rather, when—through the studies now going on in many centers of research, mankind improves the process of photosynthesis as nature performs it, or attains the ability to control or regulate it, or to enter upon it use- fully before its end products are reached in normal order, or to conduct it in vitro, and it becomes possible to produce either protein or edible fats or carbohydrates as desired, the whole food situation of the world bids fair to be profoundly altered. Meantime, through the generous availability of the radioisotope carbon 14, once a precious curiosity, but now a by-product of the operation of nuclear reactors, exploration of the mystery of the process itself has been facilitated as never before, and important possibilities have been opened. If we wish to extrapolate a bit from the results already attained as part of the atomic energy program, moreover, there are many promis- ing lines of approach to the problem of greater food production. Ef- fective knowledge of the influence of the trace elements so im- portant in agriculture is being accumulated by aid of radioactive trac- ers heretofore unavailable. In another aspect of the agricultural process radioisotopes will undoubtedly enable us to save a large fraction of the fertilizers now used yearly by making sure that they arrive and re- main where they will do the most good. * Here Bush makes the same answer to Osborn as Tizard has made in the past; i.e., bring the standards of treatment of plant and animal diseases up to that for human diseases. Vannevar Bush 93 Now let us note that the means which justify our hopes of bene- ficially further upsetting the balance of nature, and of which these are only random examples, are all more or less advanced affairs. They be- come available and practicable as civilization reaches a fairly high level—the level attained through vigorous pursuit of knowledge and vigorous application of the results,” that is, through industrialization with its concomitant raising of the standard of living and greater spread of education. This fact is important. It is also important that science and its applications, once artificial barriers to progress are removed, expand exponentially, with every success leading to greater opportuni- ties. Neither population nor science increases in geometric fashion in- definitely. When a lid is removed they both start a burst in exponential fashion, but science gets there first. As time goes on they both level off, until a new great opportunity opens. Advances in tropical medicine now permit great additions to the total world food stock by opening vast areas to cultivation and by raising the work capabilities of the inhabitants. This will unquestion- ably also foster great population increases in that part of the world. But it is important to note that the opportunity for increase in the standards of living comes first. It is important because when the next pause comes it will be at a higher level. The geometric increase in population which worries some observers enormously is no permanent and universal condition. We are contend- ing with a burst rather than a continuing exponential increase, and even the burst is localized rather than world-wide. Some two centuries ago there began a burst in scientific accomplishment, both in advances of fundamental knowledge and in practical applications thereof. That burst is by no means over; its high point, I believe, has not even yet been reached. After a substantial lag in time, there began a burst in increase of population—owed in very large measure to the better con- ditions of living which the burst in the advancement of knowledge had made possible. That is not yet past, either. But neither, to my mind, is a permanent affair. The saving factor is that since the beneficial uses of science become available so swiftly, we shall, when the level- ing-off of both bursts occurs, be on a higher plane than in the past. There will be more people, yes, and they will be better off. We are seeing this already in France, and in the United States for that matter. Will the present burst exhaust minerals and thus reverse the trend abruptly? There is not time to examine all the complexities of substitute * In this connection, see Hailey, page 188, and Ryckmans, page 146. 94 World Production materials, mineral resources and the like. But I doubt it as far as any reasonably long view is concerned. Will man waste his land, and all his resources and savings, in war and ignorance and thus bring sudden disaster? He has been doing it for ten thousand years; * we seem still to be about, and at least we now realize the problems as we never did before. That there are dangers in these things no one will deny. That they spell early disaster, in the light of the power of applied science, and a slowly awakening understanding in the world, I very much doubt. I am prepared to abide by the conviction that, if we hold to the course of increase of knowledge and press vigorously forward upon it, 28 Note that Tizard says this same thing still more forcefully—see page 108. The Waterbury American (Conn.) did not like this attitude. It said in an edi- torial of April 8, 1949, under the heading “Man? Pouf! Mere Dust,” the following: “Have you been worrying about what the fates may have in store for nominally civilized mankind within the next 10 or 20 years? Be calm, then. If you are natu- rally endowed with a latent philosophical temperament, you may derive a bit of lasting solid comfort from one of the observations of Dr. Vannevar Bush at the recent mid-century convocation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Cambridge, Mass. “Dr. Bush had taken note of an often repeated question whether contemporary man, better armed with scientific knowledge than with moral responsibility, might sometime soon waste his land and all his resources and savings in war and ig- norance, and thus bring sudden disaster' down upon himself. In reply, he recalled that man has been doing it for 10,000 years, but still survives; and (he added) at least we now realize the problems as we never did before.” “All anybody needs, to rejoice in such soberly hopeful doctrine, is the capacity to dismiss all thoughts of individual or family welfare and security from his mind, and concentrate on the contemporary prospects for humanity as a whole. Dr. Bush's serene conjecture that on the whole they do not require or justify any sense of despair has been cheerfully anticipated by other transcendental observers of the human scene, time without end. “Havelock Ellis, for example, in an essay on ‘Civilization, recalled ‘an ancient observation concerning the man who suffered from the delusion that he was an earthen pot and entreated his friends to place him on a high shelf where he would not be broken.” He commented, ‘It is the delusion many of us still cherish about civilization. We have scarcely yet begun to see that civilizations are more solid products than we had supposed, and that even their destruction is of little moment. It has happened so often.’ “To be sure, it unquestionably is going to be a bit rough on some millions of individuals and their families who may be foredoomed to burial under the ruins when and if humanity's civilization crashes again. In their fatal hours, though, perhaps they may be able to take some deep philosophic comfort from the thought of being invaluable contributors to the execution of some stupendous and inscru- table cosmic Plan.” Others liked this philosophy better. In an editorial, “New Lease on Life,” The Charleston Evening Post (S. C.), for April 9, 1949, said of Bush: “What he told the scientific gathering at Cambridge should give a lift to the optimists and cause the pessimists to reform their lines. Maybe it’s just as well not to sell man short.” Vannevar Bush 95 though there may be troubles, problems, and abuses, in the end we shall know that it was worth the risk. To do so demands understand- ing—the understanding that teaches men there are good foods besides rice and millet; that builds transport systems to move food where it is needed; that builds social structures in which there are reserves and cushions against disaster; and assures that science shall prosper and be vigorously applied. At the root of all our need is urgent demand for the understanding that creates and maintains wise stable government among men, and so enables the marshalling of resources through saving and enterprise for the creation of new and better conditions, and spreads intelligence in their use. If we can acquire understanding we need have no fear.” [Bush concluded his extemporaneous remarks differently, and as follows: Science and engineering, I believe, can readily take care of their part. But it is not that kind of a problem. It is a problem of how these things can be applied under the present conditions in the world. And that is a problem for social scientists, and political scientists and political practitioners, and it is, as Osborn says, very strongly a problem of education. So finally, if you have any really tough questions on this, direct them at those who would tell us how this can be done from the social standpoint and not from the technical. The technical part is easy.] >k :k :k :k :k Maclaurin continued, “I think you can readily see what a stimulat- ing influence Dr. Bush was on M.I.T. “I am not entirely certain that the panel will appreciate what I am about to say next. In my judgment, Professor Notestein is really the only man up here who knows anything about this subject. He is a dis- tinguished demographer, who worked for the Milbank Fund in New York City before he went, about a dozen years ago, to Princeton. He has returned recently from the Far East on an assignment from the Rockefeller Foundation to observe firsthand what is occurring there. Professor of Demography, University of Princeton, Director of the In- stitute of Population Research, Dr. Notestein.” ” * Note the lead these lines gave to Notestein, who followed immediately. Note also the last sentence of the extemporaneous conclusion: “The technical part is easy.” This is in part modesty; the technical part is not so easy as all that. But it is also in part an understanding of the more difficult area of human relations and in part a statement of a scientific axiom, “To state the problem clearly is to solve it.” Echoes of this ingrained attitude are to be found, for example, in the remarks of Tizard and (in other panels) in those of Bridgman and Thomas. 89 For a brief biography of Notestein, see Biographical Notes, page 523. 96 World Production FRANK WALLACE NOTESTEIN I feel at the moment, Mr. Chairman, very embarrassed by the fact that Mr. Bush has assigned all of the difficult problems to the one social scientist out of five speakers. As a demographer in the company of experts on production, I should like to talk about reproduction. Our program points to the need for avoiding disaster. To me it seems that the job it gives my colleagues in the fields of resources and production is not nearly so difficult as it ought to be. Surely our sights must be higher than just the perpetua- tion of the appalling conditions of illness and poverty in which more than half of the human race now exists. There is a certain futility about the process of straining ever harder and more ingeniously to produce goods, so that more people can live about as meagerly as the present population.” The task, like that of Alice and the Red Queen, amounts to one of running ever harder in order to stay put. The fundamental problem, it seems to me, is quite a different one. It is that of achieving the replacement of human populations by means of low birth rates and low death rates, instead of by the present tragi- cally wasteful system in which millions are born only to survive briefly in varying stages of ill health. It is the problem of substituting an effi- cient system of human reproduction for a grossly inefficient system. Efforts that seek only to prevent disaster are essentially palliatives, and could compound future difficulties by intensifying the use of resources without changing the basic capacity for further growth. On the other hand, efforts directed toward achieving efficient replacement are directed toward the solution of fundamental problems. Given such a system, population growth would be adjusted by changes in the birth rate instead of by changes in the death rate. But the process of achiev- ing such a system of reproduction will require immense gains in eco- nomic production for a considerable period of time, because it will be necessary to provide a better living for rapidly increasing numbers. One cannot, of course, predict with certainty that the world's popu- lation will grow. The insistent increase that our program mentions is insistent only up to a point. A deepening of the current chaos, and a protracted period of political, social and economic disintegration might bring declining populations by lifting death rates. In fact, I do not ex- pect rapid population growth in Asia during the next decade. It seems unlikely that that continent will be politically stable, and the margins * This point of better standards for all was cited frequently in the press, and certainly was one of the main points of agreement in the Convocation. Frank Notestein 97 of living are so small that instability is likely to lift death rates and re- duce growth. Sometime, however, stability will return, one hopes, and when it does the essential problems are likely to be little changed. It is useful, therefore, to consider what might be accomplished in a few generations of reasonable order and economic development. At present, the population insists on growing for the very good reason that mankind insists on staying alive if given half a chance to do so. That is about the chance that most of the world's people now have. Consider, for example, the situation of Asia's more than one bil- lion people. Their exact mortality is unknown, but there is every reason to believe that the risks of death in normal years are those that would give a new-born child less than a 50-50 chance of living 35 years. (And by the way, that is a very conservative statement—the 50-50 break is probably under 30.) On the other hand, in the most advanced coun- tries the present risks give a new-born child an even chance of living more than 70 years. On the average, life in Asia is about half as long as the best experience has shown to be possible.” The tragedy then, is not a hypothetical one of the future; it is real, and present. That other half of the world would like to live, too, and it would like to live in reasonable health, to eat well, to be decently housed, and have a little schooling for its children.” The first job for our resource and produc- tion people is that of finding the means by which the world's people can earn the material comfort and health that they all want.” As soon as much is accomplished in the direction of lifting levels of living, of course there will be more people. A little better food, housing, sanitation, and epidemic control will do wonders in cutting the death rate. One reason we do not know how rapidly population will change is that we do not know how rapidly the means of subsistence can be expanded. When, as Dr. Osborn has indicated, one says there is a reasonable chance of having about three billion people by the end of this century, all you mean is the people are going to live in unreason- ably bad health between now and then. If they don’t, there will be more than three billion people, but one limits one's optimism about what can be done. The crucial point is that that estimate depends on 82 Probably the expectation of life is lower than it was one hundred years ago in Western Europe. See Compton, page 17. 88 No statement here has attempted to assess how much of the bad record is due to inadequate food, how much to inadequate medical care, or to inadequate sanitary precautions (for example, the use of human manure in fields)—themselves largely though not exclusively economic rather than scientific or spiritual problems —see, for example, Mudaliar, page 155, and Ryckmans, page 152. * A passage frequently quoted in the press. 98 World Production your estimate of the death rate. We do know that if the expansion of product is rapid, then population growth will also be rapid. It has hap- pened often in the past. For example, without significant immigration, the essentially Chinese population of Formosa, under Japanese man- agement, increased by 61 per cent in the 20 years from 1920 to 1940. Conditions were far from ideal in India between 1921 and 1941, but in that 20 years the population grew by 83 million.” Under Dutch rule, the population of Java and Madura more than tripled in the 70 years from 1860 to 1930, by which time there were over 800 persons per square mile.” There is ample evidence, in short, that Far Eastern popu- lations can increase at rates up to two per cent per year * in spite of death rates that we would consider tragically high. Many populations of Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America have similar growth potentials. A two per cent increase per year will double a population in about 85 years. In general, growth has been much less rapid than two percent, one per cent would be nearer to it, because it has been held in check by the high death rates that poverty and ignorance pro- duce. Thus far, growth has been discussed as if it were exclusively con- trolled by the death rates; actually, of course, it is the net result of birth and death rates. We must, therefore, consider briefly the factors controlling fertility. These are more complex than those controlling mortality, for an obvious reason. Everyone wants fewer deaths, but everyone does not want fewer births. Some populations have more children than they want, but many populations want more children than they have. In the presence of divergent wants, with respect to the numbers of children, a given external change may yield divergent results. All major populations have ample physical capacity for repro- duction to insure group survival, even in the face of extraordinarily high mortality. All of them have social institutions, customs, and beliefs that, on the one hand, hold fertility below the physiological maximum and, on the other hand, stimulate reproduction. In general, differences in the institutions, customs, and beliefs, rather than differences in the physiological capacity, are the major source of differences in the birth * Or an average rate of 1.2 per cent. * There are 47 persons per square mile in the United States and 616 in Great Britain, but in these countries high densities have a less serious significance than in Java, where the vast majority of the population is dependent on agricultural pursuits for a livelihood. * As compared with Osborn's figure of a realized one per cent for the whole world. This is, of course, an estimate of an Eastern potential, not usually realized, as the next sentences reveal. Frank Notestein 99 rates of various populations. Moreover, changes in the social setting are the major sources of long-run changes in the birth rate. Man's wants with respect to the number of children are to a very large extent the products of his society. In the modern West, the social institutions, customs and beliefs gov- erning reproduction now favor small families. Fertility is to a large extent under rational control, achieved mainly through contraceptive practice. The present preference for small families, however, is rela- tively new in our society. It developed only very gradually as the social institutions and attitudes of the former peasant society gave way un- der the heavy pressures of urban-industrial life. In that context new attitudes emerged favoring smaller numbers of children to whom bet- ter opportunities could be given for health, education and advance- ment. Birth rates responded gradually to modernization but death rates declined rather promptly and the population growth was rapid. Indeed, as has already been pointed out, in three centuries the world's population of European extraction has multiplied by more than sixfold, probably more than sevenfold. However, the transition is well on its way toward completion. Life is now rather efficiently maintained by relatively low fertility and relatively low mortality. The populations may grow for some time, perhaps by substantial amounts, but since fertility is rather widely under rational control, growth can be ad- justed to meet the needs of the situation, without manipulating a death rate.88 Other populations, such as those of Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and Japan, and some of the Latin American countries, are in the earlier stages of their transition. Both birth rates and death rates are high, but both have been declining for some time, with, as usual, death rates leading the birth rates in the downward trend. In this situation, growth is almost certain to be rapid provided the economic situation permits. It can, however, be speeded or slowed by the implements of public policy. All things considered, the growth of such populations is likely to run between one and two per cent per year for a considerable time. Still other parts of the world have scarcely started their demographic transitions. These areas include virtually all of Asia, except Japan and * So far, the low average would appear to have been maintained without what might have been excessive control by precisely those intelligent and well-educated parents who perhaps could have provided the most useful offspring, while other parents, deterred by ignorance, or religion, or simple laziness, and quite indifferent to the social consequences, continued to “spawn ever afresh in geometric progres- sion” (page 7). This is a moot question worth cogitating. 100 World Production the Soviet Union, most of Africa and the Middle East, and large parts of Latin America—in short, the regions inhabited by the majority of the human race. Their populations also have grown, but no one knows exactly by how much. Asia's population may have tripled during the period of Western contact. The process of growth, however, has differed essentially from that of the West, especially in the colonial areas. A few Western techniques of government, agricultural production, transportation and epidemic control have cut the toll of civil disorder, famine and contagious dis- ease. Mortality has been reduced a little by means that could be read- ily imposed from the top. However, the essential controls of fertility have remained little changed. Relatively few people are submitted to the pressures and the opportunities of city life, or exposed to the new horizons that literacy brings. Family and community controls are little weakened, and the forces of traditionalism remain strong. The social- economic milieu is still one that throughout the centuries has led par- ents to want the numerous births required for survival in the presence of an uncontrolled mortality. The result has been a population growth that has consumed most of the product yielded by the limited ad- vances in agricultural technique. Living levels have risen relatively little, and in consequence death rates have remained high, inhibiting an even more rapid increase of population. In the West the indigenous forces, that first brought a decline in mortality, eventually gave rise to a society that favored small fam- ilies and reduced its birth rates. Its period of transitional growth is drawing toward a close. Japan, adopting Western techniques for it- self and hastening the process, followed a similar course, but, since it started later, it is less far along in its transition. In the world's colonial and semi-colonial areas, however, a limited imposition of Western tech- niques of government, agricultural production and health has reduced mortality a little; but the social forces that might be expected to re- duce fertility have not been unleashed. The result is huge populations often living densely on the land with narrow margins of subsistence. Much of the slack of unused resources that helped Europe undergo its transitional growth is already gone. Nevertheless, the social in- stitutions supporting high fertility are unimpaired, and the populations are poised for further growth whenever a reduction of the death rate becomes possible. This very brief survey of world population trends seems to me to yield a number of points that are pertinent to our discussion. 1. Those advocates of conservation who urge the immediate reduc- Frank Notestein 101 tion of population have failed to understand the processes of popula- tion change. Under present circumstances, prompt declines in popula- tion can only be obtained by substantial increases in death rates. Moreover, throughout most of the world, the changes that would in the long run create an interest in reducing fertility, such as growing literacy, higher standards of living, and rising social status for women, these very changes would themselves tend to reduce mortality almost immediately. The very changes that will eventually end the growth epoch by reducing fertility, will tend to stimulate more rapid growth for some time to come. 2. The optimists who see no problem of resources and production also seem to be too little aware that long-range solutions will require higher levels of living for more people. In addition they give little attention to the practical difficulties of introducing advanced tech- niques in poor, illiterate, agrarian societies.” An escape from the grossly inefficient form of population replacement depends on balance and speed in all aspects of change—technological, social, political and economic. The problem for some decades to come will be to secure progressively higher levels of living for growing numbers of people while unleashing indigenous forces of social change. It is not a simple combination; indeed, it will be surprising if events take a smooth and uninterrupted course. 3. In the present stage of our knowledge, it seems to me that the problems of balance can best be met by heavy reliance on indigenous forces for the execution of ameliorative programs. The need for speed can be at least partially met by help from the technologically advanced parts of the world in the form of training, research and demonstration in all branches of the natural and social sciences, but with special em- phasis on the problems of practical application.” 4. Finally, it seems to me unwise to rely exclusively on the gradual and semi-automatic processes of urban-industrial development to bring about efficient reproduction of population in the Far East. For such huge initial populations, the growth potentialities seem too large. It 3° Notestein expands this substantially in a later discussion. His Javanese ex- perience perhaps makes him unoptimistic about the long-range effect of the Rus- sell-Rockefeller work. See page 117. 40 This would appear to accord with the Truman program, the “Compton Plan,” and the work of Robert Russell (page 104), and Rockefeller (page 168). It is not too easy to reconcile with Notestein's second point. Note, however, that Tizard favors concentrating on already developed areas (page 113) before the marginal ones. With this idea Mudaliar would certainly not agree (page 163), nor pre- sumably would Ryckmans (page 152), although for different reasons. Tizard, of course, goes on to favor increasing the productivity of any land. See page 111. 102 World Production is, therefore, essential that we learn how to spread the values favoring small families in the peasant villages.” The techniques are at present unknown, and little has been done to attempt to discover them, al- though the problems are amenable to research and experiment. More- over, even if we were given the motives for reducing births, the re- gion would still lack suitable means for implementing these motives. There is, at present, no form of birth control sufficiently acceptable, cheap and efficient to meet the needs of the Far Eastern situation. As- sistance in discovering the motives and the means for the reduction of fertility of peasant populations is urgently needed. The successful solu- tion of these problems would greatly enhance the possibility of hold- ing population growth within limits that will permit the completion of the transition to efficient human replacement.* >k >k :k >}: :k Maclaurin next introduced Robert Price Russell.” Stalwart, brown, full of enthusiasm for his Venezuelan project, Dr. Russell plunged directly into an example of a solution which he had subtitled “The place of technology in meeting the world's production needs.” The close relation of these remarks to those of Nelson Rockefeller in the afternoon will be apparent on comparison.* 41. This would appear to be one of the intents of the inadequately supported UNESCO Hylean project. 42 This conclusion seems to say in effect that all scientific advance possible will be needed to create adequate standards for an ultimately static or at least slowly growing population, and that these advances should not be dissipated in main- taining at low levels ever-increasing population—quite the opposite to the essen- tially laissez-faire position espoused by Tizard and Bush. It would seem clear that while up to now Notestein has been arguing about the broad processes of social change, which tend to develop an interest in smaller families and the individual life, he is now saying that there is also some sense of obligation. This would mean that better means are needed to enable people to fulfill their desire for smaller families once they have developed such desires. Among these would surely be cheaper, more effective, and more acceptable methods of contraception. It must be noted that such means will not be available without opposition from strong political and social forces. For example, the official Roman Catholic position is that the means of contraception thus far known are “un- natural” and hence that their use is “sinful.” Moreover, the Catholics would point out that chastity, continence, and, under certain circumstances, the use of the free period are the natural means by which any needed control of fertility may be attained. A very appropriate article by Reverend William J. Gibbons, S.J., Na- tional Catholic Rural Life Conference, entitled “The Catholic Value System in Relation to Human Fertility” has been published in Studies in Population, George F. Mair, Ed. (Princeton, N. J., Princeton University Press, 1949), pages 108–184. 48 For a brief biography of Robert Russell, see Biographical Notes, page 526. 44 See page 166. Robert Russell 103 ROBERT PRICE RUSSELL Now, it is shocking, to be sure, to observe the wastage of erodible lands and water reserves that is still taking place all over the face of the earth—but to me it appears that a great many people have failed to grasp the significance of the major developments, tremendous strides already made, and to appreciate how rapidly these techniques could be made to spread through proper educational practices. I think, too, there has been failure to appreciate the full potential effects of recent major advances on the scientific side of food produc- tion, and I think there has been failure to appreciate the major poten- tialities that are bound to result when there is poured into this field of agriculture the kind of research and development effort that has revolutionized so many of our industries and brought about the tre- mendous advances that Dr. Bush described as a result of the work done during the war. I think, too, there has been failure to visualize how much more startling the results will be when these same advances in agricultural technique get spread into lands which for generations past have been so extremely low in production, where populations need the added food output to bring them up to a normal subsistence level. I think, too, there's been failure to realize that there are, in this hemisphere at least, vast areas of land that can be brought into high- output production, not at prohibitive cost but at reasonable cost through the use of land-clearing techniques that again were developed during the war. Now I am not going to outline all the advances that I think are ahead in this field, but I would like to cite two examples which to me seem to be significant. In one Latin American country, in which corn constitutes well over half the national diet, the average production per acre is not over sixteen bushels, or about a fourth of the produc- tion in the United States corn belt. The public pays more than $2.25 a bushel, which is twice the United States farmside price. This is in spite of the fact that agricultural day labor receives about $2.00 a day. Land preparation is poor, no fertilizer is used, cultivation is mostly hit or miss. Further, after the corn matures at the tag end of the rainy season and the soil between the rows is exposed to the sun, a weed crop up to 14 feet high has made mechanical harvesting impossible in the past. Local labor is paid 806 a bushel for hand picking, or more than three times what the United States hand picker receives for his stint of several times what local labor produces in the country in ques- 104 World Production tion. Birds and weevils take a terrific toll, after maturity, during har- vest and after harvest. But all these factors can be changed out of recognition by adopting the practices employed so widely here in the United States. By the use of pest controllers for insects, plant diseases and weeds, through mechanization and industrialization of the hand- ling of the crop once it's matured, yields can be stepped up certainly to the level that characterizes corn production in this country and, in my opinion, the cost can be brought down to about the same costs that prevail in the United States. A small tractor in third gear covers just as many acres in Latin America each day as it would in the United States. Existing insecticides, fungicides and weedicides will do the necessary job if applied at the proper time. Mechanical picking, never done successfully before in Latin America, was carried out success- fully two months ago and the full chain of necessary developments in corn production, I think, has now been demonstrated. For example, one farm which this last year in order to pick its corn in time would have had to have 850 hand pickers on the property, on its best day, could locate only 62 men. Its average throughout the harvest was 42. This year with six single row mechanical pickers that crop will be harvested faster than those 350 people could have done it, and at costs way below, naturally, way below whatever could be pos- sible were hand picking to stay in force. As this system spreads, as it's bound to because of the major economies that will result, more and more corn can't help but become available in that market and prices are bound to fall as supply reaches demand. In rice this last year we saw another very interesting example; two young technically trained men decided they wanted to get back on the land; they leased some property, analyzed their soils, studied the water-retention capacities of the area and planted rice, a crop which all the experts said could not be grown profitably in that area. On their entire planting, they realized a yield of about 8 barrels of rice per acre. On one 10-acre patch, which they fertilized moderately, about 85 pounds of nitrogen per acre, they obtained a yield 50 per cent higher or 12 barrels per acre, which is a good yield in almost any language for upland rice. They made a great deal of money out of that opera- tion; they started out with less than $8,000.00 in capital, they bor- rowed $45,000.00 from the banks, they bought their equipment, they operated it around the clock nearly 24 hours a day throughout the crop season; they realized sufficient profit and their neighbors know it, so that practically all their neighbors are now stepping into the produc- Robert Russell 105 tion of this extremely high-priced scarce element of that particular national diet. The use of fertilizer (fertilizer was never used in that country before) the use of fertilizer is stepping up out of all recogni- tion. These are only two examples of the kind of thing that can be done to step up food production in backward areas and the surface has not been scratched yet. As I mentioned before, there are other areas potentially very productive, readily cleared at not prohibitive costs, that can be brought into use alongside of the stepping-up in output of areas which now produce very little. I am convinced too, that through proved methods of disease control, which were mentioned here earlier today, and by adding all these new techniques to the food production systems almost throughout the world, that the end is far from in sight.” As far as existing knowledge in technology is concerned, I cer- tainly take a leaf from Van Bush's notebook. I am convinced that we have a reserve on which the world can draw heavily without fear of early exhaustion and I am convinced too that additional and extremely important reserves can be created rapidly if the proper type of research and development effort is applied in this field. But advance in technol- ogy and scientific knowledge is only part of the story, as has been brought out earlier. As in any industry, successful large-scale develop- ment depends upon a number of ingredients, each one of which is es- sential if the whole system is to work. First, of course, are the people; there must be a force of basic labor ready and willing to work. I am convinced that in every country that I have visited, it is possible to create such a corps of labor through proper educational and training systems and through disease control. Next there must be the foremen, the corporals and the sergeants of the army. They are tough to find, they are hard to train, but they can be found and they can be trained. Next there must be the managerial group conversant with the developments in agriculture and able to put them to work; to work out on the spot those variations in these techniques that always have to be made in adapting a practice from one land to another. Then there must be a top management group aware of the possibilities that come out of research, development and engineering, with access to the land and to the capital needed to put those developments to work. There must also be, of course, technical personnel able to work out the research, the development, the pilot plant and the field scale trials of all these new techniques. Setting up 45 This paragraph was quoted frequently in the press. 106 World Production all these personnel and facilities is difficult but I know it can be done.” Now next there must be transportation and marketing facilities. It must be possible to move agricultural products at low cost into the principal consuming centers and get them distributed, again at low cost, through wholesale and retail outlets. In almost all countries to the south of us, transportation is lamentably lacking. Roads must be built, truck fleets must be bought and operated and in addition, handling facilities must be installed on a mammoth scale. To do all this, requires capital—to expand production in existing areas, to turn new areas into productive use, to build the roads, buy the truck fleets, to install the refrigeration and warehousing and retail facilities eats up an enormous amount of capital and management. It must be made attractive for for- eign capital as well as local capital to go into this extremely important field. Now it seems obvious that both the political and economic climates must be favorable in order to bring to bear the various factors just mentioned. To me it's obvious that the people involved, from basic labor to the top management group, are not going to put their whole heart into seeing production expand in this field except under some system which promises continuing opportunity for advancement and which offers a fair financial reward on the basis of personal achieve- ment. And venture capital, so essential if increased output is to be re- alized with minimum drain on national resources, can be drawn into this field only under a climate which is reasonably stable politically and which permits a fair profit to those who pour their money into a high-risk business. To sum it up, I am convinced that modern technology can lay the basis for a refutation of the Malthusian doctrine for more generations than we need consider. But technological advances alone won't do this and powerful economic, educational and political forces must be brought to bear if the inherent promise of technology is to be realized. Now I am convinced that this promise can be realized under a sys- tem of free enterprise such as has made this country the great coun- try that it now is. We in the United States have a great opportunity to join with others and to share our vast resources of technological and managerial experience in order to help others help themselves. >}: >k >k :k :k 46 Having done it himself, in a limited, privately supported application, initiated long before the “Truman program,” for exportation of science and technology. Sir Henry Tizard 107 Introducing Sir Henry Tizard, Maclaurin said, “Our last speaker on this program, Sir Henry Tizard, is one of the leading scientists in Great Britain; he played a key role in the war, is now with the British Min- istry of Defense, and is President of the British Association for the Ad- vancement of Science: Sir Henry Tizard.” SIR HENRY TIZARD Well, Mr. Moderator, I am told that the sign that I am not speaking loud enough is that, isn't it? And that the sign that I am speaking too quickly is that! Now what I want to know is, what is the sign for, “I can't understand your strong British accent?” Not that it really matters if you don't. Now, my trouble here in this intimate little discussion is that we are all too much in agreement. I was particularly sorry to find that I was in so great an agreement with my old friend, Van Bush, and I did expect him to say something that would make me provoca- tive, but I’ll do my best in case he gets another chance!” We are to discuss whether “the consistent and continuing destruc- tion of world resources, coupled with the insistent increase of world population promises nothing but disaster.” Let us first make up our mind what we mean by the word disaster. Do we mean disaster to such an extent that civilization as we know it will disappear and mankind be reduced to a state of savagery, or do we mean disaster at any given time to a considerable section of the world population? If we mean complete disaster, then I shall say at once that there is not the slightest evidence or any fear of this in foreseeable time so long as it is not caused by cruel and extensive wars. And even if such wars come about I cannot say that there is any clear evidence that whatever may be their outcome mankind as a whole will be reduced to a state of savag- ery. If we mean by disaster the decline of nations or the misery of a considerable section of the population of the world, I shall say that there is nothing new in this.” [Tizard said, in his free speech, But I want to put a very simple proposition to you, which is that the population of the world cannot increase unless there is enough food for them to keep alive, and therefore if there is an explosive increase of the population of the world there must also be an explosive increase of the food 47 For a brief biography of Tizard, see Biographical Notes, page 528. 48 Now, as in the case of Bush, we revert to Tizard's prepared manuscript with bracketed interpolations from his extemporaneous speech. 49 See Bush, page 94. Compare with Notestein's reference to the Red Queen (page 96). 108 World Production of the world, and no one would say that that is happening. The real trouble is not that there isn't enough food to keep the population from increasing, because if there weren’t enough food the population wouldn't increase. The real trouble is that there is enough food to do this but only to keep one- half or two-thirds or even more of the population of the world undernour- ished while increasing. Now someone said this isn't a new problem—well, of course, it isn’t. In all history of the world, half the world has been under- nourished. There has been no change whatsoever. The trouble is, that science and technology have enabled a great increase of food to come about, and that has been accompanied by a parallel increase of population, thus in large parts of the world leaving things where they were to start. Now it seems to me that's our problem. Our problem is that the scientist and the technologist does all this work and, much to his puzzlement and much to his disappointment, things stay where they were before.] There may be an important problem to discuss, but it is not a new problem. The history of the world is one long history of disaster in this sense, but nevertheless civilization has progressed throughout the ages; at least material civilization has greatly progressed. Whether spiritual civilization has progressed, I shall leave to others to discuss. History therefore does not encourage us to believe that in the exist- ing state of affairs there is any new urgent problem to solve for the world as a whole, although particular nations may find that they have urgent problems to solve for their own survival. [In his ad lib remarks Tizard cited the example of Japan, as follows: Now let's take Japan for an example. In 60 years before this war, Japan doubled her production of food, and at the same time the population went up about two and one-half times, thus leaving things exactly where they were before, but perhaps a little better because technology had developed. Now they have been thrown back again in this war.] I shall also suggest that pessimistic views expressed in times past on the effect of the destruction of world resources and on the increase of world population have not been justified in the result. There was a time, for instance, when England was an important source of lead and tin and other metalliferous minerals. We no longer produce more than a trifle of these metals, but we are certainly not worse off as a nation than we were when we were a principal source. There was a time, to take another example, when the disappearance of the oak forests of England caused great alarm as it was felt that we should have no re- sources of good timber to build and maintain a fleet. But times changed and technology advanced, and the difficulties which seemed so real at the time disappeared in the natural course of events. I cannot see any fundamental reason for supposing that the difficulties of today are sub- Sir Henry Tizard 109 stantially different in principle from what they were in the past. We have certainly not come to an end of advances in science and technol- ogy. Our descendants a century hence may look back upon the times in which we live with the same kind of feeling as we look back to the middle of the last century when it was said, as it is today, that progress in scientific knowledge was so rapid that by contrast progress in morals and in the arts of government seemed to be non-existent. I shall suggest that the pessimism which is so prevalent today is due not so much to fundamental causes as to a greater availability of in- formation. We hear much about the growing population of the world, which is estimated to be about 20 million a year. We hear much about the fact that a large proportion of the existing human beings are under- nourished. There is much discussion as to how this appalling state of affairs can be remedied. But there has never been a time when a large proportion of the world has not been undernourished; and as for the growth in population, it is quite obvious that the population cannot grow unless people have enough food to keep alive. More food means more people, unless the growth is checked by disease or war. Disease is rapidly being conquered, and modern war is no more destructive to human life than wars were many hundreds of years ago. So it might be argued that these two limitations of population have been, or are being, removed. Famine will remain. Is there any way out of that remark? What other natural cause can limit world population? Nevertheless we can but recognize the duty of any particular nation to ensure that its inhabitants are well-nourished, and we can but ad- mire the idealism of those who seek to ensure that every living man, woman and child has enough to eat. But I cannot think that their idealism is very practical. Suppose, for example, that we could sud- denly double the food supply of the world and that there were no eco- nomic or technical difficulties in transporting food to where it is most needed. What would happen? I suggest that what would certainly hap- pen is that the population would increase very rapidly and that unless war or disease checked it, we should, within measurable time, reach the same kind of situation that presents itself today, in all those parts of the world where there is no deliberate control of births. [This is the nearest Tizard came to birth control. In his extemporaneous speech, however, he made some fun of it, as follows: Now I put another provocative point to you, as I have been left to do these things, and that is you must remember that part of the problems we are facing today are due to the great increase in humanity and not only in the humanity of the scientists but in the humanity of less well-endowed 110 World Production people. You see, control of population has been a problem which has been faced by the most primitive people for many, many years, and they did it by the simple method of knocking the girl babies on the head. That is one of the simplest and most humane methods of control of population. But of course the civilized Westerner comes into the country, and says that's a crime. That's against all ethics. No, you mustn't knock your girl babies on the head when they don't know it, you must wait until they grow up and let them die of starvation, that's humane. That in fact is what has happened; and that's one of the problems; what are you going to say, that we ought not to tell people not to knock the girl babies on the head? Of course, we're not going to say it.] This will be true of most parts of the world; of the whole of Asia and Africa, for example. So increase of food supplies will not itself solve the age-long problem. I admit that the age-long problem is becoming more obvious and more insistent because of the advances in preventive medicine on the one hand, and the easy communication of informa- tion on the other. But I repeat that it is not new. [Tizard was also facetious about medical progress at this point in the ad- dress as he delivered it (the reader will wish to compare this with what Bush said, page 91): And then, of course, there are these medical men. I mean, I admire them, but of course I think they are a perfect nuisance when they try to prolong the life of anybody but myself, causing the most serious trouble you see, and when you make them sensible by attaching bio- chemists and other scientists to them, you know the thing gets worse and worse—and so we have got a problem to face. And if we could only face it in a strictly scientific way, you see these things would be quite easy to do, the trouble is that other people come in. Now I talk about the economic difficulties in the United Kingdom, and how we are trying to get over part of them by growing more food. Well, I’ll tell you a perfectly good way of getting rid of all the rest, and that is to kill off everybody over the age of 65. I say 65, because it just leaves me on the right side.69] Nevertheless it is of interest to consider to what extent and how quickly the food supply of the world can be increased. There is not the least doubt that it can be very greatly increased without any startling new scientific discovery. The only doubt is where, and how quickly can it be best increased, and what is the right policy to adopt if we wish to increase it at a rapid rate. In the highly advanced countries the productivity of men engaged in agriculture has increased within living times, and is now very high. 59 These remarks reveal the long shadow of Osler which appeared again and again in the comments of speakers from Great Britain. See, for example, Hailey (page 185). Sir Henry Tizard III In England, for example, one man working on the land will produce enough food for at least twenty of the population. I think the figure is much the same in North America. In New Zealand, a land blessed by nature, the productivity of the agricultural worker is even higher. It is certain that technological advances will make it possible to increase still further the productivity of the agricultural worker, but I cannot argue that this is now of fundamental importance in the highly ad- vanced countries. It is, however, argued that it is of importance in the more primitive civilizations. I doubt the truth of this. In India, for example, an overpopulated country, an undernourished country and a country which from the material point of view is miserably poor com- pared with the United States, there would be very little point in raising the productivity of the agricultural worker in the near future.” [The comment on India was somewhat more extended in Tizard's extem- poraneous address, as follows: You know we mustn't attach too much importance to increasing the productivity of the worker on the land. It isn't really of fundamental im- portance that one man should now produce the same amount of food from one acre as one and one-half men did a short time ago. That's very nice for the man, but it is not of fundamental importance in the overpopulated coun- tries. For instance, take India. Now in India, instead of having a few per cent of the population working on the land, most of the population works on the land. They have to, to produce the food; nevertheless there are a large number of unemployed left over. There are millions of people in India at the present moment for whom no useful work can be found, and so it is not of any urgent importance to put up the productivity of the worker on the land in India but it only adds to the millions. It's a question of timing. But it is of very great importance to put up the productivity of the land which, of course, has an indirect effect on the productivity of the worker, and you've heard already remarked, which I thoroughly agree with, of how very greatly the productivity of the land can be increased.] Even though a very large proportion of the working population is engaged in agriculture there are perhaps millions more for whom no useful work can yet be found, either on the land or in industry. There is no point in adding to these millions. What is of far greater importance in connection with food supply is to increase the productivity of the land, which of course has an indirect effect on the productivity of the worker. There are great possibilities here within the range of existing knowledge. Take, for example, the United Kingdom. The productivity of the cultivated land in the United * Mudaliar or Prime Minister Nehru would certainly not agree with this, and in fact for many parts of the world, Robert Russell did not agree. See the discus- Sion, page 128. 112 World Production Kingdom is much higher than the average productivity of the culti- vated land in the United States. [Tizard was quite insistent on this comparison and again expanded it in his impromptu remarks: We have got a plan and we are going to operate it; it isn't a question of paper; we are going to operate the plan, a well-thought-out plan to put up the productivity of the land and the total production of food in the United Kingdom by twenty-five per cent, as Bush said, by twenty-five per cent over the next few years. We are going to do it or we are going to have a good try at it, anyway. Now the point is that we have a great incentive to do it, a very great incentive, because it is the best way that we can see, and the quickest way, to solve our economic difficulties and thus to rely less and less, and eventually we hope not at all, on the generosity of the American people. That is a very strong incentive, and we are going to do it. Now I should say to you that if you had an equally strong incentive you would easily double the production of food in the United States; easily! I won't say within five years, I would say within ten. Your trouble would be from the point of view of the scientists, not the doubling of the production of food, but what to do with it when you get it. What are you going to do with it? I mean, if you hand it all over to India, China, the overpopulated places, the only effect will be the population will go up. And don’t let's blink the fact, that will be the only effect for many years. And that's the problem you’ve got to face. And in another place on this same general point, I don't like to hear, for instance, an American say that he hopes to put the productivity of the land in South America up to the level of the productivity of the land in the United States, because from my point of view I think the productivity of the land in the United States is very poor; now that ought to produce an argument. Well, anyway, it is about one-third of the productivity of the land in the United Kingdom.] Shall I be wrong in saying that it is more than twice as great? Yet after a recent survey of the position steps are now being taken which are expected to lead to a twenty per cent increase of home-grown food within five years. We have a strong incentive to take such steps, be- cause nothing that we can see will do more to restore our balance of trade and thus to lessen or eliminate altogether our dependence on the generosity of our American friends. There is no similar incentive in the United States or in Canada, but if there were an incentive surely the production of food could be doubled without any new discovery. The problem would be not so much to produce the food as to know what to do with it when it was produced. Then there are large parts of the world, particularly in the subtropical regions, where food can be grown on an enormous scale. But the difficulties would be greater. The capital expense involved would seriously limit the rate of development of such Sir Henry Tizard I13 areas, even if there were a general urge to develop them. We hear of such schemes in Brazil, for instance, in Africa and in Queensland; but they will take a long time to fructify and progress is bound to be disap- pointing owing to unforeseen difficulties. We ourselves have already been disappointed with the progress of the groundnuts (peanut, ED.) scheme in East Africa.” If the suggestion is that 20 million more people can be fed every year by developing land not at present under cultiva- tion, I shall dismiss it as a myth. The quickest way to improve food sup- ply is to concentrate on the already cultivated land, wherever it is, leav- ing the undeveloped land as a long-term problem. [This also appeared in Tizard's extemporaneous address as follows: Well, now, let me sum it up, and that is, there is nothing to prevent a very great increase of the production of food in the world. Personally, I think the quickest way to increase it is to concentrate on the already culti- vated land wherever it is; that's my personal view, leaving the undeveloped land as a rather longer-term problem. I don’t think for a moment we can rely on the present undeveloped land to provide food for 20 million people extra every year. I think it is a question of timing. You can’t do it. That's my personal opinion.] It is of interest to observe what little attention has been paid to the science of tropical agriculture compared with the science of agriculture in the temperate regions. Compare, for instance, the breeding of wheat and the breeding of rice. Rice is the staple food of more than half of the population of the world. If the scientist had not devoted his effort in the past to the breeding of wheat, the wheat-eating nations of the world would now be in a worse plight than the rice-eating nations. What can be done by a greater effort in subtropical agriculture? I shall leave this question for experts to answer. Again what is quite obvious is the enor- mous amount of food that is wasted each year by pests of various kinds, and by plant diseases. We are still only beginning to know how to con- trol the principal pests and how to deal with the devastating diseases; but we are beginning, and the results of such research will have the most significant effect on the quality and quantity of world population. Speaking broadly and having in view the new processes for produc- ing food yeasts, and for converting algae into edible fats and proteins; and remembering also that we do not yet know how nature synthesizes food in the living plant and that we are bound to know some day, I do not think, taking a long view, that the world supply of food puts a defi- 52 A reference to the operations of the British Ministry of Food and later the Overseas Food Corporation on mechanized production of peanuts in East Africa. For more detail see Chapter IV, footnote 29. 114 World Production nite limit to civilization as we know it, or to world population. Material civilization is much more likely to be limited, or at any rate to be seri- ously affected, by the lack of the raw materials or manufacture. A very simple calculation will illustrate this. Suppose there were no further advances of technology in the United States, and suppose that by some magic process, the capital assets, and the standard of living of the whole world could be raised to the level of the United States, and therefore that the consumption of raw materials per head was the same throughout the world, what would we find?” [The point seemed difficult to get and caused some confusion in succeed- ing discussions. Hence it is worth while to quote Tizard's paraphrase on this same point in his offhand speech: Now, I shall just say in conclusion, that I think there is a much more serious problem, which is whether you can in fact maintain the material standards of living of the world on our present knowledge. I don't mean whether you can maintain the United States's standard of living, but I think that if anyone in America thinks that it is possible to raise the standard of living of two thousand million people in the world up to the standard of living that’s present in the United States, the material standard—while I won't say they are wrong, I should say they have no evidence and there wants to be a lot of thinking over it. This brings us into the whole question of the world resources of minerals and other things. But when we talk about our plundered planet, or when some of us talk about our plundered planet, I hope the populace as a whole doesn't misinterpret that rather nice little piece of alliteration, because it is true that the whole material civilization has depended on using the capital resources of the world, mainly in coal and steel, and it is a great mistake to think that they are all plundered and gone forever and completely wasted. We've got to remember that unless we had encroached on the capital re- sources of the world in that sense, unless we continue to encroach on them, we should have never built up the immense capital resources of science and technology. We’ve got to weigh that against the other.] We would find, for example, that the world consumption of steel would be greater than a thousand million tons a year; that the world consumption of coal would be ten thousand million tons a year; that the annual consumption of oil would be far greater than the total known reserves of natural oil. We should find too that the world would have to go without lead because there was not enough of it, and to all *The point Tizard makes here is of enormous importance and certainly is relevant to Hailey's notion that some nations are likely always to be in the van (page 186) and with Mudaliar's quick resentment of this notion (page 156). See also Bush (page 94). The point about the American standard of living is elaborated in the discussion in terms of the more rapid consumption of resources which would be necessary. See page 122. Sir Henry Tizard 115 practical purposes, without any of the minerals that are in common use today. Is there any way around this? I can certainly see some ways. It is fairly safe to say that there is a gross waste of steel and of many other raw materials, including coal, in the process of fabrication and use. But to say that the consumption of steel and coal per head could be halved without basically altering the material standard of living in the United States would be about as far as one could go on existing knowl- edge. To examine this in more detail and in a more scientific way would require a long and careful study. My general remark is that if it is argued that the supply of raw materials definitely puts a limit on mate- rial civilization as we know it, I should not be able to produce any sound reasons for refuting the argument. I could only say, and I do say, that there is much yet to be discovered and to know, that the search for knowledge and its application is still in its infancy and that whether you are pessimistic or optimistic is a matter of taste. I prefer to be among the optimists. [Again, Tizard's elaboration in his delivered address is worth reporting: I don’t think we ought to be gloomy about these problems. You have a Dean of Humanities. M.I.T. students are brought up to take a very long view. They are widely educated, so I suppose I am fairly safe in quoting something from Boswell's Life of Johnson. Now it exactly describes my own feelings. Dr. Johnson's great old school friend, Mr. Edwards, met him on one occasion, and they had a rather gloomy conversation, and Mr. Edwards finished it by saying, “You are a philosopher, Dr. Johnson. I have tried too in my time to be a philosopher; but, I don't know how, cheerfulness was al- ways breaking in.”] * :k >k >k :k :k With the termination of the formal addresses, the meeting went into an open discussion, the character of which is best presented by a literal transcription of the recorded dialogue. MACLAURIN: We are about now to go into a discussion period. While we are making a few shifts up here, you can all stand up and stretch if 54 This passage is from Chapter 41 of Boswell’s Life of Johnson, devoted to the year 1778 when Johnson was 69 years old. The “old friend” was Oliver Ed- wards. Johnson did not remember him well as he recounts in “Prayers and Medi- tations.” “In my return from church, I was accosted by Edwards, an old fellow- collegian, who had not seen me since 1729. He knew me, and asked if I re- membered one Edwards; I did not at first recollect the name, but gradually, as we walked along, recovered it; and told him a conversation that had passed at an alehouse between us. My purpose is to continue our acquaintance.” The con- versation dealt with the pleasures of living in the country as Mr. Edwards had done, of the advantages of the law and the ministry and then to an exchange of Latin quotations 49 years previously in a tap-room. It was Johnson's Latin which pro- voked Edwards' remark. 116 World Production you choose. I don't think those chairs are conducive to a two-and-a- half-hour sitting. I am going to suggest that we leave the tables in front of us on the platform—it seems to me that we will feel more secure behind these barriers. Each of us now has a microphone and this is entirely unrehearsed and will probably not go off well. Sir Henry, as the officially designated aggravator, let me start with you. What should Britain and the United States do technologically about India? TIZARD: I think we should first ask what India would like us to do. MACLAURIN: Assuming, then, that that leaves the British out—there has been a good deal of talk, mostly loose talk, about American scien- tific and technical responsibility for such regions as India. We can get to China later, but I would rather like to talk about India for a moment. May I come back at you again—assuming that India would like the United States, and not perhaps officially as a country but in terms of its engineers and some of its E.C.A. money and in other fashions, as- suming that India would like the United States genuinely to assist in raising productivity, what would you have us do? TIZARD: Well, let's start by saying—why is there an Indian problem? Because the British have managed it so well that there are a lot of Indians. Now you haven't got an Indian problem in this country, so I don't have to come in and discuss how I am going to help you out of it. Now India is a very difficult case, very difficult, I think. It's a coun- try of old culture * and you know the culture of the Indians isn't neces- sarily the same as the culture to which we attach importance and I don't think we should start by assuming that all over the world differ- ent nations should have the same idea of what culture and what a standard of living means. But I must confess that I am pessimistic about India and I tell my Indian friends so. I do think that the country is overpopulated and I don't see any way out of it on a short-term basis; and though one can do a great deal, you see, in raising the in- dustrial productivity of India, and especially the United States could do a great deal by their high standard of technology, I don’t think it's going to produce any great happy effect in India for quite a long while. What India wants is more food, you see, and more food per head of population and I don't see any way of their getting it for a long while. Unless they get more food per head of the population, they cannot get to a high standard of living however much technology you try to put into it; and as for making things in India to exchange for * Mudaliar would remind us, older than Britain. See page 162. Discussion 117 food elsewhere, we have then got to think where the food is coming from. To have India as a big importing country of food—subject to anything Lord Hailey might say, he knows the place and I don't—is just out of the question for twenty or thirty years. So, my remark would be, by all means help as much as you can to industrialize India in the way the Indians want to do it, the proper way, but don't imagine that by doing so you are going to solve the problems in a very short time. MACLAURIN: Dr. Notestein, as I told you a moment ago, has recently been out to the Far East—did you go to India, by the way, or just to Java? China and Java. He went out under the auspices of the Rocke- feller Foundation to inquire whether on the one hand the Rockefeller Foundation in helping medicine wasn't perhaps contributing to the ills of the region. What kind of conclusion did you come back with? NoTESTEIN: Well, Mr. Chairman, I am sorry, but those were not our terms of reference. I don't believe that any serious-minded person, thinking about the level of suffering in the world, would for a moment suggest that anyone would be interested in doing anything but lower- ing the level of sickness, disease and debility. We shall not expect an active, productive group of people, developing high levels of material and physical welfare, from a debilitated and rundown population. The Rockefeller Foundation, as an institution founded for the benefit of mankind, will endeavor in the future, as it has in the past, to assist in the attainment of better health throughout the world. While I am about it, I would like to make two points if I may. Our engineers have been, for my money, rather glib about what can be done with technology. The point that I want to re-emphasize again is we are not working in a social vacuum. It's all very lovely to have per- fect engineering. The Dutch in Java have done in some senses a rather unusually good job of it: they have kept civil order until recent times, they have done some reasonable epidemiological work, they have pushed the terraces farther up the mountains, they have developed highly standardized crops that bring high prices on the world market while importing rice, they have done quite a lovely job. The popula- tion tripled between 1860 and 1980 and now it's 800 per square mile, but birth rates, so far as we can tell, remain where they were in the first place. They have not promoted literacy of the population nor have the British in India. I would suggest that there are certain definite things that one can do about it. The situation in Java is that a popula- tion now having high production or, before the war, having high pro- duction of commodities for the world market, has grown up to the 118 World Production limits of that with very narrow margins of subsistence and is now sub- ject to all of the shocks that hit the world, and those shocks are repre- sented probably in five million deaths in a population cut loose and disorganized with no margins of subsistence to fall back on and no deep layer of indigenous skills. When the Dutch went, the Japanese came. Political confusion began to block the movement of goods in the islands, and between the islands and the rest of the world, and then the pay-off came; good engineering had left many people living about as badly as before, with no deep layer of skill, with no deep layer of technique, with no ability to improvise, and they were subject to the shocks that that condition gave rise to.” It seems to me that we must, therefore, consider that we have not a textbook problem of what could be done under ideal circumstances but we have the actual hard problem that people will not be interested in usefully using their resources unless they have reasonably high levels of living so that the future does not always take heavy discount against the present. MACLAURIN: Dr. Osborn, you have written dramatically and effec- tively about our plundered planet, you suggest that there are large sec- tions of the world, and you point particularly to places like Syria, where ancient civilization no longer exists. You imply that perhaps this will happen to our civilization, and is happening to other extant civiliza- tions. Do you really think that if we gave you conservationists your head and a lot of money this would be a good thing? OSBORN: I think it's the best idea I've ever heard of. I’d just like to get off this global business for a moment. May I have my head for a minute or two? We are not out in the clear in this country, ladies and gentlemen, and I think that's a provable statement of fact. We have not yet reached a satisfactory level of handling our own resources. I just want to tell you that any American makes a big mistake if he allows himself to assume that our resource practices are what they ought to be. Of course, we want to try to help the rest of the world but when we do this we need to realize that today, right now, in every year, our cropland situation is deteriorating, we are cutting half again as much saw timber annually as we're growing, and we are facing increasing water shortages in many different regions. In fact, the conservation movement in our own U.S.A. is, as yet, inadequate. There is not 15 per cent of the cropland of this country of ours which is yet under really proper land-use meth- ods. The barrier facing us fellows who are trying to broadcast some of * A very important point relevant to the arguments of Russell and Rockefeller. Discussion 119 the facts is that we are apt to be written off as prophets of gloom. The minute somebody can cite a situation such as the step-up of crop pro- duction in this country, it's assumed right away that the conservationist must be wrong. No, we conservationists are just trying to do a good job of reporting the situation as it is. Of course, disbelievers have their place—trying to persuade them is just part of the fun of the game. Granted we are increasing the quantity production of our crops. This is due to improved mechanization, the introduction of hybrid corn and other better grains, the wider use of pest controls and so forth. But the maintenance of the productivity of our land is something else again. Experienced soil men, like Dr. Robert Salter, speaking recently about hybrid corn yields, point out that “this has come about not because of increase in soil productivity but rather in spite of decreases in soil productivity.” And I just want to take a chance and make a prophecy right here to the effect that one of the things which is going to be head- lined in this country is our water-supply problem. I think you are going to see and think and worry a good deal about that in the next ten years,” and I spike that in because I’m just determined to go back to this interrelationship of forests, soils and water sources which I tried to define in my earlier remarks. I have a sort of ungodly horror of our always coming back or tending to come back to the food problem as if that were the entire picture. TIZARD: Just so that there shouldn't be any misunderstanding, let me say that I quite agree with Mr. Fairfield Osborn's broad thesis. I think it's a very good thing that we should recognize the need of this and then we'd better go ahead and study it. The more these things are studied together, instead of in one facet only, the better, but I don't say the result will be bad; I think the result will be good if studied. MACLAURIN: We have had quite a number of cracks at the United States from the right here, our handling of Indians, our agricultural productivity and our water supply. Dr. Bush, how do you think we are doing? BUSH: You mean as a country or as a panel? As a panel, I think we agree altogether too well to make a good panel. I, in fact, agree very thoroughly with Dr. Notestein's approach. There was one thing, how- ever, that he said that might cause some misconceptions and possibly I ought to comment on it so that he will have a chance also to do so. He said that the only way to get the population down quickly would 57 This was dramatically highlighted in a small way nine months later by the water crisis in the city of New York. See daily front pages of The New York Times for December, 1949, and January–March, 1950. 120 World Production be to increase the death rate. Now I would not wish this audience to think that this panel is unanimous in believing that we ought to have more and better wars; it would be an unfortunate outcome if that re- mained in your minds. Apparently the population has increased in spite of the fact that in the last generation we have had two heavy wars. I have one thought to put in. It has been said and said truly that the result of introducing stable government and new techniques into Java has been to produce a popu- lation of 800 to the square mile on the land and now, under conditions of chaos, to produce still greater distress. The medical men found some time ago that if one wishes to administer sulfa drugs or penicillin properly, he should do it in heavy doses and not gently and in homeo- pathic ways, for the pathogenic organisms mutate and get so that they enjoy sulfa and hence one must descend solidly and eliminate the en- tire difficulty at one stroke. So, too, perhaps, we have been too homeo- pathic in our approach at times and there may be an opportunity to do thorough jobs in smaller ways and not attempt to tackle too much at once and do too little. NoTESTEIN: I too want to reinforce the point that no one can advo- cate, it seems to me, with any lucidity any program except that of im- proving the health of the world. For one reason, if for no other, there are really two, we all enjoy living, but the second reason is also im- portant. I know of no way of expecting to get a birth rate decline except by having a population that puts high value on individual life. I know no way of avoiding the threat of overriding growth unless the huge birth rates required for survival during the million years in which man faced inevitably high death rates can be replaced by lower birth rates that meet the needs of populations that have learned how to reduce their death rates. The reason we'll get population growth out of the transition to low birth and death rates is that those changes that will cut the birth rate eventually, such as the enhancement of the dignity and worth of the individual life, will themselves cut the death rate first and faster. It's indispensable that we keep that point firmly in mind. May I go on to the second point of Dr. Bush's, that we need larger doses of the same. We need unquestionably larger doses but those doses are not all physical, chemical and mechanical. It's all very well to have large engineering projects but we must have a society that goes in step with those or we're in for difficulty. One of the great drawbacks of the colonial system is that it gives imposed progress instead of indigenous and balanced progress on the part of societies that are moving in the Discussion 121 direction that they want to go.” None of us want, I take it, to impose the whole of our civilization but I believe it can be said without any danger whatever that the desire for health is of all desires the most universal desire and that when we suggest that the people of the world want to become and remain healthy we are not suggesting that any- thing is being imposed upon them against their will. We are only pointing out that if that want is to be fulfilled, then certain other wants go with it, and in meeting our responsibilities in that connection we must realize that that involves modifications of cultures just as it has involved the modification of our own culture, as our own system has been able to give the longer life, the healthier life, the fuller life and a larger measure of people free from physical suffering. OSBORN: I’d like to ask Sir Henry if he would comment, give us at least a brief idea of his opinion regarding new resources, organic re- sources, including the marine picture. Sir Henry, would you say a word on that? New resources—new material resources. TIZARD: Not food, but material? OSBORN: Well, put food in. TIZARD: Well, I think they're immense. Of course, I don't think we know enough about these things. We don't even know with any degree of certainty, any reasonable degree of certainty, what the coal re- sources of the United States are, and they were once given a very long year life, I think three to five thousand years. I saw an estimate by an expert, as far as anybody can be an expert on the subject, who just brought that down from four thousand to eight hundred years on the present rate of consumption. Well, I know nothing about these things, I only quote this to say there's a thing we haven’t got enough knowl- edge of. Now, my view is that we have only just begun to scratch the surface of the earth and we don't really know what's to come. I think we shall do our best to organize ourselves internationally to get a very much better idea and very much better assessment of the world’s mineral re- sources than we have at the present. Things crop up, you know, in a most surprising way. For instance, if I may mention my own country again—after all it's a very old country, it has had a fairly good stand- ard of science and technology for a long while; it's been explored, as you might say, intensively—you'd have thought we ought to know some- thing about it by now, but during the war through making a very silly experiment, we discovered an unthought-of source of potash below * A significant prelude to the entire discussion of the afternoon panel on the Underdeveloped Areas. 122 World Production the ground in Norfolk and we are now quite certain that this great salt deposit that we know in Central Europe comes right under the North Sea and right under the English country, so under our own country now, we have immense sources of potash. We never had any before, and everyone knows how important that is to agriculture. So we know, you see, already in that almost worked-out country scien- tifically, geologically, we know there's a lot still to be known. Now, if you'll apply that to the whole world, I think one must ad- mit, you see, that we are only at the beginning of knowledge of these matters and, therefore, any prophecy that one can make is purely made on guesswork and there's nothing substantial behind it; that's my own particular view. Then the other thing is, we’ve got to think of the future alternative sources of power, but that takes us into a very big field and I think there is too short a time to discuss it, and I shall end up by saying I know we want to study these things and we want to study them inter- nationally. MACLAURIN: It's obvious that world productivity, the subject of our discussion, is dependent on population and food supply, on material resources and power. Mr. Russell is an expert on the oil industry. The oil industry in recent years has been moderately smug about its rela- tionship to the power problem. They have said, “Oh, well, if you use up all the oil, there's always coal and we are exploring the possibilities of making oil from coal, and actually we have methods of doing that now.” I think this panel is in agreement on one question. You see we don't really think that the food supply is the critical issue here. I think we think that that can be licked if we choose to lick it politically and socially; maybe we are more worried about the power problem and the physical resources problem. Now, Sir Henry suggests that perhaps we have only got about 800 years of coal, and he divided that up very roughly and probably incorrectly the other day when I talked to him. I think he said that if we really used this nationally and internationally to try to raise the standard of living to the level of the United States, we would go through this coal in 150 years. Did I get your arithmetic straight? TIZARD: No, I don't think you understood my arithmetic. All I said was that if the material standard of the whole world was the same as that of the United States now and based in the same way, the coal consumption of the world would be ten thousand million tons a year and that I don't think at that rate the known resources of coal would last very long, not more than 150 years. Discussion 123 MACLAURIN: Now I am going to ask Mr. Russell whether he really shouldn’t be sticking to his knitting in the United States and worrying about the oil problem and the coal problem here instead of spread- ing light in South America. Mr. Russell? RUSSELL: Well, it certainly has been suggested by a great many people that perhaps I should have stuck to my knitting. However, I happen to be extremely happy in trying to do the job I am now on and I think it's of major importance. I am much more concerned about food production over the foreseeable future than I am about power produc- tion. After all, the Atomic Energy Commission in this 150 years may have something to say about that phase of the world economy. On this matter of food production, I do want to revert back to some- thing that Sir Henry said, namely, about the necessity for increasing the amount of food produced per agricultural worker. It may be per- fectly true in some parts of the earth's surface that such increased pro- duction per worker isn't a major point, but it is a major point over a great section of this hemisphere. I don't know whether it has been gen- erally realized, but throughout this hemisphere there has been pro- ceeding a distinct trend toward industrialization, along with the in- creases in population that have been mentioned so frequently. Now that trend toward industrialization really has brought about in most of this hemisphere, to the south of us at least, a real dearth of agricultural labor in the face of an expanding population and something has to be done about it. The only way that I see that it can be licked is to follow the same course that has been followed here in the United States. The amount of food per agricultural worker has to be stepped up to take care of the people who have already been siphoned off the land, be- cause every time a man leaves the land to enter industry, it is more than one productive worker taken off the land, because normally in agriculture a man's wife and frequently his children also contribute, at least in some degree, to agricultural production. So throughout this hemisphere, practically everywhere, there is a tremendous, crying necessity for stepping up the production per person on the land, as I said, not only to take care of those that have been siphoned off the land into industry but also to step up national diets to a bare subsist- ence level. MACLAURIN: I have one final question to ask Dr. Bush. Do you think that in 150 years the Atomic Energy Commission can do something use- ful? BUSH: Yes! I think in fact if Sir Henry is worried about coal, we might go farther and say that certainly 150 years ought to give the 124 World Production Atomic Energy Commission ample time for the economic application of atomic power for replacement of energy sources. :}; :k >k :k :k What had been the upshot of this discussion? It had revealed most clearly that the scientists were more confident of their ability to cope with the technical problems than they were in the skill with which their technical knowledge would be applied. They were appalled, for example, to note that all scientific progress up to date, an enormous amount, had at least so far as this problem was concerned left us about in the place we were in when we started. Both Bush and Tizard had adopted a laissez-faire attitude when they found consolation in the fact that a large part of the world had been undernourished for the past ten thousand years without collapse. This was not good enough for Notestein, who insisted that the main problem for science was not that of maintaining increasing population at present low standards but rather of raising the standards substantially. He feared that scientific advances might be dissipated unless efficient measures were ultimately taken for the control of populations, but he warned that population ad- vances would be the first result of introducing new technology. Tizard said this would happen even if these advances were applied to the present productive and high-standard nations which would then have to export food to the densely populated regions with the same end re- sult. Resources also engaged attention. The scientists as a group were less fearful about plundering the planet than the social scientist, Notestein, or the naturalist, Osborn. Russell thought there were many more unused resources for exploitation than alarmists would concede; Tizard pointed out that if we had to maintain the whole world at the material stand- ards of the United States, coal resources, for example, might be ex- hausted in 150 years; but Bush was ready to say that there would then be other sources of power if that should happen. Notestein, though, observed that the margin of unused resources available for expanding standards of living in the Eastern hemisphere was far below that with which the process was begun in the West—he opened up another im- portant idea when he described the disaster which overcame Java and Madura when the natives, uneducated to keep modern technical work going, were suddenly if involuntarily abandoned by the West. In the light of these effects, Notestein emphasized the necessity of relying heavily on indigenous efforts in attempts to improve conditions in back- ward areas. Summary - 125 As another side point Tizard expressed the opinion that first attacks on increased productivity should be in presently cultivated lands and not in unopened areas, and that to increase the per man agricultural productivity was not universally desirable, especially in many areas such as India. Russell did not agree with this for the Americas, point- ing out the siphoning power of industry and the necessity to counter- balance this by reducing human efforts on the land. The sixty-four-dollar question, that of birth control, was introduced sufficiently so that the thoughtful can realize it is an important part of the issue. The scientific nature of the problem was not challenged but the question of how to proceed socially was left in a dim cloud. William L. Laurence, distinguished reporter of scientific news on The New York Times, summarized the outlook as follows in a dispatch dated Cambridge, April 1, 1949, and published in The New York Times for April 2: “Looking at man through the particular micro- scopes of their various disciplines, they examined him carefully from a three-dimensional perspective—the material, spiritual and intellec- tual. On the whole, they expressed a spirit of optimism that man, through science and technology, could look forward to a bright future on this earth. “This view, however, was tinged with considerable doubt whether man would be wise enough or rich enough in spiritual resources to take advantage of the unparalleled opportunities now open for him by the accumulation of knowledge and skills during his tenancy of this planet.” The Boston Traveler (Mass.), on the other hand, effectively threw up its hands and left everything to somebody else, in an editorial of April 2, 1949, entitled “Science and Material Problems.” “The M.I.T. Convocation panel which most concerns the average man deals with the problem of world production. “A comparatively unknown process called photosynthesis' may revo- lutionize food production to the point of wiping famine from the face of the earth. Photosynthesis apparently performs the work of artificial sunlight in stimulating agricultural growth. “But unless this process materializes into practical general usage, there is danger that mankind, given its present rate of increase, will starve to death. Vannevar Bush, president of the Carnegie Institute, takes the optimistic view that science is equal to the demands of man- kind and will succeed. There will be more people, yes, and they will be better off.” As opposed to that, Dr. Fairfield Osborn warned against being deceived into believing that modern technology has the power I26 World Production to substitute itself for the functional processes of nature.’ A third and more gloomy panel member suggests that birth control, rather than in- creased production, is the ultimate remedy. “No matter what the actual solution may prove to be, the layman can realize only too clearly that the competing forces of population and food supply must be brought into balance if the race is to survive. Helplessly, we stand by in the war between science and survival.” " But conservationist, demographer, scientist, and engineer alike were cheerful in the face of the mammoth problems which no panel member was prepared to assert were beyond solution. In contrast to the notion of the editorial writer cited, they thought it was every man's problem and that the general world could not safely stand by, leaving the war to be fought between science and survival. Every expression of the fact that this was a social rather than a scientific problem would con- firm this view, and anyone might have told the editor who wrote the Boston Traveler editorial that the attitude of a newspaper or of a citizen on vital questions of the Western lands, of birth control and other similar problems, was directly and completely relevant to the solution of the problem. Finally, all of the speakers would certainly have agreed with the eloquent passage of Dr. Bush when he said, “I am of those who believe that, for all its vicissitudes and sorrows, for all its terrors and tragedies, for all the adversities imposed in the main by man's inhumanity to man, the life of man is a thing of potential beauty and dignity, and hence that to live is good. If this conviction be cast off, as I see it, the whole fabric of learning becomes an ab- surdity. And clearly, any consideration of such a topic as the problem of world production should have as its basis this conviction, for the solution of the problem aims at the attainment of a good life for many.” The general conclusion as to what the panel had achieved, and pre- cisely in line with what the committee had expected would be achieved, was expressed by the moderator, Professor Maclaurin, in a post-panel letter to the Chairman of the Convocation: “I am sure that the whole panel was grateful for the outcome, feeling that a spark had been set in public discussion which could have a lasting effect. All were agreed that the problem set was of great importance and that the real answers were obtainable only by further intensive re- search along political and economic lines which had hitherto been largely neglected.” * The Boston Traveler (Mass.) editorial is quoted as probably typical of many. The last sentence is the significant one, not the revealed ignorance of photosyn- thesis. CHAPTER IV Men Against Mem—The Problem of the Underdeveloped Area WO OTHER PANELS were meeting in the morning, in parallel | with the one just described.* The various audiences left their halls shortly after noon and, with the speakers, lunched in vari- ous places. Some were guests in student fraternity houses; more in M.I.T.’s new dormitory, designed by the Finnish architect, member of the M.I.T. faculty, Alvar Aalto. Opened for the first time officially on this week-end, it seemed an especially gracious place as the sun slanted off the crinkling Charles River through windows evenly spaced on the sinusoidal river façade. But by far the largest group lunched in a special facility provided in the nearby Armory. All, mindful of the morning crowds, returned to the halls well before the scheduled start- ing hour; audiences larger, if possible, than those of the morning at- tended each afternoon meeting. For this discussion M.I.T. had summoned a formidable panel. There were two seasoned colonial administrators, typifying, one the British, the other the Belgian attitude; a distinguished Hindu patriot and leader; a young American businessman, experienced in inter-American affairs under the Roosevelt administration, and subsequently a pioneer in technological aid to Latin American agriculture; a well-known young American economist, right-hand man to Paul G. Hoffman in the opera- tions of the Economic Coöperation Administration; and a far-seeing business executive with much overseas experience, especially in South America and the Near East.” 1 The catch phrase of the title for this panel, “Men Against Men,” was fre- quently objected to. For a notable statement of the objection, see the remarks of Nelson Rockefeller, page 167. 2 The order of the chapters assumes that the reader will find the treatment clearer if those panels of each pair dealing with the same general subject are juxtaposed. 8 Respectively, Lord Hailey, Pierre Ryckmans, Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar, Nelson Rockefeller, Richard M. Bissell, Jr., and James M. Barker, substituting for Oswaldo 127 128 Backward Areas As his party walked along the sidewalk which leads diagonally from the new dormitory to the Rockwell Cage, the afternoon’s moderator, Professor Norman J. Padelford,” well realized that he might be lugging a powder keg onto the platform. The Indian leader, Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar, had not presented an advance script, saying he intended to speak extemporaneously in the light of the discussion as it went along." He was to be preceded on the program by two speakers who had been Western colonial administrators; his forensic skill and his opinions about “backward” nations and Western imperialism were well-known. The results were unpredictable. They would not be improved by the fact that the length of all the speeches was great; there seemed little chance that the two Westerners, Lord Hailey and Dr. Ryckmans, would have an opportunity for rebuttal. Whether or not this is what was going through Professor Padelford's mind, in point of fact it is precisely what did happen. Sir Ramaswami, when his turn came, made an eloquent speech which enormously pleased the American public, a speech which furthermore stole the press headlines since reporters, much as they may try to seem hard- boiled, are moved by the same emotions as the public. Neither Ryck- mans nor Hailey was particularly concerned over possible unfairness. Hailey remarked that it was a bit unfair but more representative of the difference in attitude between the East and the West wherein by In- dian standards these proceedings were entirely appropriate, than of any personal attitude of Sir Ramaswami. Since there was no opportu- nity for rebuttal at the time, the Editor gave Hailey and Ryckmans a chance to furnish it in this chapter. Lord Hailey replied that he saw no reason to alter what he had said or to attempt modifications or addi- tions which would anticipate arguments directed to points which seemed to him to have nothing to do with the matter. He preferred to Aranha of Brazil, who was unable to come. It was agreed that Barker, rather than trying to say what Aranha might have said, would act as summarizer or rapporteur of the conference. Time ground relentlessly through these afternoon hours and Barker was finally forced into a rapidly delivered though penetrating and comprehensive synopsis to which, however, he was unable to add argument or his own opinion. Since this sharply limited what he might have contributed to the conference, the Editor has been fortunate in persuading him to restate his terminating remarks and they are in this new form published for the first time in this chapter. 4 For a brief biography of Padelford, see Biographical Notes, page 524. 5 Mudaliar stated that he had always felt that it was more lively and interesting to the audience if speeches were not read out, so that a real debate might ensue. He did not realize that the time would be so taken up with these speeches that a reply might be impossible. And he did not select his position on the program save that a late position was inevitable since he did not have a prepared speech. The Problem 129 leave the decision to the judgment of the reader. Dr. Ryckmans did supply some comment which is included in various footnotes." Nonetheless, Sir Ramaswami was eloquent, and did say things which needed saying and which otherwise would not have been said, or at least not so powerfully. Moreover, the clash illustrated the kind of non-economic understanding which will have to be achieved in this divided world if there is to be true international coöperation in the ad- vancement of the underdeveloped areas. Hence the address was all to the good." 6 See, for example, footnotes 47–49, 52, 60, 74. 7 As the text and footnotes will later reveal, Mudaliar's address was very popu- lar not only with the audience but with the press. Perhaps the most interesting comment appeared in The Brattleboro Daily Reformer (Vermont) for April 8, 1949, in an editorial called “The Small Voices.” In this editorial the writer com- pared the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace in New York (see page 88) with the M.I.T. Convocation as follows: “The two meetings were at opposite poles on the common subject of how to win peace and influence Russia. In the main speeches at both places the extreme contrast in point of view, approach and even the definition of peace was most evident. While one meeting smote John Q. Public's left ear from New York the other hammered away at his right ear from Boston. And the only balancing factor was the fortunate fact that John Q.'s brain is in the middle, between his two ears. He is thus in a position to discount the extremes from both approaches. This leaves him searching for the balanced point of view, which is quite in keeping with the larger scope of the history of man. “In the event that it was missed, it might be helpful to point out here that both in New York and Boston points of view were expressed by minor speakers who opposed the conclusions of the major actors. In each meeting the less publicized speech was a surprise both to the sponsors and the public.” [This statement is scarcely valid; why does the editorial writer think Sir Ramaswami was invited? Nor did M.I.T. later feel disposed to refer to Sir Ramaswami as a rude guest, as Miss Lillian Hellman did when she talked of Mr. Cousins. The applause for Mr. Cousins was negligible in New York, that for Sir Ramaswami enormous in Bos- ton. Sometimes minor differences of this sort destroy a plausible analogy. ED.] “The Arts and Culture listeners received their unexpected blast from Norman Cousins, editor of the Saturday Review of Literature, who pointed out that the Communist Party in this country was more responsible than any other instrument in casting suspicion on the foreign policy of Soviet Russia. He attacked the inter- national activities of the party as a barrier between the formal relations of the United States and Russia on a diplomatic level. “The M.I.T. meeting got its dissenting voice from within its array of speakers when Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar, UN Social Council president and prime minister of the Indian state of Mysore, surprised a panel audience of 4,500 in an impas- sioned denunciation of imperialism. His remarks, not prepared in advance, assailed all exploitation, pointing out that backward peoples often have capital in their lands and its riches, which others have used, and said that destruction of human souls is inherent in the colonial government of native lands. “Thus the voice of dissent still rises to temper the powerful persuasions of the extremes who have the only' answer. If one permits his eye to follow down from the blacker type commanded by main speakers in the metropolitan newspapers which devote space to detailed reports of meetings in their cities (as The Re- 130 Backward Areas The subject of the panel as defined in the program was “Men Against Men, the Problem of the Underdeveloped Area,” and in this program was described as follows: “A shrinking world looks avidly on the under- developed area. Historically such an area has been developed only when it has served the interest of some highly organized nation. The consequences have not always been favorable, and such a colonial sys- tem is currently in disfavor. “Can modern technology compensate for limitative factors of geog- raphy, biology and human prejudice to the end that backward areas' can be made more prosperous lands, capable of supporting increasing world populations with an indefinitely rising standard of living? Given the resources and man power of these vast areas, the necessary capital for investment, the proper leadership for development, what can this mean by the end of the century for these areas, for the West, for the World? Can such a development take place without the unfortunate effects for the inhabitants which have been all too common in the past?” Professor Padelford offered his own definition of the subject. He said: “Ladies and gentlemen, I should like to welcome you to the panel discussion on Problems of the Underdeveloped Areas. As you will have noticed from your program, this is the second of the panels dealing with material questions. I hope that all of you who have come here this afternoon have deliberately chosen the Material Things of Life, and have not come here because you have found the doors to the spiritual and intellectual phases of life closed as some people did this morning.” In noting the title of this panel on the Problems of the Underdeveloped Areas, I suppose some people may be inclined to think of such areas in terms of jungles, and tropical beasts, and burning deserts. I don't know whether there was any coincidence in the planning committee's scheduling this panel for what we call the Cage'ſ Perhaps the planning ſº reports a forum in this town) he will find the voice of dissent if one ex- isted.” This is an interesting comment both on journalism, as in the last paragraph, and on the organization of convocations. Certainly the M.I.T. gathering could be crit- icized as having included an undue quantity of conservatives. Certainly it cannot be criticized as having included only conservatives. Every important shade of liberal opinion was represented, save the dubious liberalism of Communism. Since that was almost the only shade represented in the design of the New York Conference, the editorial writer is correct in assuming that the two together give an over-all palette from which one may choose one's own colors. But that each of º conferences supplied an equal portion of the spectrum, we would wish to eny. * A reference to the fact that two of the morning panel audiences had over- flowed. See page 201. Norman Padelford 131 committee had thought that the surroundings would suggest placing some bounds upon a subject which I think you will discover has in- finitely extensible boundaries. “The subject of our panel this afternoon is indeed a most important one. It is of vital concern to peoples and governments of many lands. It is also of concern to business, to labor and to science. The question of underdeveloped areas is not a new question in human thought. Man has been concerned with the underdeveloped areas of the world ever since he was put out of the Garden of Eden. Certainly many of the civilizations of the past have been concerned in one way or another with the areas which lay beyond the most advanced portions of the world. “We know from experience, both in the history of our own country and in that of other parts of the world, that the effects of backward- area development are multiple. As standards of living and production rise, they benefit many phases of life of the peoples concerned. They also extend to nations and peoples elsewhere. From a selfish point of view, we in the more advanced nations know that we wish in increasing quantities the products of the underdeveloped lands—essential raw materials, tropical foods, manufactured goods. Furthermore, surveys indicate that new supplies of many critical raw materials must be found or developed if Western standards of production and the secur- ity of the free nations are to be maintained. At the same time the peoples of what are called the underdeveloped lands need the tools and the equipment of modern industry which the industrialized nations can supply to improve their economies. Only by fulfillment of such needs can these peoples gain the strength to escape the aggression and en- slavement with which the forces of totalitarianism and Communism threaten mankind. “No doubt many of you have been asking, ‘What is an underdevel- oped area?' I suppose some people might think that possibly our pres- ent surroundings are an underdeveloped area. Well, you should have seen them before the artists and the architects went to work.” “It is indeed a pertinent question, ‘What is an underdeveloped area? It has been wrestled with by many minds without an altogether satis- factory conclusion. There was a long debate in the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations in 1948 upon this very question. The United Nations Commission on Economic Development arrived at the proposition that the expression underdeveloped countries' refers only * A reference to what Beckwith had achieved in transforming an athletic cage into an auditorium. See page 2. 132 Backward Areas to the economic aspect of a country's development and does not intend any reflection on the cultural status of its development. It pointed out that a number of countries which are economically underdeveloped enjoy a rich cultural heritage and rank high in the community of na- tions.” It also pointed out that even highly industrialized countries have much room for economic development, and that there are great differences in the degree of economic development of various coun- tries. It was the view, therefore, of the United Nations Commission that economic development has to be thought of largely in terms of in- dustrialization.” There can be no economic development in the sense of optimum utilization of resources without the use of capital equip- ment and modern technological methods. I have referred to these views of the United Nations because this group spent a good deal of time in going over the fundamentals of this question, and their views may provide a basis upon which we can proceed to our own discus- Sion.” “In the panel this morning on material questions, those of you who were here heard an extended discussion of the relationship of popula- tion to the production and resources of the world. This question is, of course, of pressing urgency in connection with some of the underde- veloped areas to which we shall turn our attention this afternoon. It is a question of population, and we may as well face it frankly. One half of the world's population, that is to say, approximately one billion people, live within 8.7 per cent of the world's total land area. The world's people, like its resources, are unevenly distributed. Europe, with 4 per cent of the world's land area, supports 18 per cent of its population. The Americas, with 28 per cent of the world's land area, harbor 13 per cent of the world's population. On the other hand, Asia, with 30 per cent of the world's land area, has 54 per cent of its popu- lation; while Africa, with 23 per cent of the world's land area, con- tains now only 7 per cent of its population. Many of the areas with which we shall deal this afternoon have still rapidly expanding popula- tions. The query appropriately suggests itself, therefore—will the 10 See Mudaliar, page 162, and Tizard, page 116. * The problem of how much industrialization and where, was not really grap- pled with by the panel. Note, however, Bissell, page 177, Hailey, page 142, and Ryckmans, page 145. 1* See Report of Sub-Commission on Economic Development, Economic and Employment Commission, Economic and Social Council, Dec. 16, 1947 (United Nations document E/cN. 1/47). See also discussion in Summary Records of United Nations Economic and Social Council, 6th Session, February–March, 1948; also for July 30, 1948. Norman Padelford 133 peoples of Africa, Asia, Latin America, continue to multiply in almost geometric progression if these lands become industrialized?” “In 1750 the population of Europe was roughly one and a half mil- lion; today the population of this same area, exclusive of the Soviet Union, is approximately one hundred and fifty million. We may well ask what future we face if the people of the now underdeveloped areas multiply in the next two hundred years as has the population of Eu- rope. “In A Study of History, Arnold Toynbee observes that those civilizations which have survived have done so by meeting the chal- lenge of unmastered physical environment.’” The continuing increase in the world's population, coupled with the prodigal expenditure of its raw materials, suggests that modern civilization does in fact face such a challenge today. “This, of course, is where the future of the underdeveloped areas comes to the forefront of mid-century thought. Can the utilization of natural resources be increased in these countries so that there may be a continually rising standard of living? Can the purchasing power of the peoples of the undeveloped lands be raised so that they can truly afford the tools and consumers’ goods which the advanced countries can provide? Can the world's food supply be made adequate to the needs of man? To what extent should the underdeveloped areas be in- dustrialized, and can sufficient education be provided for the under- privileged areas so that they may soon achieve independent self-gov- ernment? Indeed, can this be done so that the spirit of democracy will be extended? These are but a few of the perplexing questions which confront us as we begin to consider the Problem of the Underdevel- oped Area. “Before calling upon the members of the panel to explore some of these questions, I should like to call attention to one development which seems to me to be of signal importance in the status of the un- derdeveloped lands. Prior to the twentieth century, many Western countries adopted a policy of imperialism toward the less powerful parts of the world. This policy was often characterized by exploita- tion. During the nineteenth century a movement began in both the economic and political realms which has gathered momentum, bring- ing about a notable change in attitude toward the underdeveloped * Or, on the evidence of the morning panel, perhaps even without industrial- ization, as Tizard suggested, page 109. See also Notestein, page 96. * Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History (London, Oxford University Press and Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1934). 134 Backward Areas areas. This change was climaxed in the Charter of the United Nations, to which 55 nations have now pledged their joint and separate actions to promote higher standards of living, full employment, conditions of economic and social progress, as well as respect and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms. And it has been further testi- fied in Chapter 11 of that Charter, wherein all members of the United Nations having any responsibility for the administration of territories whose peoples have not yet attained a full measure of self-government recognize the principle that the interests of the inhabitants of these territories are paramount, and accept as a sacred trust the obligation to promote to the utmost, . . . the well-being of the inhabitants of these territories.’ To this end they have agreed to insure their political, economic, social and educational advancement, and to develop self- government, taking into account the political aspirations and cultural position of the peoples concerned. These tangible steps attest a move- ment toward recognizing the rights and interests of the less privileged countries. “Among the nations concerned with the underdeveloped portions of the world, none has had wider experience in point of time or diversity of issue than Great Britain. From her tutelage and with the aid of her investment capital, many parts of our own once underdeveloped lands advanced in prosperity. Underprivileged parts of the world stretching almost literally from pole to pole and girthing the globe have bene- fited from her enterprise, directly or indirectly. She has tried virtually every type of development program and technique. Moreover, in the lands with which she has been connected, Britain has afforded tutor- ing in self-rule and has encouraged the spiritual, cultural and mate- rial values of life. British rule has been criticized; indeed, a Bostonian might even be permitted to say it has been opposed at times. Never- theless, the scroll of history records few parallels to the numbers of now independent states which have sprung from the British Empire and Commonwealth. It is fitting, therefore, that our discussion this after- noon should begin with an expression of views drawn from British ex- perience. Among His Majesty's subjects there are many qualified to speak on this topic, but there is one whose experience and knowledge are pre-eminent. “Lord Hailey entered the Indian Civil Service in 1895. In 1924 he became Governor of the Punjab, one of the key states lying near the Northwest Frontier. In 1928 he was appointed Governor of the United Provinces in India. In 1935 he left India to become Director of the African Research Survey which compiled a prodigious volume on Lord Hailey 135 Africa, still the guide and bible to all concerned with the future of that continent.” At the same time, he served as a member of the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission. During the war he spent considerable time in Africa on native administration and economic de- velopment. Since 1948 he has been chairman of the British Colonial Research Committee, active in farsighted planning for the develop- ment of African resources. In 1949 his many other honors were capped by appointment to His Majesty's Privy Council—Lord Hailey.”” LORD HAILEY Well, Mr. Moderator, Ladies and Gentlemen, I needn't say that I am much moved by the introduction, the very kindly introduction, you have given me. You, I know, have your own reasons for calling on me first. I hope I don’t see below that an underlying reason. This morning Sir Henry Tizard told us that one of the cures for overpopulation is to knock on the head all people of over 65." I hope I don't detect in your early call upon me a desire to get the benefit of what I have to say be- fore Sir Henry Tizard gets to work on me. For I needn't say I'm already twelve years overdate.” But the theme that you have set us, this afternoon, is perhaps a more limited one than that which was set and discussed this morning by the earlier panel. I realize, myself, that in this particular discussion I shall occupy only a limited field. You have, as you said yourself, assembled here in your Cage a variety of animals today. I’m sorry that I am not one of those major carnivores that have to roar all over the arena; * I’m perhaps more in the nature of one of these performing dogs that jump through a few somewhat restricted hoops, and I’m sorry that the field has to be so much less dramatic and less spectacular than that oc- cupied this morning. I am sorry that I, myself, at all events, cannot offer to that part of the audience which occupies those somewhat aus- tere seats at the back a little solace for the austerity they have to suffer. I sat there yesterday, Mr. Moderator, and I know what they are. I re- member that somewhere Shakespeare says, “There's a divinity that shapes our ends.” I think that when the divinity set to work on my 15 * African Survey (London, New York, Toronto, Oxford University Press, 1938). 1° For a brief biography of Hailey, see Biographical Notes, page 519. 17 Plus girl babies; see pages 109 and 110. 18 Here is another example to be added to others found in this book of the shadow of Osler as it hangs over elderly and distinguished Englishmen. Only Churchill seems immune. See also page 110. 19 See Churchill's remark, page 46. 20 Hamlet, Act v, Scene 2. 136 Backward Areas ends he did not foresee what I might have to endure yesterday after- noon. But I see already that the moderator is getting a little anxious. I must go straight-away to what I have to put to you this afternoon. Now, I presume that it is really no part of our present purpose to enquire how it has come about that the world has to be regarded as divided into the two categories of the developed and the underde- veloped peoples, nor to assess the relative degrees of backwardness among the latter, nor to examine the reasons which have led the more advanced peoples of the world to their present concern for the develop- ment of the underdeveloped. It must be enough for us here, I think, to take for granted that there are in the world large populations which have standards of economic and social life inferior to those of countries which are within the orbit of Western civilization, and that a closer ap- proach by them to those standards is essential to the well-being of the world at large. Now, if so, we need not attempt to fix the exact measure of that ap- proach. I say this advisedly, because I have encountered views regard- ing the possibility of their achieving approximation to our standards of life which seem to me to be unrealistic, and to overlook the funda- mental law that regulates this matter.” The fact, of course, is that the standards of life of any people in the world must in the long run de- pend on two factors, the natural resources of their country, and the capacity of their people to make the best use of them. The contribu- tion made by science or by education may increase their resources or improve their capacity to utilize them, and the result will undoubtedly be some general measure of advance. But in the nature of things there must inevitably be a great distance between those peoples who are in the vanguard and those who follow in the rear, and it may well hap- pen that this position will endure so long that it can for practical pur- poses be regarded as almost permanent.” * Hailey does not seem here to have in mind the question of whether world resources would support a universal material standard of living equal, for example, to that of the United States, a point which Tizard had touched upon in the morning (see page 114) but rather the total limitations provided by local resources and local capacities, a point stated also by Ryckmans (page 145) and suggested by Bush (page 88). ** This is today a very controversial question to which Mudaliar will shortly take violent exception (page 156). Does Hailey here call the economic differences be- tween peoples “natural”? Differences between persons in physical endowments, including brain power, are perhaps natural but standard-of-living differences do not conform to these and are certainly products of man and his culture, including wealth which represents past differences accumulated. Yet these accumulations do not guarantee a similar position for the posterity of individuals or nations. To Lord Hailey 137 Now, there is also another factor which must condition the measure of assistance which can be rendered by the more advanced peoples to the more backward countries. Though we may assume that all alike would welcome the contribution to be made by technological science, we cannot assume that they would all welcome the introduction of aid in the form of external capital, whether it comes from private or from national or, indeed, from international sources.” Some of them, at all events, especially those who are rejoicing in a new-found inde- pendence, might only accept such capital assistance on terms which rely on theories of race or habitat for permanence may be comforting for those on top but is none the less treacherous. It is not only a loyal citizen of the state of Maine (Kenneth Roberts, Saturday Evening Post, November 6, 1948) who might challenge Toynbee's interpretation of Ellsworth Huntington's climatic theory. One might, for example, ask Hailey and Toynbee to explain on such grounds the dif- ference between the standards of living of Rome and Britain in 100 B.C. and 1900 A.D. respectively. The elapsed time is, to be sure, two millennia and this seems too long to Mudaliar to wait for a return to India's one-time superiority. Nothing now known in history or science or derivable by logic would seem to support the view that differences between vanguard and rearguard peoples are so “natural” that they are also permanent. The only real question seems to be how long it may take for a change; and this change may seem so far away that the present situation can be called relatively “permanent.” There is evidence that the nature of peoples is such that some of the changes desired by Mudaliar may take much longer than he hopes. See, for example, what Albert Schweitzer and Ryckmans say about incentives and the native African in the Congo (Appendix D). The idea of the division of rights in a “natural” manner is a very old, indeed a classic idea. Plato [Republic III, par. 414–415] proposes the “royal lie”— “to convince the members of the various social classes in his Republic that they were descended not from human beings but from the soil of their city, and so forever different from other people; and separately descended in each class from a different metal in that native soil, and so forever different—with few and rare exceptions—from all other classes in their own community. [See a comparable idea in India. ED.] What had been boldly proposed by Plato as a stabilizing myth —a decisive inborn qualitative difference between human beings—was calmly set down by Aristotle as a fact; the division of mankind between natural born free men and natural born slaves.” [Karl W. Deutsch, “Higher Education and The Unity of Knowledge” from Goals for American Education, Ninth Symposium of the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1950), page 94.] * This question of where the capital was to come from was repeatedly dis- cussed. Mudaliar (page 160) held that it was implicit in the lands and peoples of the underdeveloped areas, their resources and their man-hours. Rockefeller seemed to agree. Ryckmans and Bissell had to find a way of converting this into immediate working capital (see page 106). Ryckmans (page 146) did in ef- fect propose international capital. In essence, the question is how local earnings can be transferred to savings; and when saved, how the local capitalist of the underdeveloped area can be persuaded to invest locally. On the first of these two questions Mudaliar would say, hold down consumption and divert the stream of profits paid to foreigners into local capital. See also footnotes 38, 47, 52, 64, 69. 138 Backward Areas would put it beyond the power of their contributors to take part in determining the manner in which it is to be utilized. And there are some peoples, as for instance those who have come under Communistic influences, who are likely to accept assistance only from that source, to the exclusion of all others. There is no need for me to emphasize these considerations, and I have referred to them mainly in order to support my suggestion that the problems and possibilities of development of the kind we shall dis- cuss can best be studied in a field in which obstacles due to political or ideological causes are less likely to occur, I mean the countries now under control of the various colonial powers. These countries, it is true, contain only a small fraction of the world's population, since their peoples do not number more than 235 million in all. They are respon- sible for only about eight or ten per cent of the world's total trade, and that mainly in raw materials. They are not the most backward of the world's peoples, for among the politically independent countries of the world there are many which have lower standards of life than the peoples of the colonial territories.” But for our present purpose they present this advantage, that certain of the more advanced peoples of the world have definite obligations for their development, and a study of the methods adopted for this purpose may illustrate the prob- lems which have to be faced if it is to be attempted on a more global scale. Now, I will still further narrow the range of my observations by singling out the British Colonies, and I do this for a definite reason. My reason, of course, is this—these areas in the British Colonies have during the last few years been the subject of a comprehensive plan of development, as the result of two Acts passed by the British Parlia- ment in 1940 and 1945. I won't go into the history of these Acts. It is enough to say that in 1940 we recognized that the grant of self-govern- ment, which was the accepted goal of our colonial policy toward which we had been very steadily working, would be greatly delayed and might indeed lack any reality when finally achieved, unless Great Britain were to make a direct contribution to the cost of the improve- ment of the economic and social standards of life in the Colonies. In 1940, therefore, our Parliament provided a free grant of twenty mil- *An important question; see also Ryckmans on this point, page 148; and Mudaliar, page 162. The latter argues that no higher material standard of life, which Hailey largely though not exclusively means here, can compensate for the lower spiritual standard implied in being a “native” in a colonial state; the posi- tion of the colonizing colonial is of course something else again. Lord Hailey 139 lion dollars a year for this purpose, which in 1945 was increased to forty million dollars a year, to run for ten years, with a separate grant of four million dollars a year for the research required for de- velopment purposes. Now, the plans so far accepted on the basis of these grants will in- volve an expenditure of 764 million dollars in the course of the ten years, of which about one third will be provided by the Parliamentary grants, and the remainder from loans and the local surpluses of the Colonies. But the plans are not yet complete, and it is estimated that the total expenditure may finally amount to 1,440 million dollars, of which about the same proportion, namely one third, will be borne by the Parliamentary grants. And apart from this, we have created two state-controlled corporations, the Colonial Development Corporation, designed to provide capital and technical aid for the purpose of in- dustrial and other development, and the Overseas Food Corporation, designed to increase the world's supply of foodstuffs, but operating both in the Colonies and in the rest of the Commonwealth. These two corporations, which will not, of course, be profit-making, will have a joint capital of 660 million dollars, provided by the British govern- ment.” Now, with so much factual statement I may say, of course, that my present interest and yours, I think also, will not be in the adequacy or otherwise of these plans, but in the experience which their prepara- tion has provided. I give you at once three conclusions I have myself drawn from the study of them. The first is this: the undesirability of embarking on any large-scale economic planning without possessing the scientific and technological knowledge essential for the purpose. The second is the need for recognizing the importance of the human factor in any comprehensive scheme of development. The third is the necessity for arriving in advance at a decision as to which of the various possible methods should be pursued in the development of economic resources. Now, I'll take these three points in order. The first point relates to the need for the acquisition of the ground- work knowledge essential for comprehensive planning. Now, our own experience may be of some use here. It was revealed to us that there were numerous gaps in our topographical and geological surveys; that * As a measuring stick, the capitalizations of some great American corporations were on Dec. 31, 1948 (Standard and Poor’s): Ford, $1,149,240,189; General Motors, $2,957,769,607; Standard Oil of New Jersey, $3,526,430,348. This of course does not state what the original capitalization of these companies was, and is, in that sense, not a fair comparison. 140 Backward Areas there was insufficient knowledge of vital statistics and population trends; that the potentialities of irrigation and hydro-electric expansion had still to be explored; and that the extension of the medical and agricultural services still awaited the result of fundamental research into some of their most insistent and intricate problems. One of our first efforts, therefore, has been to organize measures for repairing these gaps in our knowledge, and it is here, especially, that we in Great Britain have found reason to welcome the aid which scientists from other countries have given us. A notable instance of this is the welcome given by us to the reinforcement recently provided by the United States to our own supply of geologists. My second point relates to the need for giving due consideration to the human factor in any scheme of development, a consideration which is a peculiar force in dealing with many of the tropical peoples. We ourselves have had reason to realize that measures taken for the increase of material resources will prove of no permanent value unless we can also create the services which will build up the physical vitality and mental capacity of these peoples, as the basis of a more vigorous form of economic and social life. Backwardness, however it may be defined, is in their case due to physical no less than to intellectual causes. The physical causes require the expansion of health services to deal with the maladies responsible for the lack of energy which now characterizes many of them. We need also the expansion of the agricultural and veterinary services to assist in the production of the larger subsistence and more balanced diet essential for improved health. And let me add here that one of the first tasks of these services must be to arrest the progress of soil destruction and erosion now ob- servable in many tropical countries. Unless this is done, there is a serious danger lest the whole aspect of the problem may change, and that instead of the objective being the improvement of subsistence, it may prove to be that of maintaining subsistence even at its present inadequate level,” in face of the rapid increase of the population and the decline in the productivity of the soil. Lastly, we need the expan- sion of geological and engineering services to provide the water sup- plies now so deficient in many areas, but equally essential for the improvement of health conditions.” So much for the physical aspect which the development of the human factor involves. On the intellectual side there can be no ques- tion of the need for the widespread expansion of facilities for general 26 See Notestein, page 100, and Osborn, page 84. 27 Note Osborn's morning prediction as to water supply, page 119. Lord Hailey 141 education, but this is not enough. It must be accompanied by the creation of institutions of higher learning, in order to provide for the local recruitment of the technicians required by services of the char- acter I have mentioned, for it would be destructive of the whole scheme of things if the Colonies were to remain dependent in this respect on recruitment from outside. We have hitherto had in our Colonies two universities of no very considerable scale; we are now adding three others of much higher scale, in which the first emphasis will be on professional and vocational courses.” I turn now to my third point, namely, the necessity that in the de- velopment of material resources we should start with a clearer view of the method by which external capital or technological skill can be most usefully employed. It is from the development of their material resources that the people concerned can secure the surplus over their subsistence needs which will enable them to build up their social and economic life, and it is from this source also that they can provide the commodities which will constitute their contribution to the economy of the rest of the world. In the British Colonies the development of material resources has been pursued by a variety of methods. Mining assets have been exploited almost entirely by private enterprise, mak- ing use of external capital and technical skill. Certain of the tropical products have owed their development to the use of the plantation system, which also makes use of external capital and skill in manage- ment. The most typical instances here are rubber and sugar and sisal. Other tropical products, which have required less capital outlay, have been developed by the stimulation of purely native production, leav- ing the export marketing to be handled mainly by external agencies. The most typical instances here are cotton, cocoa, and to a certain extent, coffee. Finally, there have been a few undertakings directly initiated by the State, such as the great irrigation scheme of the Anglo- Egyptian Sudan, and more recently the groundnuts scheme of Tan- ganyika.” Now, it must, of course, remain the function of the State to provide the capital works, such as ports or railways or major roads and also ** On the need for institutions of higher learning, see Schweitzer as reported in Appendix D, page 477. * Groundnut (peanut) plantings were begun in Tanganyika in 1948 as part of a long-range scheme. At the end of the war the United Kingdom was very short of fats and of animal feed. The prewar exporters of groundnuts now wished to keep their own crops. For example, India had exported an average of 518,000 tons annually to Europe between 1988 and 1945 and much of this had gone to England. But in 1946 British imports from this source were reduced to 120,000 142 Backward Areas the general utility services, for all these are essential in the develop- ment of economic resources. The State must also be, if not the sole agency, at all events the major agency, in providing some of the larger installations required, such as irrigation canals or hydro-electric works, and for all these purposes the Colonial governments will need external assistance in the form both of capital and technological skill. But it is natural for you here to ask what policy is likely to be observed in re- spect of those methods of production of Colonial commodities to which I have just drawn attention, and that question is the more pertinent in view of the policy of socialization which has of late years become part of British domestic practice. Well, here, of course, I can only give my own impressions. They are these—it seems unlikely that there will be any radical departure from present procedure in regard to the British Colonies. Mining, for ex- ample, is likely to be left to private enterprise, save where the results expected are so speculative that only the State can afford to risk the tons and in 1947 to 12,000 tons. England's needs for fats and oils were on the other hand equivalent to 100 times this. In March of 1946, Mr. Frank Samuel, Managing Director of the United Africa Company (a subsidiary of Unilever), proposed to the Government a plan for the use of modern mechanized methods of land clearing and tillage to be applied to vast areas of virgin land in East Africa, for the production of oil-seeds. He sug- gested clearing 2% million acres of bush, and rotational planting so that 1 million acres would always be under cultivation. He estimated that the capital investment would be about £8 million. The Government sent the Wakefield mission to East Africa and this mission reported favorably in September, 1946. It suggested a total clearance by 1952 of 3,200,000 acres of which 2,400,000 would be in Tanganyika. Preliminary results would be 150,000 acres in 1947, 450,000 more in 1948; crop was estimated to be 57,000 tons of groundnuts in 1948 and 227,000 tons in 1949. The total capital expenditure would be £24 million. This general program was adopted and its execution in the first instance en- trusted to the United Africa Company (Managing Agency Ltd.). Work began in 1947 in the Kongwa area of the Central Province of Tanganyika. All sorts of un- expected difficulties were encountered. The soil was unduly abrasive to the tools, it was impossible to procure the planned number of tractors, maintenance was difficult and transportation was inadequate. At the end of the first year, March 31, 1948, only 7,500 acres had been planted against the 150,000 proposed and only another 7,000 had even been flattened. The job was taken away from the Managing Agency Ltd. and entrusted to a government corporation, Overseas Food Corporation. The first annual report of this corporation is not encouraging. It covers the period to March 31, 1949, was authorized for publication by the House of Com- mons on September 27 and has recently appeared [Overseas Food Corporation— Report and Accounts for 1948–49 (London, His Majesty’s Stationery Office)]. The target for 1948–49 was reduced by the new management to 45,000 acres of peanuts and 31,000 to 37,000 acres of sunflower seeds, one of the rotational crops. Actually, the management succeeded in planting 25,000 acres of peanuts and Lord Hailey 143 capital. Much the same policy is likely to be observed in regard to that form of plantation production which requires external capital and managerial skill. But in other respects, I think that, where there is a choice of procedure, British policy is likely to show a preference for methods which will show a long-term result, as seen in the social and economic development of the people themselves, rather than for those which concentrate on the maximum production at the earliest date.” As a typical example, the stimulation of peasant production under scientific guidance is likely to be preferred to a plantation system using external capital, since this system, in spite of its many economic ad- vantages, is less calculated to provide an incentive to individual effort and the sense of personal responsibility. In fact, Ladies and Gentle- men, the psychological and social aspects of development are likely to have a place no less important than its economic consequences. Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, I admit that my observations have been confined to a limited field, and that they have been on that less ele- vated level which deals with the practicable rather than the potential, 20,000 acres of sunflower seeds. The first year's crop was found to be good in quality though small in quantity. Most of it was retained for seed, a little sent to England for research. The second year's crop was largely a failure and this was attributed to a severe drought followed by late rains. The early plantings of 1949 ripened prematurely, the later crops were almost completely lost. At the end, then, of the second year a relatively small number of acres had been cleared; £ 21 million had been received from the Ministry of Food and another £2 million were owed. About £7 million had been invested in fixed assets such as buildings, plant, machinery, vehicles and furniture; another £9 million repre- sented the cost of development, land clearing and planting; some £6 million rep- resented current assets of which £4.5 million were in stocks. Thus the estimate of the budget, if nothing else, had been accurate. Crops turned into useful produce were almost nil. This record was looked upon by some as a flat failure and by others as simply the beginning of an important venture. There was some land cleared; great im- provements had been made in buildings and transportation; the nature of the diffi- culties was becoming more apparent; some useful research had been prosecuted. But all this had cost nearly £25 million and still there were no fats. If one were against a labor government he reacted like the Daily Mail (London), which called the project a great fiasco, or like Time which used such adjectives as “grandiose.” If one were for the government he might say that although the original thinking had been too optimistic about the yield and the difficulties and the cost, still it was now possible to make an intelligent and workable plan. If one's interest in the British Empire exceeded his distaste for the Government he might say, as did Lord Beaverbrook's Daily Express, “The whole harsh picture is a stimulus to res- olution and skill, an appeal to the nation's grit.” What a neutral was to think was not clear. The reader will note that Tizard was not sanguine about the scheme (see page 118). 80 Compare with the views of Russell (page 103), Rockefeller (page 171), and Notestein (page 101). 144 Backward Areas and which takes account of obstacles as well as objectives. But I have this excuse. I have sought to give to you the fruits of some personal experience of some of the countries whose development is our present concern. And I have done so because only in this way could I hope to be of any assistance in the marshalling of forces whose success I myself have as much at heart as the most ambitious of those who will address you here today. >k >k >k >k :}; Lord Hailey, tall, slender, erect, white-haired, jovial, symbolic of the highest type of British civil servant, sat down. Professor Padelford rose to introduce the second speaker, short, solemn, almost devout and certainly poetic-looking, Pierre Ryckmans. After expressing apprecia- tion for the valuable contribution made by the first speaker, the moderator said: “Among the underdeveloped areas of the world, perhaps the most important lie in the great heartland of Africa. Here in the Belgian Congo, amidst an intemperate climate, lie some of the world's richest assets. From the subsurface of the Congo comes a large percentage of the world's production of cobalt, and more than 10 per cent of the world's production of chromite, radium, diamonds and palm oil. The Katanga District of the Congo holds the largest and richest known de- posits of uranium. “But the experience of the Belgian Congo is of especial interest to us here today because of the human factor. Belgium's colonial policy in recent years has taken account of the fact that she is responsible for one of the world's least advanced populations. Belgium has been zealous in protecting them from the harmful features of our industrial civilizations. She has been careful to see that the valuable assets of their cultures are preserved. The Belgian colonial administration has made also a special effort to preserve a close relationship between gov- ernment, labor and industry in order to avert some of the problems of labor strife which have beset other countries.** “In this field our next speaker has played an important part, both within the government at Brussels and especially during his long term as Governor General of the Belgian Congo. Dr. Ryckmans entered the 31 Observers of current European recovery in which Belgium stands high are not reticent in stating that her retention of a full colonial system, and in particular of the Congo, has been quite as important as her industrious behavior in creating this leading role while the Dutch, French and British have suffered serious reverses in their erstwhile colonies. Pierre Ryckmans 145 colonial service of Belgium after World War I. In 1928 he returned to Belgium to become Professor of Colonial Law at the Universities of Louvain and Antwerp. In 1934 he returned to the Congo, where he was appointed Governor General and held his position with great distinction for twelve difficult years from 1934 to 1946. Since then, he has been invested with the title of Honorary Governor General of the Belgian Congo. On the termination of his tour of duty in Africa, he was made delegate of his country to the United Nations General Assembly and since then has been serving as its member on the United Nations Trusteeship Council—Dr. Pierre Ryckmans.” PIERRE M. J. RYCKMANs Mr. Moderator, I feel a little shy before this audience. I have faced more numerous audiences, but they looked somehow more familiar, they didn't look more friendly, though, but they were black-faced, and they were not English-speaking, and I was not supposed to speak in English. Highest economic advancement such as present-day Americans are privileged to enjoy is not the natural condition of mankind—no more than record yields of grain or wool are borne by wheat or sheep of un- improved strains. It is the outcome of combined and prolonged action by a variety of favorable factors, some of them God-given and some man-made. It can be achieved when a numerous, healthy, resourceful, hard-working, well-governed population puts to the best of use un- limited natural wealth, and then, only after generations of coördinated toil, of planned research and of productive capital investment.” What we call “underdevelopment,” on the other hand, is not a kind of social disease, an economic plague afflicting some forsaken areas of the world. It is the natural condition of human groups who through lack of any—or many—of the necessary prerequisites, have been unable to attain the highest standards. It follows that there is no one cure for “underdevelopment.” Each underdeveloped area has its own prob- lems which may differ widely from the problems of another. Productiv- ity may be hampered by lack of manpower, by lack of capital, by lack of efficiency in administration, in management or in labor, by physical and climatic conditions, and above all by the dispositions of the people themselves.” Careful study is required in each case in * For a brief biography of Ryckmans, see Biographical Notes, page 526. *See Hailey, page 186, and Bush, page 89, for agreement, but Mudaliar, page 162, for disagreement. *Here again the speaker opens up a complex sociological question. In primi- tive societies, the economy is subordinate to a larger social organization. Histor- 146 Backward Areas order to find out what ought to be done, and by whom, and by what means; how bottlenecks can be removed, how conditions of progress can be promoted. My remarks apply mainly to the one underdeveloped area which I know well: the Equatorial belt of Africa. The general background of this vast region may be summed up as follows: sparse population, belonging in overwhelming majority to several branches of the Negro race; trying climate, which up to the latter third of the last century prevented any infiltration by peoples of non-African stock.” European influence, which had been confined to a few commercial settlements along the coast, began working up towards the interior about the middle eighties; and by the close of the century, European political rule extended over the whole of the Continent with the exception of Liberia and Ethiopia. Native culture was—and still is in more remote districts—extremely primitive. Writing was unknown; undreamt of, such basic foundations of economic progress as the wheel, the plough, the loom, the saw, timekeeping, roadbuilding, soil fertilizing, training of pack and draught animals, construction in stone or brick. Tribal warfare, private venge- ance, famine and disease claimed untold numbers of victims. Productivity and standard of living were down—not to subsistence, but to mere survival level.” Considerable changes in the general picture have occurred during the last fifty years, owing to government action, to the unselfish edu- cational work of Christian Missions and to European capitalistic enter- ically the white man has destroyed the latter and then acted surprised when he found the native indisposed to work—the familiar backward bending supply curve of economics. On moral grounds one can properly ask what justification there can have been for the white man to destroy the black man's culture; once the culture is destroyed has there been any real virtue in grafting on to the jungle an alien culture? But on more practical grounds what is done is done and it is more important to decide what is now to be done. In this connection the present disposition of the native is important, probably all-important. It is interesting, therefore, to hear the testimony of such a sympathetic man as Albert Schweitzer on this point. For this reason substantial excerpts from the works of Schweitzer together with comparable excerpts from the writings of Ryckmans are incorporated in Appendix D. 35 Large infiltration was finally possible not because of climatic change but because of technological advance and this was not possible until well after 1900. See Osborn, page 85, and Bush, page 92. 86 The enormous difference between these peoples who have never advanced beyond a primitive culture, and the Hindus, who as Mudaliar rightly boasts have had a very old culture, makes much of the latter's comment (page 162), if not irrelevant, at least not proved to be relevant to the proposals of Ryckmans. Pierre Ryckmans 147 prise. Railroads, river transportation and highways have opened up the whole area. Peace reigns over the land. War and slavery, human sacrifices and cannibalism * are things of the past. Smallpox, sleeping sickness, yellow fever have been brought under control. Education and medical care are enjoyed by millions. Cash crops have been intro- duced. A powerful mining industry has been developed; secondary in- dustries are growing. Much, indeed, has been achieved in a short time —but much more remains to be done. Up to the present, the most important native contribution to eco- nomic development has been given in the form of unskilled manual labor, either as wage-earners in European employ or as independent farmers in the growing of cash crops. Native direct share in economic rewards remains correspondingly small. Most earnings are being spent day by day on a few essential items of consumer goods.” Many mil- lions of Africans, though living better than they did a half-century ago, yet are leading an existence which in a civilized country would be con- sidered one of utter destitution. In many districts, houses are still being built by the owners' own hands. Crops are gained in the old inefficient ways and carried from field to home on the heads of women. Under- nourishment and illiteracy are widespread; schools and hospitals are too few in numbers to play an effective part in the everyday life of many village communities. That so much should remain to be done after fifty years of colonial rule is understood by many to mean an admission of failure.” I submit it is no such thing. An athlete's performance should be judged not by how far he has to go to the post, but by whether or not he has, in the words of the poet, filled “the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run.” “ The question deserves careful consideration, not for the sake of an academic condemnation or vindication of the so-called “colonial system,” but for the highly practical purpose of finding out how President Truman’s “bold new program” can best be implemented in the future. ** Note how Mudaliar attacks this remark, page 161. * This could (and would) be taken by Mudaliar and others, including many American labor leaders, as an indictment of the system and not of the resources; i.e., “the laborer is worthy of his hire.” Ryckmans says of this comment: “As long as you admit inequality of pay between skilled and unskilled, or between efficient and inefficient labor, you are bound to admit that savings, i.e. capital, cannot be accumulated to a considerable amount by the classes in the lower brackets of wages. * This is precisely what Mudaliar asserts it does mean (page 160). 40 Rudyard Kipling, “If–’ from Rewards and Fairies. 148 Backward Areas Let me first dispose of the assertion that political dependence, as such, is bound to hamper economic advancement. That is an obvious fallacy. Political status, as such, has nothing to do with economic ad- vancement. Stable and efficient government has; but stable and effi- cient government is not synonymous with self-government.” Now I hope I may not be misunderstood. I do not for a moment con- tend that the desire for political self-determination is not a rightful aim of a people which has achieved national consciousness. From the political point of view, I fully agree, “good government is no sub- stitute for self-government.” “But from the economic point of view, self-government is no substitute for good government. National mis- rule does impede economic advancement, which foreign rule, as such, does not. Foreign rule may, of course, and often does, hinder economic prog- ress in dominated areas. But when it does, it does so not because it is foreign; it does so, if and when government, instead of being run for the people, is being run for the benefit of alien interests.” National rule may just as well, and often did and often does, prevent or even prohibit all economic improvement. Right now, at the present day, several fully independent countries are deliberately closed to modern science, to modern technology and to all foreign economic notions.” When a people has reached political maturity—though its country may be as yet underdeveloped—independence is apt to promote its economic progress. A sovereign state discusses as an equal on treaties of commerce; it may at will attract or restrict immigration, grant or withhold citizenship, invite or debar foreign investment, practice free trade or establish tariffs for the protection of its rising industries. All its policies are aimed at serving the national interest. In many instances, however, well-meant policies may be misguided, or sound policies may be defeated by political instability. Investors are entitled to expect a fair return, receiving countries are entitled to guard against exploita- ** A very important point, really the crux of the disagreement between Hailey and Ryckmans on the one hand and Mudaliar on the other; although Ryckmans is careful to relate the nature of government to economic status, while Mudaliar is talking of spiritual or cultural status. Note, too, that Contreras (page 263) and others insist the second is unlikely to be high if the first is abnormally low. If it be true that economic motivations are subservient to cultural ones, then eco- nomic advancement in a meaningful sense may have a great deal to do with political status. ** Not a political point of view; in fact, rather a spiritual one. 48 Mudaliar would say, “When was it not?” See page 159. * This could be taken as a reference to the Soviet Union and its satellites, or to such sovereign states as Yemen, Afghanistan, Nepal. Pierre Ryckmans 149 tion. But where is the limit beyond which fair returns end and ex- ploitation begins? In a country where a government does not feel bound by a preceding government's signature to an agreement which it deems “unfair,” no government can ever hope to come to a “fair” agreement with any foreign investor. Every investor is bound to keep the risk in mind; he is bound to claim terms which to the receiving country will seem “unfair” and which would indeed be unfair—but for the risk involved. So the vicious circle closes: the lender overcharges on account of the risk of confiscation; the borrower confiscates on the grounds of overcharging. And the flow of sorely needed capital dries up.” No greater service could be done to underdeveloped sovereign states than the elaboration, under United Nations sponsorship, of an Inter- national Code of foreign private investment.” Terms should be dis- cussed not by government representatives alone but by practical busi- nessmen as well, and standards of fair practice laid down, acceptable alike to receiving countries and to private capital. Investors no doubt would be prepared to tone down excessive claims if they knew that by conforming to Code standards they would secure for their invest- ments United Nations backing and the powerful protection of world public opinion. Primitive peoples, such as the Europeans found in Central Africa, offer an entirely different problem. They had inherited from past gen- erations no capital whatever.” Their productivity was so low that it 45 This is a point which Bissell develops at length; see pages 181–185. 46 This is one of the few concrete proposals for action made at the Convocation. 47 Note what Mudaliar stresses as the true sources of capital (page 160). His notion appealed to Rockefeller (page 173). But see also footnotes 23, 88, 52, 64, and 69; and Ryckmans writes on this point: “I use the word capital in its traditional meaning of capital investment as distinct from natural resources and labor. “Mudaliar says: “What better capital and what more capital do you want than that which is there, given by God and Providence to those unhappy primitive people if only a little stimulus is given to them augmented by their own human resources? “What I mean by capital is what Mudaliar calls the little stimulus. In the case of oil in Saudi Arabia, for instance, all the people needed—and lacked—to exploit the ‘capital which was there, was the ‘little stimulus' of roads, harbors, . . . and oil wells; and the skill to build and bore; and the money to pay for it all. [See also under footnote 69.] “It is perhaps not widely known that when mining rights were granted by the Congo Free State to private companies, the grant was made against attribution to the State, free of charge, of fifty per cent of all issued shares. The Belgian Congo (not Belgium, but the Congo Treasury) cashes fifty per cent of all divi- dends paid out by some of the major mining companies.” 150 Backward Areas left no possible surplus for saving. They lacked means, knowledge and skill by which to increase productivity. Above all, they evinced no will for change.º Independence, for them, could only mean stagnation. And it was foreign ascendency which started Africa on the road to progress, by creating conditions which made foreign investment pos- sible and by offering unlimited technical assistance on a strictly non- profit basis. The Lebanese delegate to the United Nations, Dr. Charles Malik, remarking that "the welfare of Colonies and Trust Territories is directly under the charge of advanced Western Nations," very aptly pointed out what he called the "present anomaly-namely, that certain non-self-governing territories are better looked after economically and socially than certain Members of the United Nations." 48 Ryckmans comments : "One instance is the reluctance of chiefs, elders and parents, in many tribes, to allow children to go to school. Even when boys are sent to school, girls usually are kept at home for fear they might forsake their tribal traditions if taught to read and write." Though the protagonists of "backward" people always deny the allegation, too many people of the high type of Schweitzer or Ryckmans, with long and sympa- thetic personal experience, have made the same report to leave much doubt that there is something to the charge. A larger question might be as to whether it has been in the interests of anybody to study the incentives of the backward peoples. Perhaps the ones offered have not been so impelling as others which might have been contrived had it been to anybody's advantage to contrive them. Even a Schweitzer may conform, unsuspectingly, to long-established mores; then, since a noble man, his reactions may be exceptionally comforting to those less noble. In connection with the problem of incentive, see Pierre Ryckmans Dominer pour servir (Bruxelles, Edition Universelle, 1948), 2nd ed., page 177 et seq.: "On savait le noir peu ménager de son temps. A le regarder vivre de très près, reconnaissons qu'il n'est pas avare de sa peine non plus. Mais seulement lorsque, dans son jugement, le résultat "vaut" la peine. Est-il en cela si différent de nousP Travaillons-nous si volontiers pour rienP Nous cherchons à équilibrer sagement notre désir et notre effort. Lui aussi; mais nos désirs ne sont pas les siens et il mesure sa peine autrement que nous. Tel travail le rebute, qui nous est familier; tel objet nous attire, qui lui paraît vain. Soyons justes. Ce que nous avons à vaincre pour amener le noir au travail, ce n'est pas tant sa paresse. C'est son dégoût pour notre travail, c'est son indifférence pour notre salaire. "La généreuse nature tropicale n'est pas si maternelle qu'on le dit. Au Congo comme ailleurs, l'homme ne mange qu'à la sueur de son front-ou du front de sa femme. Et croyez-moi, il en coûte plus de sueur pour défricher à la houe un coin de forêt vierge avant d'y planter son mais que pour labourer un champ à la charrue et y répandre quelques tonnes d'engrais. Mais si le noir, pas plus que nous, ne peut vivre sans travailler, il peut fort bien vivre à sa manière sans travailler pour le blanc. Dans ce sens, il est vrai de dire qu'en presence de nos demandes de main d'oeuvre il échappe a la loi d'airain. Il est un homme libre sur le marché du travail. Il peut se passer de notre salaire sans être condamné à mourir de faim. Mais n'oublions pas que chez nous aussi un mineur sans travail refusera de s'engager comme valet de ferme tant qu'il touche l'allocation de chômage." Pierre Ryckmans 151 But are colonial powers really willing to help Africa for the Africans' sake? If they are, why do Africans play so small a part in the develop- ment of their country? Why do millions have to go without education or medical care, after fifty years? I might remark incidentally that in many new countries, certain groups of population play a much larger part in economic life than other groups of different origin; * only the disparity is less conspicuous than it is in Africa. When a foreigner settles permanently in New Zealand, in Argentina or in Canada, he becomes a national.” The savings he accumulates are labeled New Zealand, Argentine or Cana- dian capital. In Africa, even if the owner has been born and bred in Africa, his property will forever be branded “European.” But to come to the point. In a remarkable statement made in the Economic and Social Council a few weeks ago by the U. S. delegate, Mr. Thorp,” I found a sentence which seemed to me to sound rather cruel. He said a country that as- pires to economic development “cannot afford not to educate its chil- dren. It cannot afford not to conserve the health of its people.” That may be true. It would be equally true to say that no man—unless he be very rich—can afford to start building a house and then leave it 49 A reference to the different economic roles played in the United States by Americans of European, Negro and Indian descent. Ryckmans adds: “The General Assembly of the United Nations, in its 1949 session, voted a resolution recommending that ‘the indigenous inhabitants of Trust Territories be allowed greater participation in the economic life of the Territories.’ “This resolution calls for two remarks: 1. All inhabitants are allowed any participation they are willing to take in the economic life, just as all American citizens are allowed any participation in the economic life of the United States. Nevertheless, Americans of European ancestry have an average income per head of population considerably higher than full- blooded American Indians. 2. Indigenous inhabitants. When a Belgian Roosevelt or Vanderbilt or Vanden- berg settles in the United States, he becomes an American. If one of his descend- ants rises to the Presidency of the United States or becomes a railroad magnate, no one dreams of resenting an undue participation of Belgians, as opposed to ‘indigenous inhabitants’ in the political or economic life of the United States. “Now if the same Belgian Roosevelt or Vanderbilt or Vandenberg settles in the Congo, he and his offspring will forever be branded ‘Europeans’; no one will ever describe their achievements as African achievements. “Are they not Africans, just as well as their overseas cousins are Americans?” * But a Negro, a Malay, or a Japanese may not, for example, settle in Austra- lia. In all these countries certain types of peoples are regarded as desirable “coloniz- ers” while others are not; moreover, no one would argue that the “natives” of the cited countries have thus shared; or have even always been allowed to be citizens. * Willard L. Thorp, Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs and U. S. representative to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. I52 Backward Areas unfinished to go to pieces in next winter's rains. And yet, when a man just has not got the money to finish his house, even though he knows very well he cannot afford to let it fall in ruins—isn't it cruel mockery to go and remind him he “cannot afford” the loss? The painful fact is that in no African country—colonial or a fortiori independent—with present African productivity, can public revenue possibly come near to shouldering the cost of adequate education for all and adequate medi- cal care for all. Better education and health depend on increased appropriations, which depend on higher productivity, which in its turn depends on bet- ter education and health. Without outside help, there is no escape from the vicious circle. From the start colonial governments in Africa labored under a crush- ing handicap. Domestic accumulation of savings, vivified as may be necessary by foreign technology, is, of course, the shortest way towards economic advancement; but of such domestic capital there was none. National income, tax-bearing capacity, internal borrowing capacity were nil. All capital, all administration and management personnel, all skilled labor had to come from outside. Profits and savings were being exported instead of swelling the national fortune as they do in devel- oped self-supporting countries. Technical assistance—and that is one of the lessons taught by recent colonial history—even when given on a non-profit basis, is an expensive commodity for the assisted, and may easily grow more expensive than the assisted can afford.” Education and health should be paid for out of current revenue. Teachers and doctors mean schools and hospitals, and it is a poor gift to send out a teacher where there is no money * On a short- or long-range basis, see Notestein, pages 101, 117 and 118. Ryckmans adds: “Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar brushes this aside by saying that “every imperial country and every non-self-governing country was able to find all those billions and billions of money when it was necessary. . . . And now when we are faced with the problems of peace, all these arithmetical calculations . . . come into the open and are hurled against us as insuperable obstacles.’ “As far as the Belgian Congo is concerned, war expenditure was met by very heavy taxation on European exporters and by borrowing. The debt incurred by war operations was, however, taken over by Belgium after the war. “Countries at war did not ‘find the billions, and have not ‘found them since. They have borrowed them. Money borrowed for war permanently burdens the budget when war is over. - “To argue that money may be ‘raised’ for building up health and education as it was raised for fighting the war is an unpractical dream. African budgets cannot possibly bear heavier burdens; if we developed education on borrowed money, appropriations for interest could only be met by cutting appropriations for education. That is why colonial powers have decided on downright grants.” Pierre Ryckmans 153 to maintain the school.” As through health and education native pro- ducers gain in strength and efficiency, more money will be available for hospitals and schools. The snowball has been set rolling, but the smaller the core, the slower the growth in the initial stages. That is why colonial powers decided in recent years to couple technical as- sistance with substantial downright grants.” Social projects and eco- nomic schemes should be balanced in such a way that the maintenance of the former may be met by revenue from the latter when assistance will have come to an end. To conclude, let me say that our colonial experience has taught us yet another lesson. There is one thing money cannot buy and tech- nology cannot make up for, and that is—Time. Man may bore for water and make deserts blossom, he may build a skyscraper in a matter of weeks—but it needs all the sunshine of a summer to fill and ripen one ear of corn. By doubling the amount spent on education, you may train twice as many pupils in the same time; but by doubling that again you cannot halve the time of schooling.” >k :k >k >k >k After thanking M. Ryckmans for his eloquent contribution to under- standing of the problems of the development of under-privileged areas, Professor Padelford continued: “No discussion of today's topic would be properly conceived if it did not include the counsel of those whose lands have been struggling from economic insufficiency to a higher standard of living, from de- pendency to statehood. “Thought immediately turns toward India in this connection. At the beginning of this century, India was seemingly the most enduring gem in the diadem of the British Empire. Today, two sovereign states sit in the councils of the United Nations—India and the Dominion of Pak- istan, “India, even now, moves forward to become a rallying force for Asia's states and peoples. Her voice belongs on a panel on the under- developed areas for there is an acute need for the benefits of technology in her land. Her rapidly growing population—fifty million, it is said, in the last ten years—strains the agricultural and food production.” Here the problems pointed out by Malthus challenge the ingenuity of man. 58 And even worse to build a school without money for teachers. 54 See Hailey, pages 138 and 139. * These two sentences seem to the Editor to have been among the most moving things said in the three days. But the patience counseled by Hailey and Ryckmans was not regarded sympathetically by Mudaliar, as soon became apparent. * For Tizard's pessimism about this situation, see page 111. 154 Backward Areas In the balance, India has valuable assets. Her peoples are industrious craftsmen. Her lands produce more than ten per cent of the world's output of several strategic and critical raw materials in great demand upon the world market. She has the largest steel industry in the British Commonwealth outside of the British Isles. There is an awaken- ing desire to employ science and technology in the solution of her problems. And she is now embarking upon several large development projects, some of which have been likened to our T.V.A.” “Our next speaker is one of India's most eminent statesmen. Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar has served in many municipal, state and national positions. In 1986 he became a member of the India Council. The fol- lowing year he became Adviser to the Secretary of State in India. And after 1939 he was a member of the Governor-General’s Executive Council. During the war, he represented India on the Imperial War Council in London. In 1945 he became Supply Minister for the Govern- ment of India and the following year, Prime Minister of his own State, Mysore, in South India. “Mr. Mudaliar has been one of the distinguished leaders in the United Nations. All who had the experience of participating in the San Francisco United Nations Conference hailed him as one of the prin- cipal architects of the Charter's provisions for economic and social coöperation. In 1946, he was honored by being made the first President of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. And since the establishment of the United Nations, he has been a delegate of India in the General Assembly. Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar.”” Taller than most Hindus, sharp and strong of feature, swarthy, ex- ceptionally literate, speaking “American” with less accent than Hailey, Tizard or Ryckmans, bearing the proud and flaming red mark of the occasion on his forehead, Sir Ramaswami began quietly. Soon, though, he waxed eloquent; speaking only from notes, using the maxi- mum of forensic art but combining it with an obvious and profoundly sincere emotion, he stirred his Convocation audience as no previous speaker had done. SIR RAMASWAMI MUDALIAR Professor Padelford, Sisters and Brothers: I am indeed somewhat confused by the introduction which you, Sir, have so kindly made of me to this great and vast audience. I am con- * Indeed, India cannot be called a “backward area” by the United Nations definition set forth earlier by Padelford, and its problems are in no way compar- able to those of the Belgian Congo, for example. * For a brief biography of Mudaliar, see Biographical Notes, page 522. Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar 155 fused because my idea is not to speak so much of India,” as to speak of backward areas generally, and particularly of those backward areas which are called “colonial possessions” or non-self-governing countries, and the methods by which their people can be advanced. The heading of this parley is stated to be “Backward Areas” but I believe, Sir, and it has been pointed out in the speeches, that it is not a question of developing backward areas, the material side of the lands or the resources of those areas, but rather it is a problem of developing the backward people in those backward areas; and the areas derive the adjective “backward” from the nature of the people rather than from the nature of the soil or what lies above or below the soil. The problem, therefore, in this parley is how to improve the conditions of those backward people.” I have had the pleasure of listening to my 59. In the development of Mudaliar's speech, as the reader will note, this inten- tion is adhered to only in part. 90 Thus the issue drawn by Mudaliar is clearly spiritual as well as economic or material. Ryckmans comments: “I fully endorse this view, and go even further. My statement was based on the assumption that the problem is not to develop backward areas nor even, as Sir R. puts it, to improve the conditions of backward peoples, but (in the words of President Truman) to help backward peoples ‘through their own efforts’ to produce more food, more clothing etc.; to help the least fortunate of the mem- bers of the human family to help themselves.” “If the problem were just to develop backward areas, then of course the shortest way is the way that was followed in America or which is being followed nowadays in the new state of Israel: large scale immigration by settlers from ad- vanced countries: settlers whose capital and skill will take root in their new land, whose profits and savings will be wholly ploughed back into the soil, who with their children will form part of the population, alongside of—or sometimes in the place of—the original inhabitants. “Large scale immigration in Equatorial Africa was prevented by climatic con- ditions in the lawless days before Western Powers established their rule. It might possibly be attempted now, owing to recent progress in health techniques; but that would mean a reversal of proclaimed Government policies such as para- mountcy of native interests, strict control of foreign immigration, and inalien- ability of native lands. For the Africans' sake, it is to be hoped that no such reversal of policy will ever take place. “But if the problem is—as I assume it to be—to enable Africans to take an ever-increasing share in the development of Africa, then progress must of necessity be much slower. “No comparison can be made between conditions in Africa and conditions in countries such as Brazil or India, where although the area may be underdeveloped, still the people (or at least a numerous elite) own a certain amount of domestic capital, and are capable of imbibing technological knowledge and of putting foreign capital to profitable use. In such countries, the whole problem is to pro- vide technological assistance and some foreign capital. “In Africa, on the other hand, there was no domestic capital whatever. Before technological assistance and foreign capital for use by the Natives are provided, 156 Backward Areas old and esteemed leader at one time, and friend still, I hope, Lord Hailey. Now I have the advantage of listening to our Belgian colleague who played so distinguished a part in the Trusteeship Council as a rep- resentative of his country. I agree with Lord Hailey that we are not concerned with the history of the past, that there shall be no criminations and recriminations over that with reference to any area, least of all with reference to my own country. That is a past which we want to forget, believing as we do in the promotion of goodwill all around and believing further as we do that goodwill alone will lead to that peace which all of us in all nations, all people, the common men and women all over the world, so ardently desire. I shall, therefore, consider this problem, not, indeed, by hark- ing back on the past, but, if possible, by drawing some lessons from that past and trying to see how we can visualize the problems of the backward people. There are areas still non-self-governing, colonial possessions. What can be said of those colonial possessions, what can be said of the powers who are dealing with the people of those colonial areas, has, I hope, been well and truly said by my two distinguished predecessors. I am not here to make an indictment on colonial powers, on imperial policy, but I want to put the case of the people in those areas as fairly as possible. A chill ran down my spine as I heard Lord Hailey say that, so far as he could see, the relationship between those who are in the vanguard of progress and those who are in the rearguard, must be taken to be fairly permanent.” Viewing the world as it is today, view- ing the world as it was ten years ago, considering the remarkable changes that have taken place during this one decade only, the leaps that have been made by countries and people, their advances in politi- cal thought, and speaking here from this platform of the mighty, the great advances in technology and the sciences, in the medical and other professions, in agroeconomics and agriculture, I venture to state that he will be a bold man, indeed, who can say that the condition of progress as between the vanguard and the rearguard should be as wide conditions must be created under which the Natives will be enabled to receive the assistance. “The difference is the same as the one between two short-sighted men who went to the optician's to try on glasses. The Indian was helped out at once. The African wasn’t: he didn’t know how to read. “Teaching letters is a longer job than trying on a pair of glasses. That is the gist of my argument.” * Previous footnotes have commented on this point at length. See, for ex- ample, footnote 22. Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar 157 apart as it is today and that, too, on a permanent basis.” I agree that some people will be more forward than others; I do not believe in the absolute equality of man; I believe first and foremost and altogether in equal opportunities being given to all men and all women—that is what we are straining for, and the whole basis of consideration of the ques- tion of the backward people is, “Are we giving equal opportunities to them?” My honorable friend, Dr. Ryckmans, spoke of fifty years of colonial rule in the Belgian Congo. Now I want to be quite clear that I am not here to make any sort of accusation against anybody; imperial powers themselves, who had the progress and welfare of these people for so many decades, have not realized perhaps what could be done by forc- ing the pace of progress in all these areas, have been content to let things take their course in a safe way; have believed in the principle that summer must shine for a number of years before the corn can ripen; the gradualness of evolution is a fascinating thing for many of our people in all countries; and yet there comes a time when, if we want to avoid revolution as against evolution, that gradualness must be speeded up, and speeded up at an intensive rate indeed; and that is the problem that you are facing with colonial peoples today.” We talk of the backwardness of the people, we talk of the impossibility of edu- cating all these people over a short period of time, we talk of the im- mense financial drain that there will be if that reform is to be taken up, and my friend suggested that the finances for all this must come from 62 Is there any real disagreement here? Or is it relative? No one wants the gap to remain. No one but wishes to make it smaller, but in the very next line Mudaliar admits the reason for the gap. There is nothing in history that suggests that a universal competence will ever be showered upon the whole world or that all the fruits of society will ever be uniformly distributed. 68 There is very good reason to doubt how fast education, for example, can be accelerated by decree, even with more funds than anyone has yet dreamed. Efforts to create full-fledged top-flight universities or cities such as Canberra or New Delhi overnight have seldom been even moderately successful immediately, although some have finally struggled to top status. There are questions of stand- ards and incentives and mores. For example, is Mudaliar considering at all one serious retardent to the growth of physical sciences in his own country, the in- grained mysticism incompatible with the way physical science has to think; a few very brilliant Indian scientists have escaped this trap, but not many; it will scarcely permit overnight the mob of “eager beavers” such as bombard the doors of American universities for admission every spring. The colonial powers do not, on the whole, have a pretty history; men like Ryckmans and Hailey came along late and were preceded by men like Leopold and Warren Hastings. So Mudaliar may be right in calling the colonial powers too slow; but if the threat of revo- lution is real, it is hard to believe there will be time for the educational boot- strap-lifting which he seems to advocate here. 158 Backward Areas the revenues of the people who are today in an untaxable capacity. They speak of the Greek talents; I think we must find some other place even more striking than Greek talents for the time when the peoples of the colonial empire will have the blessings of free and compulsory education on a universal basis if these are the steps that have to be taken. Why is it that we are able to find all the billions and billions of dol- lars that we want when a war breaks out, wherefrom does all this money come when we are facing the titanic struggle, an Armageddon such as that which we had to face in the recent past?” Not merely the United States, not merely the United Kingdom—India, Belgium, Hol- land, every imperial country and every non-self-governing country was able to find all those billions and billions of money when it was neces- sary to fight what we considered an unmitigated evil. In three or four years during the war, India raised a loan of 2,000 crores of rupees, that is about 6,000 million dollars, as against a total national debt before the war of about 1,000 crores of rupees. And so it is in every country, and now when we are faced with the problems of peace, all these arith- metical calculations, these fine shaded nuances of financiers, and I speak of them with great respect, come into the open and are hurled against us as insuperable obstacles. And, my friends, what is this problem of the backward areas? You, Sir, Mr. Moderator, talked of this session as a material session, and earlier in the day there was a spiritual session, and again today there may be an intellectual session. I do not know whether you really meant it or whether you were merely drawing upon the title that was in the brochure that was supplied to us. Is it possible to solve any of these problems without taking into consideration the spiritual aspects of these problems?" Are any of these so materialistic, the problems of dealing with the backward peoples in backward areas? Is it like an * This is a question which has very often been asked, and never answered very satisfactorily. A cynic might say that the world affords the luxury of a war as long as it can, then sinks back exhausted and rests until strong enough to fight again. But if Tizard is right (see page 122) in his estimate of the rate of impairment of world resources should the world be brought to the material standards of the United States, how much greater would be the consumption in war? When Mudaliar argues rather that by giving up war we might have these things, he is making the same plea that people make who wonder why a nation as rich as the United States has, for example, such bad housing. See also Ryck- mans, page 149, and footnote 52. 65 Here again is the oft-repeated and justified complaint that material, spiritual and intellectual problems cannot be thus neatly compartmented. See Rockefeller, page 167, and footnote 80. Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar I59 engineering feat that graduates of M.I.T. have so great a distinction in performing so well all over the world? No, Sir, it is because the prob- lem has not been tackled from the basic point of view of spiritualism that that problem presents so many facets and difficulties to my very good friends here. The problem is a human problem, it's a problem closely associated with the deep religious convictions of every people of every nation and it seems to me that unless it is viewed from that perspective, there is very little chance of its being solved at all. My friend made what I would like to call many admissions in the course of his speech, and I really must thankfully congratulate him on those admissions, as to how it has not been possible to develop the educational and other qualifications of these people. But one thing he said which I thought at least after the war, and after the establishment of the United Nations, and the signing of the Charter by his country and mine, he would not have any doubt about; he spoke about for- eign rule being better than self-government;" that economic progress was being more possible under foreign rule, because it is likely to be a stable rule, than it can be under some systems of self-government, where instability will be the common denominator of any sort of gov- ernment. Let us see what this foreign rule means. Is it likely that foreign rule exists in any country purely and solely for the purpose of improving the conditions of life of the people over whom that alien rule has been established?" Let us put our hands on our hearts, or rather let those whom we have been accustomed to describe as imperialist powers put their hands on their hearts, and ask themselves whether they have derived any benefits at all for themselves and for their metropolitan countries, as the phrase now goes, out of that alien rule in alien lands. Let me not be misunderstood; I do not for a moment forget that there have been good men and true like the Governor-General here who have spent their life among these primitive people, tried to bring about conditions of greater contentment and happiness and progress in a limited way and to the very restricted extent that their home gov- 66 This is, of course, an unfair slanting of what Ryckmans actually did say (see page 148). 67 A rhetorical question. The same comment might be made of internal rule. No foreign power has ever exploited the Chinese so thoroughly as the Chinese overlords; the maharajahs were wealthy before the British came, et cetera. There must always be economic or other incentive to leadership. The real question probably is, what is the tithing rate; no doubt this has very often been too high in the case of the colonial powers, and may be under local government as well, as, for example, under the late Chinese Nationalist Government. 160 Backward Areas ernments have permitted them to do. But let us also be clear, abso- lutely and indisputably clear, that foreign rule exists in many parts of the world, and what has been described as imperialist rule or colo- nial rule, because to some extent it has profited the country which has established its sway over the foreign people. My honorable colleague said that the profits that are made in the country are taken out of the country and that there will be more capital in the land if, instead of taking this out of the country, it remains, as with a settler in Canada, or in Australia, or in any other Dominion, or in America, in the land itself where he has settled down.* That is what is called exploitation, in a sense. That is where it is impossible for these primitive people to have the capital necessary for all those things that are needed for them in the development of their country. After fifty years of rule, there is not a single university, after fifty years of rule there is hardly a high school, and those thanks to the remarkable devotion of those people who have gone all over the world; in these ways the colonial possessions have established educational institutions and given medical aid. I refer to those bands of people for whom I, in my country, have expressed openly my deep and grateful appreciation, the missionaries from all countries who have gone out to these parts. Thanks to that worldwide band of people, what little prog- ress has been made in colonial rule in the matter of educational and medical facilities is largely due to them. Let me come to the subject of development of these areas. We have been told that there is no capital. Sir, what is capital? The human ele- ment is the first and foremost capital that you can think of, and the land and the resources below the land, the mines, the ores that you talked of, uranium, all that plantation crop which can be brought about, is that not the capital of the owners of the land, the natives, if we may use that term, of the soil?” And what better capital and * Not exactly what Ryckmans meant when he used the phraseology here cited; he meant that property remaining in the “backward area” was called Euro- pean if it happened to be owned by a European-born even if the European were going to live in the backward area forever. This was a spiritual point. Earlier, of course, on page 152, Ryckmans made Mudaliar's point more soberly and more tellingly when he said that profits and savings were being exported instead of swelling the national fortune as they do in developed, self-supporting countries. * In his next words Mudaliar says no capital is needed “except for a little stimulus.” The confusion in these remarks is that between resources and capital. Resources are capital only when their production is used for capital formation rather than consumption. An illuminating book on this subject is S. Herbert Frankel's Capital Invest- ment in Africa; Its Course and Effects (London, Oxford University Press, and Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar 161 what more capital do you want than that which is here, given by God and Providence to those unhappy primitive people if only a little stimulus is given to them augmented by their own human resources?” Let us put ourselves in the place of those backward people that, trod beneath the harrow, know exactly where each toothpick goes. It is not those who have had the proud privilege of administrators administer- ing the comforts of these people that can, with rare exceptions like yourselves, really feel the heart of the people and the pulse of the people and know what is happening. There is a song which goes to the heart of everybody and if I might for a moment quote the poet, they seem to be saying: - We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.” You spoke of cannibalism as it may exist in some places, but there are worse things than cannibalism; * when the soul of man is destroyed, his identity gone away, an inferiority complex established in him and he is made to feel, dinned into his ears by various methods, that he can never aspire to the position enjoyed by those who rule over him—that is the destruction of the human soul; that is the greatest disaster to Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1938). This report was issued by the Com- mittee of the African Research Survey under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. It contains a Foreword by Lord Hailey. See, for example, pages 9–10, “The greatest asset which European powers pos- sess for developing the resources of their African territories is the labour of the indigenous peoples themselves. . . . In the areas not permanently habitable by Europeans the whole process is bound to be slow, although this unfortunately is not always realized. . . . In the last resort, there is no escape from the basic fact that the limit to the progress of all African territories will be determined by the quantity, quality and efficiency of the whole of their populations.” See too page 86, referring to experiences in the French Congo in the early part of the century, “The moral is simple. When valuable mineral resources are not available, the opportunities for private investment in such territories are very limited. Development depends on the gradual opening up of the region by rail- ways and roads, and the fostering of marketable products. The indigenous popula- tion has to be led into new forms of economic activity. If it is sparse, disease- stricken or otherwise backward, the task is extremely difficult.” 70 Rockefeller liked this definition of capital. It is, of course, and has always been a reasonable security for loans of the kind of capital that can be put to work at once but only under a secure political system which will not repudiate the borrowing after the money has been spent. See Hailey, Ryckmans and Bissell on this point, pages 188, 149, 184. 71 Percy Bysshe Shelley, “To a Skylark,” lines 86–90. 72 A reference to Ryckmans, page 147. 162 Backward Areas any of those who have been bondaged in the most favorable of circum- stances by the most benign of authority. What are undeveloped countries? Let me give an illustration, Ladies and Gentlemen. My own country today comes under undeveloped countries,” and yet my Lord Hailey will admit that two centuries ago the manufactured products of India went to different parts of the world and were received more enthusiastically by Great Britain than by any other part of the world; the fine calicos, the beautiful piece goods, a whole piece of ten yards could go through a bride's ring, finer cotton than the Sea Island cotton of which you are rightly proud, architecture, various kinds of other manufactures; we were in the vanguard of prog- ress so far as industrialization then was concerned, when Great Britain was still in a state which I shall leave to the historian to tell you. And today, my friends, today, in spite of the very encouraging words that have fallen from the moderator, we are considered a backward area, backward in industrial development, backward in the method by which you can apply technocracy, backward in getting skilled men and workmen, backward in having the capacity to administer large indus- trial corporations; and so you see that it is a relative word, this back- ward and forward, as the world goes forward and backward; and who are called the forward people may indeed be the backward a little later. Why, the United States of America, which was comparatively backward only forty or fifty years ago compared to the great British Kingdom, today their technical men are coming to you to learn ad- vanced technocracy from you; their textile mills are coming to you to learn the latest designs and manufacturing processes; their coal miners' experts (and coal-mining was an industry as old as the hills in Eng- land) are coming to you to see how coal-mining can be done under the most forward and expert of circumstances. And, therefore, let us not lay too much emphasis on what may be called the backward areas and the forward areas. There is a spark of divinity in every human be- ing; it has only to be roused and the question is how we shall rouse it. And I add, as my time is closing, that I firmly believe that the salva- tion of these backward areas lies not through individual national effort of any imperial or colonial power but through the organized collective effort either of the United Nations or a group of nations together, which can put the money that is required there and take it out tenfold afterwards because of the developments that can be promoted. So long ** The word here was intended to be “underdeveloped,” the word of the discussion was “underdeveloped,” and India does not qualify by the United Na- tions definition. See page 131. Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar 163 as you leave it only to the colonial powers to develop, it will be a long, long time indeed before that progress is ensured.” And may I add this? We do not talk of how money is being spent when UNRRA aid is given to the most forward of European countries, civilized Europe as against uncivilized, black Africa; we do not think of forward countries or backward countries or of the money that is spent when Marshall Aid is given by the billions to the most progres- sive of all countries; but when something has to be handed out to these colonial areas, primitive people, cannibals, an arithmetical equation which even the best M.I.T. graduate may find it hard to solve is put before us. No, Sir, as I said, it is the human aspect that is to be considered. My Lord Hailey referred to Communism, the great Ex-Prime Minister of England referred to Communism last night; the aids that are being given in Europe are to arrest Communism, and here are primitive people, more likely to fall a greater victim to Communism than any- body else, who, according to you, according to the President of the United States, according to my friends here, are below subsistence level—what better material for Communism is there than that human element which cannot even sustain itself by the bare necessities of life and will have to go half starving through all the ages of its existence. And the lessons are obvious. I shall not do better than to emphasize what the President has said in the fourth point and how clearly he has understood the problem. I’ll only read one or two paragraphs. “. . . new economic developments must be devised and controlled to benefit the peoples of the areas in which they are established. Guar- antees to the investor must be balanced by guarantees in the interests of the people whose resources and whose labor go into these develop- mentS. “The old imperialism’ (it's not my phrase); ‘exploitation for foreign profit’ (it's not my talk alone); ‘has no place in our plan.’ “What we envisage is a program of development based on the con- cepts of democratic fair dealing.” Democracy alone can supply the vitalizing force, Mr. Ryckmans. “Democracy alone can supply,” says ** Despite any criticism of Mudaliar's approach to the debate, this is not a conclusion to which many of the audience would have demurred. However, there is an obvious contradiction between this admission that capital is required and his assertion earlier (page 160), “what better capital and what more capital do you want than that which is here.” Ryckmans points out that the arm of the British Colonial Welfare and Development Act, and of the Belgian Native Wel- fare Fund is to “put the money that is needed” and not take it back at all, let alone tenfold. 164 Backward Areas the President of the United States, “the vitalizing force to stir the peoples of the world into triumphant action, not only against their human oppressors, but also against their ancient enemies—hunger, misery, and despair.”” I cannot improve upon that thought of the President in that great and wise statement, and we are all looking forward through the United Nations, through the Economic and Social Council, through the special- ized agencies, and above all through the great devotion of the Ameri- can people to a successful fruition of those ideas. Believe me, I have been with you and your countrymen many times in this country; you have been called hard-headed business men, but I have nowhere come across a more sentimental set of people, let me tell you from my own experience, than the people of these United States. Yes, my friends, where in all the world and in all history has there been a more mag- nificent and sustained gesture of looking after the oppressed, the in- digent and the needy than what you have been doing during the last three or four years after the war. In times of peace, I do not ask you to give up your abundance to any primitive people or backward people like myself. We are willing to pay every cent that we receive from you from the resources which will be promoted, from the profits that can be made. I am not come here with a beggar's bone for anybody at all, but I do feel that this great country through its own efforts, through organized efforts of the United Nations or bodies similar to it, can make a move, a great move forward to place the people of these back- ward areas on the move. Let me conclude with only one thought, a pagan thought perhaps, but given expression to by a very Christian poet, Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.7% >k :}; :k >}: :k Sir Ramaswami received what was essentially an ovation as he sat down, having moved his audience as it was seldom to be moved dur- ing the entire Convocation. As the applause died away a character- istic twentieth-century interruption occurred. A man, if in this audi- * For a fuller quotation from the text of the Inaugural Address, see foot- note 88. ** Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Longfellow's Complete Poetical Works, Craigie edition, “Poetic Aphorisms” from “Sinngedichte” of Friedrich von Logau (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1941), page 616. The slowness of the mills of the gods of course finds frequent reference in the Sibylline Oracles, in Plutarch and elsewhere. Nelson Rockefeller I65 ence, was asked to call his home. Then the moderator proceeded to his next introduction: “Throughout the history of the United States the underdeveloped areas of the world have been a challenge to American private enter- prise. From the pioneering days of the early colonists, through the westward movement of the nineteenth-century frontiersmen and the roving clipper ship operators, to the vast overseas investments of Amer- ican companies today, the appeal of the underdeveloped lands has been magnetic for American business. “Among the great family names associated with American foreign business, none is more widely known than that of our next speaker. It stands not only for the financial success of an era of unparalleled American initiative in the development of natural resources, but it also represents one of the most highly conceived philanthropic under- takings, munificently assisting education, research, public health, sci- ence and the humanities in many lands for the benefit of mankind. Any American group discussing the problems of the underdeveloped areas will immediately wish to know what prospect there is for private enter- prise in this field in the years to come. It will also naturally turn its at- tention to Latin America, with whose peoples and governments so many ties are now being woven.” Our next speaker is in a unique position to speak on this phase of the problem. He is widely acquainted with development problems in Latin America. He is a true friend of the peoples of that continent. He has dealt at length with the leaders of its governments; first as Co- ordinator of Inter-American Affairs under President Roosevelt from 1940 to 1944; then as Assistant Secretary of State in charge of our Latin American relations; and more recently, as Chairman of the Inter-Ameri- can Development Commission. He is the organizer and president of two organizations with an imaginative program of backward-area de- velopment, the International Basic Economy Corporation, and the American International Association for Economic and Social Develop- ment. These organizations seek to bring new standards of life, new in- dustries, new hope to the peoples of these countries. At the same time, they are endeavoring to win new friends for the cause of democracy. Mr. Nelson Rockefeller.”” Rising to the dramatic situation created by the clashing views of the preceding guest speakers, Mr. Rockefeller quickly displayed the genial 77 See also the address of Robert Russell, page 103. 78 For a brief biography of Rockefeller, see Biographical Notes, page 525. 166 Backward Areas diplomatic qualities which have won broad acclaim among Latin American statesmen. NELSON ALDRICH ROCKEFELLER This is a thrilling meeting, indeed. We are sitting here listening to those wheels grinding. We Americans, who are now thrust into world affairs, are having a rare privilege at this session in getting the points of view of the great groups of the world, and only through an under- standing of those points of view, a sympathy, a reconciliation of them, can we effectively participate in world affairs. I have great sympathy for what Sir Ramaswami has said, and said so effectively and so thrill- ingly, but I also have great sympathy for what the Governor-General of the Belgian Congo has said and the position he is in. For many years he has been the progressive leader fighting for the interest of the people whom he represented in that colony. Time sometimes marches faster than men, and he finds himself in the difficult position today of speaking of a program that has been going on for fifty years and not of what is going to happen in the next fifty years. But having had the privilege of knowing him, I know that his heart and his mind are in that next fifty years. Now it seems to me that it is particularly signifi- cant that this meeting at M.I.T. should be devoted to the social im- plications of scientific progress, and it is a rare privilege to participate in this discussion. The occasion is unique in its timeliness. After more than a century and a half of would-be isolation, the people of the United States have finally come to the conclusion that their freedom, well-being and security are not things separate and apart from the rest of the world. They have become firmly convinced that their best interests and those of the people of other lands are inseparable—hence the abandonment by our country of its traditional isolationism.” This profoundly significant evolution, or one might even say revolu- tion, in public thinking has grown out of the tragedy of the two recent wars and has become a reality only after long and intense public de- bate. Not only is this evolution significant in itself, but its effect on our country is even more so. It has resolved a basic conflict which had ”One wonders how optimistic this is. See, for example, the addresses of Sena- tor Robert Taft including one the night before Churchill's address. See page 85. Certainly, though subject to reservation, the Rockefeller statement is not incorrect, at least as compared with earlier days. Nelson Rockefeller 167 existed in our national conscience ever since the very founding of our country. This conflict was caused by the fundamental contradiction between the universality of our religious heritage based on the concept of the brotherhood of man on the one hand, and the nationalistic isolationism of our political tradition on the other. Thus, in our dealings with the rest of the world, we were constantly torn between these two forces conflicting with us–forces which never could have been reconciled until, as has now happened, we came to realize that our interests are inseparable from those of the peoples of the rest of the world, both from a spiritual and a material point of view. Now we are in a position to join with the peoples of other lands in seeking common goals. International meetings such as these will help us in determining our mutual best interests and in finding the means for working together to attain them. And I think what we’ve heard to- day is evidence of that need for finding common goals. In studying the program of this Convocation, I have been interested in the breakdown of the panel discussions into separate groups under the headings: “Material,” “Spiritual,” and “Intellectual.” It seems to me that this separation has merit for sharpening the focus of discus- sion. But it also reflects certain dangers that are inherent in our current approach to problems. Unless we can effectively reconcile the intel- lectual, spiritual and material forces within us, we will never be able to see clearly the true goals which reflect the best interests of all, nor will we be able to work in harmony with the peoples of other lands for their achievement. I can illustrate my point by referring to the subject of our particular panel. The title is “Material—Men Against Men—The Problem of the Underdeveloped Area.” Isolated in this fashion, the concept is completely materialistic. Were we to approach the problem in this spirit, the result inevitably would be failure, bitterness and conflict. Therefore, in my opinion, we must approach the question of underdeveloped areas from a much broader viewpoint—a point of view which has as its base the spiritual concept of the brotherhood of man and respect for human dignity. Thus, we are talking not about men against men, but rather about men with men seeking the way to a common destiny.” - My conviction in these matters has been greatly strengthened by the experience I have had during the past ten years, working with the * The most eloquent statement at the Convocation of the incorrectness of thus separating these three forces. See also page 158. 168 Backward Areas peoples and the governments of the other American Republics both as a public servant and as a private citizen. The early history of our inter-American relations was marked by periods when our material interests seem to have been paramount. This often resulted in frictions and conflicts which produced an accu- mulation of resentment and distrust. However, as the United States be- came increasingly aware of this situation, it gradually modified its ap- proach and finally there developed the Good Neighbor policy enunci- ated by President Roosevelt in 1983. In the years that followed, a new era of confidence gradually evolved. Then as the war clouds gathered in Europe, the peoples of the Americas became increasingly aware of their community of interest, As an expression of this feeling, the United States took the lead in de- veloping extensive programs of joint inter-American action. This new joint effort had three basic objectives: first, a broadening of the basis of understanding and trust and confidence among the peoples of the Americas; secondly, the strengthening of the internal economies and physical well-being of the peoples of the various coun- tries; and, thirdly, the mobilization of the moral and physical resources of the hemisphere for the common defense—for the preservation and development of freedom and the respect of human dignity. The meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the American Re- publics held in Rio in 1942 restated and amplified these common ob- jectives of the Americas and then strengthened the framework of multi- lateral agreements. Inter-American consultations, round-table discus- sions at the diplomatic, technical and production-operating levels, be- came common occurrences. The methods and mechanisms for jointly carrying out the work were developed through open and frank discus- sions. Innumerable bilateral programs were undertaken in the fields of public health, agricultural production, education, technical and manual training, transportation and industrial production, control of subver- sive activities and military preparedness. This common purpose created a strong current of confidence in the hearts and the minds of the people throughout this hemisphere. It provided the vitality and the strength out of which grew the extra- ordinary solidarity of the Americas that reached such a high point of effectiveness during the war period. Then in 1944 as the war began to move away from the Western Hemisphere, there appeared signs of something new and significant. It was a stirring of the people of the Americas—a reawakening of faith and hope in the future. It was as though the impact of this great com- Nelson Rockefeller 169 mon effort had aroused the people from their lethargy—as though a light had broken through and they were beginning to see and believe that for them and their children a better way of life, health and food, education and opportunity lay ahead. One felt it in the cities and in the rural areas—one heard it in conversations and sensed it in the press and on the radio. Increasingly it was reflected in the thoughts of the delegates at conferences. Gradually the people seemed to realize that a new era was growing out of wartime coöperation. They had gained confidence from work- ing together. They wanted to continue working together in the postwar period—but with economic and social development, with rising stand- ards of living as the common objectives, instead of military prepared- ness and war. It was a great period—a new high point in the history of the Amer- icas. These hopes and aspirations were embodied in the resolutions adopted at the Inter-American Conference of Chapultepec in Mexico City in 1945. But the people of the Western Hemisphere weren't alone in these feelings. This same stirring of the people was taking place the world over and their common aspirations were reflected in the Charter of the United Nations, written at San Francisco a few months later. The truly significant thing about both these conferences was the strong ground swell of public opinion which supported them. It grew out of this awakening of the people of all lands who, for the first time, somehow felt that the answers to their problems, to their hopes and their aspirations, lay in a united front. This feeling of community of interest—of solidarity—on the part of all peoples constitutes a major turning point in history. It gives a new ori- entation to our thinking. It had reached a crescendo but unfortunately after the war the plans and programs were not ready to give it effect. There was no unanimity of purpose among the leaders of our nations, and so we fumbled. But no matter how great the difficulties nor how many the discour- agements, it is still too big and too vital a force to lose. We must re- member that in wartime common objectives are easy to agree on but that finding the common denominators for peacetime objectives is hard.” It will take time, but they must be determined. Mankind must work out these problems so that every group everywhere has a chance to achieve freedom, security and opportunity. It can only come through * Compare with Mudaliar's statements on spending money under the same conditions, see page 158. 170 Backward Areas a consolidation of our spiritual, intellectual and material forces. How- ever, and it seems to me that this is very important, this is not the re- sponsibility of governments alone. If we as free citizens want to pre- serve our heritage of freedom and respect for human dignity, we must individually assume responsibility in relation to these world problems. We, in our country, have a particular responsibility that goes with the blessings that have been bestowed upon us. More than any other people, we must expand our coöperation as individuals through our democratic institutions to help the peoples of other lands to help them- selves to a fuller life in the mutual interest of all. While in the government, a group of us saw this rebirth of faith, and hope, and we saw also that governments alone could never realize the aspirations of the people. Therefore, after the war we decided to see what could be done to extend the application of this country's vast ex- perience, energy and skills to help the peoples of other nations. How could management, technical experience and capital from this country be brought more extensively into partnership with private groups in other lands to help them solve the great problems of pro- duction of goods and services which are so badly needed by the people of the world? We believed that American capitalism was ready to play a new and expanded part in world affairs—not seeking just the areas which prom- ised the greatest profit, but going to the areas of greatest need. We believed that it was ready to go where it could produce the most goods and render the greatest services. And that it would have the ingenuity and resourcefulness to accomplish these objectives on a sound and profitable basis which would contribute to the well-being and the real wealth of the people it served. We felt there should be an international bridge—or one might call it an irrigation system—by which it could flow more freely to the underdeveloped areas of the world. Thus, we, as a people, could make full use of our democratic capitalistic system in the common interest of all, a practical blending of social objectives with the efficiency and drive of capitalistic incentives. With this purpose, we set up what might be called a pilot operation in two countries—Brazil and Venezuela. Studies were made in collabo- ration with the governments of the countries and its private groups and economists. These studies revealed the bottlenecks that were holding back economic development and, therefore, the rising standard of liv- ing of the peoples in those countries. Having determined the major bottlenecks, we organized operating companies to help produce the goods and services needed to break Nelson Rockefeller 171 them. These companies were formed as joint capital ventures, merging the management, technical experience and capital from this country with similar forces from the countries in question. Now let me give you a few brief illustrations by citing our work in Brazil to bring this down into tangible terms. Our studies there show clearly that Brazil is destined to become one of the great industrial na- tions of the world. But here industrial development is being retarded by the shortage of foreign exchange to purchase the necessary ma- chinery from abroad and, secondly, by the critical situation in her agri- cultural production, which has not industrialized to keep pace with the migration of labor from the farms to the factories. We decided, there- fore, to concentrate on the modernization of agriculture with two speci- fic objectives in mind: first, to stimulate agricultural production that would contribute most directly to the improvement of Brazil's exchange position; and, secondly, to help increase the productivity of the indi- vidual agricultural worker and producer, thereby compensating and making possible this shift of labor. Our purpose was not to go into large-scale production ourselves but to set up companies to render essential services to the existing producers, thus making the broadest possible impact. For example: in recent years Brazil's coffee—which is her major ex- port crop–has been attacked by an insect from Africa called the Broca. Today this pest seriously threatens Brazil's coffee production, with the result that she might sustain losses in foreign exchange run- ning as high as $100,000,000 annually. Dusting the trees to kill the Broca by hand is prohibitive in price and the problem is one of na- tional concern. So, based on recent experience by fruit growers in California and cotton growers in Texas, we organized a helicopter dusting company to service the needs of the coffee growers in Brazil. Through this method, we found that it was possible to dust up to 70,000 trees an hour per helicopter. It's fascinating the way it works. The downdraft of the blades of the helicopter shoots the dust down to the ground and as the helicopter passes forward the up-current comes and the dust gets on the lower side of the leaves where it's needed. You can do seven rows at a time, and frankly it looks as though this is the answer to the Broca problem.” Or take the case of wheat. Because less than 3 per cent of Brazil's farms have mechanized equipment of any kind, high-production on a low-cost basis is impossible. The result is that today Brazil is using 82 Everyone was sympathetically amused by Rockefeller's enthusiasm about this technical detail. 172 Backward Areas some 15 per cent of the exchange which she gets from her exports to pay for the import of wheat and flour alone. To help make possible the production of wheat and corn and other crops on a low-cost competitive basis, we organized a mechanized agri- cultural service company with operating units to start out with in three important producing areas. Now this is another thing that was set up since the war in this country, and largely by groups of veterans who worked on mechanized units in the armored divisions. Some good does come out of the war.” These units that we set up in Brazil rendered a contract service to large and small farmers, introducing the most mod- ern methods of land clearing, terracing, planting, cultivating and har- vesting. The machines are run on a 22-hour basis with three shifts, using lights at night. Why? Because we want to make maximum use of the equipment and of the scarce foreign exchange which goes into buying it. Well, now let's take another—let's take corn. Corn is Brazil’s basic food, and she is the fourth biggest corn-pro- ducing country in the world. Yet Brazil has no available hybrid seed, no modern drying, fumigating or storage facilities. All of the corn is handled in sacks instead of in bulk. Costs of handling are high, and the price to the consumer fluctuates as much as between 200 and 300 per cent between seasons. So we set up a hybrid seed corn company which has already pro- duced seed that yields between 35 and 40 per cent more than any other strain that exists in Brazil today. The only problem now is to step up the production of the seed and develop new types of hybrid corn and of other seeds. In addition, we organized with the Cargill grain people of Minne- apolis and some Brazilian interests, a system of grain elevators through which we hope ultimately to reduce the farm-to-consumer cost of handling corn from 65 cents a bushel to around 20 cents a bushel. At the same time it should be possible to reduce substantially the seasonal fluctuations in the price of corn. This company also renders technical service and advice to the farmers in the area in which it operates. Now the operation of all these companies involves not only the intro- duction of new methods, modern equipment and technology, but also the changing of life-long habits of production and distribution, and this is not easy and it takes time. But we found the Brazilians to be open- minded and progressive. They welcome new ideas and new methods 89 For Bush's quite different examples, see page 91. Nelson Rockefeller 173 and new machines. Our experience in Venezuela has been very similar and frankly the preliminary studies in other countries in Latin America indicate the same potential.” But it was very clear in all of these countries that the bottlenecks holding back development are not confined to the production of goods and services alone. The bottlenecks are also roads, ports, transporta- tion, power, water and irrigation; public works in general.” To help meet these problems, we set up a technical service com- pany which could secure the best technicians from any country needed for any particular job wherever it might be. The organization and operation of these companies, and I have given a few examples, have focused our attention on the many problems and difficulties that exist today in the field of international economic development. The risks involved in such undertakings are obvious. Therefore, the encouragement of a major expansion of activities in this field will re- quire substantial modifications in existing regulations and arrange- ments in this country and abroad, both of which affect risks and in- centives. One great problem is the lack of capital, and I agree with Sir Rama- swami when he talks about capital. Number one should be manpower, and the materials of the country in which we find it. We have used capital in this country in a restricted sense, but I think his speech to- day points out very importantly the need to modify the use of that word. I still use it in the traditional sense. Used in the traditional sense there is a lack of capital, particularly in local currencies, for long-term loans to private ventures. Now the Export-Import Bank and the Inter- national Bank have been able to meet some of the needs for dollar loans in the field, but neither has evolved a plan to provide loans in local currencies. The problem has been eased in certain of the Latin American countries which have set up their own development corporations to provide loans to private enterprise. It's a very interesting development ** Notestein has said (page 117) that this is well, provided (a) the people are not abandoned by the technicians prematurely or (b) the people become technicians themselves. Is this happening? Are the Brazilians, for example, “pro- gressive” about letting us do things for them or rather about learning how to do things for themselves? * See also Robert Russell, page 106, on this kind of bottleneck. Neither Rus- sell nor Rockefeller dwells upon antagonistic or lethargic mores which Ryckmans or Schweitzer would say are serious in Africa and Mudaliar would seem to imply are not fundamental. See Appendix D. Is this because such mores do not exist in South America or because Russell and Rockefeller are, by nature of their enthusiasms and experience, optimistic? 174 Backward Areas and one that is worth a great deal of study. They have been genuinely helpful and I am convinced that they will be even more so in the future. Our experience in working, for instance, with the Develop- ment Corporation of the Venezuelan Government on a close partner- ship basis has been most satisfactory. In fact, in our operations abroad we have been greatly encouraged by the wholehearted coöperation from government and from private groups, including business and labor alike.” Now the ultimate success of this kind of international coöperation depends on management, and management with vision, imagination and courage. Obviously the men who are sent abroad in this type of venture must possess high administrative competency. They must also understand the broad social objectives of the work in which they are engaged, and they must be able to adapt themselves to the customs and conditions of foreign countries. It's a big order but it must be filled.87 Now today there is revived hope and new impetus because of the bold and farsighted stand which President Truman has taken. His leadership must be supported by the development of equally far- sighted programs. I foresee the day when private individuals and cor- porations throughout the United States, who have never operated abroad before, will carry on this kind of coöperative work in all parts of the world within the framework of intergovernmental agreements. Surely the risks are great, particularly in the beginning, but frankly, the greatest risk to all of us is to do nothing. If our plans are broad and sound, they will create a new atmosphere of confidence—a con- fidence which of itself will eliminate many of the risks which today are born of fear and suspicion. I am convinced that in this combination of social objectives and capitalist incentives, this country has a creative, dynamic force which can be effective throughout the world in serving the needs of the people. It will prove again that free men can work together in their common interest. By dedicating ourselves as a people to such a pro- gram of worldwide coöperation, we can effectively integrate our spiritual, intellectual and material forces and achieve for the people of the United States a new sense of purpose and direction; and for the 86 It is interesting here to note the Dutch contention that the Indonesians have not furnished management and cannot. Thus Dutch and Chinese have monopolized managerial posts in Sumatra, less by force, the Dutch would say, than to fill a void which otherwise no one would have come forward to fill. 87 Including the simple but not always observed point of understanding the other's language thoroughly and using it fluently (and happily). Nelson Rockefeller 175 people of the rest of the world, this common effort will create confi- dence in their ability to realize economic and social progress. These are common objectives on which all of us can unite as free men working together for the dignity and well-being of mankind throughout the world. Sk >k >}: Sk :k It remained for economists to cap the discussion. For this, Padel- ford turned to a member of M.I.T.’s faculty whose presence violated the general design that no M.I.T. staff member should be on a panel but that every moderator should be a staff member. “No discussion of the topic before us today,” observed the modera- tor, “would be realistic if it did not include the appraisal of a profes- sional economist. Nor would it be satisfying, I am sure, if some word were not added representing that branch of the United States Govern- ment which is vitally concerned with our foreign aid program. “The development of the backward areas of the world involves eco- nomic and political questions of the highest magnitude. To what ex- tent is a broad program of development economically feasible? What barriers must be surmounted if development schemes aided by foreign capital and technological knowledge are to proceed effectively? What political issues must be resolved if there is to be international co- operation in development projects? These are by no means academic questions: they are at the heart of the planning which Washington must do to implement the program of aid foreshadowed by President Truman's fourth point.* “M.I.T. is proud of the fact that one of the members of its economics faculty stands at the right hand of the helmsman of E.C.A. in Wash- 88. In his Inaugural address, January 20, 1949. Referred to frequently before, for example, by Compton, page 31. “Fourth, we must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our Scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas. - “More than half the people of the world are living in conditions approaching misery. Their food is inadequate. They are victims of disease. Their economic life is primitive and stagnant. Their poverty is a handicap and a threat both to them and to more prosperous areas. “For the first time in history, humanity possesses the knowledge and the skill to relieve the suffering of these people. “The United States is pre-eminent among the nations in the development of industrial and scientific techniques. The material resources which we can afford to use for the assistance of other peoples are limited. But our imponderable re- sources in technical knowledge are constantly growing and are inexhaustible. “I believe that we should make available to peace-loving peoples the benefits I76 Backward Areas ington.” As Executive Secretary to the President's Committee on For- eign Aid in 1947, Professor Bissell played a large part in translating the Marshall Plan into the going concern of the European Recovery Program, and subsequently, as Assistant Administrator of the Eco- nomic Cooperation Administration, Dr. Bissell has supervised a very large part of the aid which the United States has provided to Europe under this unprecedented scheme of international economic coöpera- tion. Dr. Bissell.” 90 RICHARD MERVIN BISSELL, JR. I think these introductory comments have made clear the unwel- come character of my duty this afternoon. I'm afraid that my com- ments, if I am to live up to what I’ve been asked to do, must justify of our store of technical knowledge in order to help them realize their aspira- tions for a better life. And, in coöperation with other nations, we should foster capital investment in areas needing development. “Our aim should be to help the free peoples of the world, through their own efforts, to produce more food, more clothing, more materials for housing, and more mechanical power to lighten their burdens. “We invite other countries to pool their technological resources in this under- taking. Their contributions will be warmly welcomed. This should be a co- operative enterprise in which all nations work together through the United Na- tions and its specialized agencies whenever practicable. It must be a world-wide effort for the achievement of peace, plenty, and freedom. “With the coöperation of business, private capital, agriculture, and labor in this country, this program can greatly increase the industrial activity in other nations and can raise substantially their standards of living. “Such new economic developments must be devised and controlled to the benefit of the peoples of the areas in which they are established. Guarantees to the investor must be balanced by guarantees in the interest of the people whose resources and whose labor go into these developments. “The old imperialism—exploitation for foreign profit—has no place in our plans. What we envisage is a program of development based on the concepts of democratic fair-dealing. “All countries, including our own, will greatly benefit from a constructive pro- gram for the better use of the world's human and natural resources. Experience shows that our commerce with other countries expands as they progress industri- ally and economically. “Greater production is the key to prosperity and peace. And the key to greater production is a wider and more vigorous application of modern scientific and technical knowledge. “Only by helping the least fortunate of its members to help themselves can the human family achieve the decent, satisfying life that is the right of all people. “Democracy alone can supply the vitalizing force to stir the peoples of the world into triumphant action, not only against their human oppressors, but also against their ancient enemies—hunger, misery, and despair.” 89 I.e., Paul G. Hoffman, Administrator of the Economic Coöperation Admin- istration. 90 For a brief biography of Bissell, see Biographical Notes, page 514. Richard Bissell 177 the description of economics as the dismal science. Economics has also been called the science of scarce means for given ends. I think many doubt whether it is a science. Few today, after eight years of war and inflation in the world, have any grounds for doubting that the means are scarce indeed to the ends we all have in view. And, there- fore, I must concentrate on means and I must concentrate on the scarcity of means, and that indeed will be the character of my com- ments. Happily, you have heard eloquently this afternoon about the ends and their importance.” There is, I think, very wide agreement on the desirability of eco- nomic development in the underdeveloped areas, as an economic end to be pursued. There is, I think also, full agreement that the reason this development is indeed so desirable, the principal reason, is what it will mean for the inhabitants of those underdeveloped areas. It is their peoples, their populations, that are the ultimate end that I think we all recognize and we all must accept. I propose, however, deliber- ately to say little about the needs of these areas, the possibilities of their people or of what can be done for them. Instead, I wish to concentrate on their relationship to the rest of the world: the rest of the trading world. I shall deliberately leave aside most of the matter on which the previous speakers this afternoon have touched, and con- centrate upon the place of the underdeveloped areas in the world economy, and their relationships, especially to Europe and to North America. There are reasons other than the one to which I have already re- ferred, why the development of the underdeveloped areas is essential to the economic health of the entire world. The principal such reason is that the economic progress of the industrialized parts of the world, especially Western Europe, will be slowed or halted unless the pro- duction of raw materials and foodstuffs in the world as a whole keeps pace with industrial production. The depression of 1921, soon after the end of the first World War, began a period that lasted until the beginning of the second World War: a period during which there was a relative overproduction in the world of primary commodities.” * Bissell did not depart materially from his prepared script, and since there was no discussion, the panel does not have the benefit of an economist's view as to the possibilities of some of the ideas advanced, save as these views may appear in- directly in the prepared text here quoted. * This overproduction is real, but also technical and due to other defects in the economic system. Surely there can be no fundamental overproduction of food, for example, while millions starve, but no way has yet been evolved to feed these starving and yet to pay the producer; hence he has “overproduced” when his prices start being driven down. I78 Backward Areas This fact was very evident in the twenties when throughout the world there was industrial prosperity, but depression in agriculture. In the thirties the problem of relative overproduction disappeared and was lost sight of in the presence of general overproduction. But all through two decades we were vividly aware, in this country, of a foreign problem which was the national reflection of this unbalance in the economy of the world. Today I believe we face, for perhaps a decade or two decades ahead, precisely the reverse situation. Industrial production in North America is about 90 per cent above the average of 1985 to 1989. In- dustrial production in Western Europe is already well above prewar levels, and with this as a starting point the nations of Western Europe are now experiencing a boom rate of capital formation, and most of that capital formation is directed toward the expansion of industrial capacity and industrial production. If the European countries, with which I am so constantly concerned, are to maintain a standard of living comparable to that which they achieved in the thirties, and at the same time if they are to balance their international accounts, their exports of industrial products will have to be 60 to 70 per cent higher by the middle fifties than they were before the war; that is, in real terms, in terms of the physical quantities of goods. The predom- inant economic problem of Western Europe as it is seen through their own eyes, and as it must be seen through our eyes, is that of discover- ing trading partners with whom Europe's industrial exports may be ex- changed for imports of foodstuffs and raw materials. It will be disas- trous, indeed, for Europe if an expanding flow of industrial exports meets an inelastic supply of the goods that could be more largely pro- duced in the underdeveloped areas of the world. There is an analogous reason, growing out of the nature of this coun- try's trading position, why the development of the underdeveloped areas is vital. In a sense it may be said the most serious balance-of- payments problem in the world is not that of most of its countries which are unable to earn the dollars they need. Rather, it is the prob- lem of the United States itself which does not import enough from abroad to balance its accounts with the rest of the world. One of the developments in our own economy already visible that will help to solve this problem in the long run is the growth of imports of fuels and raw materials into the United States. Indeed, I believe it is more than possible in the long run this country will have to be a chronic importer of basic foodstuffs. What this means is that, gradually, the United States is following the course of development of Western Eu- Richard Bissell 179 rope. As it does, so economic progress here, too, will come to depend directly upon expanding production of basic commodities elsewhere.” These are some of the reasons why, if one examines economic re- lationships throughout the world, the development of the underdevel- oped areas is necessary not only for the good of their own populations but for that of all of the rest of us as well. The reasons are interesting if only because they make possible my next comment, which is about the proper direction of economic development within these under- developed areas. For twenty or thirty years it has been fashionable to believe that the kind of development appropriate for a predominantly agricultural and extracted economy is industrialization, and, if not only, then mainly, industrialization. Yet neither experience of the past nor appraisal of these prospects for the future which I have just out- lined, supports this easy generalization. It is a generalization that was fostered by the price relationships that prevailed in the twenties and thirties. It was nurtured by the experience of shortages during both of the World Wars. It has received support from the fact that any coun- try's war potential depends upon its possession of heavy industry. Steel capacity has become the symbol of nationalistic power. Never- theless, past experience suggests that forced industrialization, espe- cially the forced growth of heavy industry, creates high-cost industries which require long periods of protection for their survival, and which during that period impoverish more than they enrich the countries in which they have been built up. And the indications for the near future, at least, as I have already explained, are that the world supply of industrial products will increase more rapidly than the world's supply of raw materials or foodstuffs. The argument for industrialization as the economic panacea re- ceives support also from a comparison frequently made between productivity (output per manhour) in industry and productivity in agriculture. It is often argued from this comparison that the only way in which the populations of the underdeveloped areas may be en- riched, may be made wealthier, and their standard of living raised, is by a large shift to industry. But the examples that Mr. Rockefeller has quoted are far better material than I had hoped for to refute at least the misuse of that comparison. The truth of the matter is that in most of the world extensive use of capital, that is, of capital goods and * This would seem to condemn the “backward areas” to the role of granaries and equally to condemn the “forward areas” to increasing industrialization. Can it be argued that this has worked out well for Western Europe—in particular, for Great Britain? Is it likely to work out well for the United States? Is it inevitable? 180 Backward Areas equipments, of techniques and of industrial supplies, in agriculture has lagged far behind the use of capital in industry, and frequently this comparison proves not the virtues of industrialization, but rather the need for a heavier investment both of money and of technical skills in agriculture and in light industry, so that productivity and the wealth of those engaged in those occupations may be increased more nearly to the level of productivity in industry in the more advanced coun- tries of the world.” If there is a danger of overindustrialization of the undeveloped areas, there is, I would like to suggest, perhaps an even greater danger of unwise and uneconomic industrialization. In part that is merely the danger to which I have referred, of an excessive indulgence in heavy industry. But it takes a different form in a number of the less devel- oped countries, especially where they have embarked upon programs, planned programs laid out by their governments for economic de- velopment. There has at times been a pervasive emphasis upon dra- matic and monumental projects which draw a quite excessive pro- portion of limited capital resources into one area and one industry. Even where the decision has been made to devote a given sum to the expansion of the industrial production, it is sometimes too tempting to the planners to use these resources in a few large projects that will have a prestige value disproportionate to their real usefulness. The reason most commonly advanced for the heavy emphasis upon industrialization in the less developed areas is not merely the prestige attendant upon great projects, nor the hope of thus raising productiv- ity, but that the area concerned becomes more self-sufficient, less de- pendent upon foreign trade, less dependent upon political and eco- nomic conditions in the world at large as its industrialization moves forward. The issue is whether this advantage, if indeed it be an ad- vantage, is worth the price. The price for the world as a whole is apt to be high-cost industry in the previously underdeveloped areas, and high-cost agriculture in what are now industrialized countries. And, beyond that, the cost is likely to be an intensified world oversupply of industrial products and an intensified shortage of basic commodities. In most of the highly industrialized countries of the world, especially those in Europe, there is little choice. They are already raising as much food as they can. The danger is that they will push agriculture to uneconomic lengths. Do what they will, they cannot support their populations except by the expansion of industrial production. The *Note, however, what Tizard said in the morning about high per-man produc- tivity in agriculture not being always beneficial (page 111). Richard Bissell 181 question at issue then is not merely where the world's industry is going to be located, but whether throughout the whole trading world excessive resources are going to be devoted to industrial production, especially to heavy industry, and inadequate resources to agriculture, light industry and to extractive operations.” These are scattering comments on the direction of development that might appropriately be encouraged and pursued in the underdevel- oped countries and regions of the world. But they are obviously not intended as a universal argument against industrialization or a uni- versal argument in favor of the expansion of primary production. These are decisions that can be made only country by country and industry by industry. There will have to be much industrialization in the less developed areas, especially heavy investment in railroads, highways and ports, and the other basic facilities to which two of the previous speakers have already referred.” Nevertheless, I have emphasized this point because the dangers of autarchic, nationalistically planned industrialization as a form of economic development can, I believe, hardly be exaggerated.” The third and last matter on which I wish to make an economist's comments, and I suppose the most controversial, is the question of the financing of development in undeveloped areas. The first issue that re- quires to be clarified under this heading is not, I suggest, whether the main reliance can be placed upon private investment or alternatively, whether it must be placed upon the actions of governments, nor is it whether investment is to be left free or is to be planned. The prior question is whether development is to be financed mainly out of the resources of the undeveloped areas themselves or, alternatively, whether the international flow of capital through either public chan- nels, or private channels, or both, is to play a major part in the process. I believe that the way this question is answered may largely decide the others. For a century prior to the first World War, and then again for at least a decade afterwards, it was taken for granted generally in the * Inasmuch as industrialization seems generally to have produced higher ma- terial standards of living than agrarianism, or than serving as the mine of a world, the populace of a backward area, granted available capital and when told that its role is to be that of a material producer rather than a producer of manufactures, might reply with a gentle “No, thank you.” 9° This, however, primarily for the siphoning of raw materials to the coast and thence to the “forward areas.” * 97 Outside nations with a sense of history might remark on the long record of American “protection” against imports and conclude that they needed to do the SaH162. 182 Backward Areas world that wealthy, high-standard-of-living countries, like Britain, the United States, and on a smaller scale, the Netherlands, France and Switzerland, should be the world's principal source of savings, to finance not only capital formation within their own borders but eco- nomic development through the less developed parts of the world. In the Great Depression of 1930 the international flow of capital virtually halted and during the recovery of the late thirties, international in- vestment was one thing that never recovered. Theoretically, of course, the development of any one of the undeveloped areas could be financed out of its own resources without the benefit of aid from abroad. But it is hard to see how this could be done except painfully, even in the case of those countries that already have some source of domestic savings and some considerable stock of industrial plant and equipment. In all of the speeches here this afternoon, in one form or another, there has been a clear recognition of the need for international financing of development in the less developed areas, which are usu- ally the poorer areas of the world. But I doubt if in all of that discus- sion the character of the alternative to some revival of the international flow of investment has been clearly pictured. If the less developed countries are to finance their own development, it is clear that this must be done mainly through the actions of their governments. Only governments can, through taxation or inflation, usually a good deal of the latter, engineer a high rate of forced saving in a country with a low standard of living. And, if a sizable portion of limited foreign ex- change earnings has to be used to pay for imported capital goods, the import of which cannot be financed from abroad, it will usually require government action to effect the necessary curtailment of other imports. This is the way that economic development was financed in Russia and is today being financed in many of the satellite countries that are shut off from access to Western sources of capital. But this method of financing is either slow or brutal, and it is usually both. Indeed, in areas such as the African colonies, it is quite inconceiv- able, whatever the theoretical possibilities, it is quite inconceivable to me that the exploitation of population could be carried to such a point that out of their meager current income the savings necessary for the advancement and development of those regions could be found. I think there is, then, general agreement among all of us on the importance of restoring through public or private channels, or both, the international flow of capital. From the standpoint of the undeveloped countries themselves, I believe that these reasons are quite overwhelming. There is, however, one other which I should like to mention and which is Richard Bissell 183 again related to the trading position in the world of the United States. I have already suggested that in the long run the United States will balance its accounts with the rest of the world by becoming a steadily heavier importer of raw materials and eventually, of foodstuffs as well. But this can be only a gradual development. In the next twenty years, I believe it is unlikely that the United States will ever succeed in balancing its accounts with the rest of the world, unless as the world's principal source of savings and as one of its main sources of supply for capital goods, the outward flow of foreign investment can be re- vived on a substantial scale, in the manner to which Mr. Rockefeller and others of the previous speakers have already referred. For these reasons, the way in which the development of the un- developed areas is financed will make a great deal of difference to their citizens, and to the rest of the world as well. If it is accomplished in part through a revival of international investment, the process will contribute to the balancing of world trade and thus to prosperity not only in the areas that receive the investment but in North America and Europe. At the same time, the development will be carried for- ward, I suggest, with the least strain upon the undeveloped nations. The alternative is a slower pace of development at a higher cost under conditions which will promote economic autarchy and political author- itarianism rather than a healthy and democratic coöperation in the use of the world’s economic resources. The implications of this conclusion, which I have purposely stated in a form that makes it, I hope, a generally agreed proposition, is the subject of my one remaining comment. If the international flow of capital from more to less developed areas is to be revived, it is apparent that the United States must be by no means the only, but equally certainly, the main source of the savings to be channeled into the economic development of the underdeveloped areas. It is, therefore, a fact of importance, and one about which I believe there can be no doubt, that there are narrow limits to the amount of capital that the United States will supply for this purpose as a gift. To be sure, international investment need not be private in- vestment and it never has been wholly, or I suspect, even mainly pri- Vate investment. It is possible that the United States over the next twenty years will invest sizable sums in other countries through public channels, that is, as private or public loans to government or, in part, as grants-in-aid to governments. But whether investment flows partly through private and partly through public channels, or even if the 184 Backward Areas flow is entirely through public channels, much of it, I believe, will have to be investment which increases production and productivity and which therefore can be, at least to the government which sponsors it, revenue-producing investment. I believe this condition must be met if we realistically appraise the political prospects of this country and elsewhere in the world, and if what we have in mind is an international flow of capital that will assume substantial volume and that will con- tinue not for two or three years, but for two or three decades at least. And if there has to be a very large component in the international flow of capital, that is, revenue-producing investment, whether public or private, then it means either that private funds must find a place where they can be sunk into private enterprises with a reasonable prospect of profit, or else public funds must be secured for public enterprises upon the basis of an undertaking to pay interest and carry- ing cost. [Bissell elaborated this usefully in his original prepared text as follows: The ugly fact that an investment must show a return is the basis of a popu- lar but, I believe, overrated argument to the effect that international in- vestment contributes to economic disequilibrium and cannot long continue. The argument is that, as international investment proceeds, the country in which funds are invested assumes a steadily heavier burden of carrying costs which must be paid in foreign exchange. When the program of in- vestment is completed, it is argued, there is no certainty that the economic development which has taken place will generate enough foreign exchange earnings to pay its carrying cost. The principal, but not the only, weakness of this argument is this assumption that the process of investment will necessarily come to a sudden halt. Whenever such an interruption occurs, as it did in 1940, the gravest strain is, of course, imposed upon the country in which internationally financed improvements have been made. It is sud- denly deprived of a source of foreign exchange at a time when its foreign exchange obligations on current account have been augmented. But if the process of international investment and of economic development can pro- ceed simultaneously with only temporary interruption, and if, as a result, the earning power and foreign exchange resources of the capital importing country go along with its dependence upon imports from and exports to the capital exporting country, the argument does not apply. In case such a happy development sounds like a theorist's dream, it is well to remember that this was approximately the course of England's foreign investment in other parts of the world during the 70 years from 1860 to 1930.] The real significance of this last of my comments is that any country which wishes to enjoy the benefits of acquiring capital, and with it technical skills from abroad, must assume certain obligations or soon, I fear, find itself ineligible for such help, no matter how great the need Richard Bissell 185 and no matter how great our sympathy with its situation.” The basic obligation is that of using such capital and these skills in a manner that will, at least in the long run, be productive, rather than in using them for public works of small essentiality or using them in a manner which permits in a temporary and unhealthy fashion an increase in the level of consumption.” Another obligation of a more technical character is that of making at least a major effort to provide foreign exchange to permit the payment of interest to public and private in- vestors to whom it has been promised. These obligations may perhaps have to all of you a nineteenth- century sound. It is therefore, I think, worth emphasizing several of the elements that I have deliberately omitted from that list. To re- peat, I think a third time, international investment need not, in order to be investment, be private investment, although I believe that a sizable part of it probably will be. It certainly need not be haphazard, unplanned investment. If it be desirable to plan investment, we have learned much in the last few years about the techniques of planning and controlling of private investment. Foreign capital certainly need not, and in my opinion should not, have special privileges or extra- territorial status or any of those rather old-fashioned and out-of-date rights that we do associate with the nineteenth century. Above all, it is neither necessary nor desirable that foreign investors be offered the right to exploit natural resources in a manner that does not contribute to the expansion and the development of the economy in which those resources are located. But what is necessary, is that the foreign in- vestor, be he a government or a banker or a mere private citizen, be able to rely upon fair and reasonable assurances given by the govern- ment of the areas in which the investment is made. In any country where every change of government holds the threat of expropriation or repudiation, the prospects for international investment through pub- lic or private channels are dim indeed. What Mr. Ryckmans had to say on that subject, I should like to endorse as strongly as it is possible for me to do so. The problem seems to me far less one of persuading the governments of undeveloped areas to promise or to agree to ade- quate conditions; it is far more a problem to which perhaps no solu- tion, no fully satisfactory solution, can be found, of providing some degree of security so that on reasonable conditions such transactions *These are essentially the same as suggested by Hailey and Ryckmans. Bissell might have included insurance of stability as well, and in fact does so in the middle of the next paragraph. *Which, in a sense, advises Mudaliar again that evolution is slow. 186 Backward Areas can go forward. What the highly industrialized countries have to con- tribute to the underdeveloped areas of the world is technological knowledge and, in the old-fashioned sense, capital.” The greatest hope, I suggest, of the second half of this century is that the capital and the knowledge should be welcome in those areas and that it should be welcomed on terms which it is possible for us to meet. :k :k :k >k :k The clock had already turned past the appointed hour and Modera- tor Padelford was all too conscious of the fact that he must deliver his panel speakers and others to the dinner for Winston Churchill which would precede the Stassen address. He explained to the audi- ence that unhappily there would be no time for discussion as had been hoped, and then introduced James Madison Barker,” who delivered a succinct summary of what the speakers had emphasized without, however, taking the time to add his own comments. What was impos- sible in Rockwell Cage becomes possible between these covers. Ac- cordingly, the Editor has secured from Barker a manuscript which is now reproduced as the final statement for this panel: JAMES MADISON BARKER The problems of backward countries have come much to the fore in the last few years, especially as affecting the thinking of the Ameri- can people. The pattern of development in these lands for centuries has been that of exploitation of some resource or situation by the peoples of more advanced countries. The word “exploit,” innocent in its earlier usage, has acquired an evil connotation from its application in some of these cases. Looked at in the light of historical perspective, it is open to question whether these so-called “exploitations” of back- ward countries by others have been generally as evil as the picture has been painted by the extremists. Foreign capital applied for profit to the development of the national resources of another country has had the merit of producing increments of economic wealth where, without it, the potentialities would have continued to lie fallow. In the process of exploitation, many backward countries have profited from the ex- perience more than they have lost, perhaps by increased material in- come, perhaps by the training in learning how to do the job them- 199 The Editor would add education and enlightenment as to the processes of democracy. 101 For a brief biography of Barker, see Biographical Notes, page 513. James Barker 187 selves.” But with the entry of the United States into large-scale world affairs in the last few years, and with what is apparently an increased world awareness generally of social responsibility, the problems of backward countries are coming to be viewed in a different perspective. The influence of the United States in this regard has been tre- mendous. No other country of importance has ever reached an average individual standard of living high enough for it to contemplate wide- spread international altruism, whether expressed in the form of gifts of capital or of “know-how.” No other country seems likely to attain that status in the foreseeable future. The unique spectacle of a people willing to give on a large scale internationally, whether for political or altruistic motives, impresses the rest of the world. With human nature as it is, it is not strange that a legion of potential beneficiaries do not hesitate to make their needs known. In this situation it behooves Americans, relatively unsophisticated as they are in world affairs, to try to understand what these problems of backward countries are, and how far we can contribute to their solution with some reasonable pros- pect of success. This is particularly important because in these postwar years our contributions to improving the world's welfare are being made not only to backward countries, but also to what might be called “forward” countries which have been adversely affected by the war. The problems of these forward countries, vital as they and our attitude toward them may be, are not the subject of these remarks. In what is to be said here, I shall restrict myself to the problems of backward countries. First of all, we ought to know what we mean by the term “back- ward” as applied to a country. No citizen likes to have his country called backward, and it is growingly the fashion to substitute the term “underdeveloped” for this untactful adjective. But we have come here today to face facts, and I shall continue to use the word “backward” instead of the euphemism. “Backward” in what respect? Do we mean as regards the average individual material status of the inhabitants, or the ability to stand the buffets of historical circumstance, or in philo- Sophical outlook, or the educational level, or the standards of health, or religious tenets or any other characteristic? A member of our Ameri- can intelligentsia amused himself two decades or so ago by arranging the States of the Union in the order of their backwardness, and writing up his conclusions as a series of articles in a prominent monthly maga- zine. His statistical tests would be too complex to apply on a United * Despite Mudaliar's strictures, Tizard implied that this had been the case in India (page 116). 188 Backward Areas Nations basis. Probably with the world as it is, most Americans would arrange the countries of the world on a prewar scale of backwardness by applying the test of average material wealth and well-being.” I shall not attempt any such unpopular job of classification. Rather I shall use as a norm that a country is backward when any considerable portion of its citizens normally live at a bare subsistence level or worse. I recognize the imperfections of my definition, but I believe it is gen- eral enough to serve the purposes of my analysis. It is open to the criticism that it is too materialistic, and there is much to be said on that score. But I stand by it as a working definition, adequate for my purposes. I shall now proceed to an analysis of the reasons why, ac- cording to this test, some countries are backward. Why is a country backward? The reasons make an impressive list. Any intelligent student of these problems should be able to add to it without much effort. Some of these are intrinsic, some are superficial. Some countries suffer from a single one of these reasons, others from a number of them. I set the reasons down as follows, with no attempt to arrange them in the order of their importance.” Geographic Lack of natural resources, such as fertile land, mineral deposits, water, and power sources, Lack of development of such natural resources as exist. A climate not conducive to effort, or kindly to agriculture. Geographical location too far from world markets. Transportation and communications undeveloped. Political and Economic An unsatisfactory governmental system. Adverse influence of powerful national neighbors. Defects in land tenure system. Monetary and credit systems outmoded. Taxation system restrictive. Lack of domestic capital available. Ethnic Population too great or too small for the country. Population not energetic. National health level low. Educational system defective. 198 Roughly the United Nations definition. See Padelford, page 131. 194 These may profitably be compared with the reasons set forth by Bush (page 93), Hailey (page 186) and Ryckmans (page 145) as to why a country is “forward.” James Barker 189 Skills lacking in population. Generally inadequate diet. Philosophical Language not adapted to basic thinking. Philosophical concepts antagonistic to progress. Religion restrictive. If there were time enough, it would be worth while to amplify these reasons, and explain some of their connotations. For instance, few Americans probably appreciate the handicap to scientific, and in fact general, intellectual progress imposed by an ideographic language like Chinese, or an alphabet, or system of mathematical notation that cuts the great part of a people off from the enormous fund of knowledge already accumulated in the literature of nations using the Roman al- phabet and the Arabic numerical notation. The tenets of certain re- ligious faiths are inimical to what the Western World likes to think of as progress. But time is short, the items in my list reasonably self- explanatory, and I shall proceed without further amplification to try to see what can be done, and by whom, to aid backward countries to improve their status. Naturally, in view of the breadth of the subject, I must content myself with principles of wide application. Probably the first thing which strikes one who studies this list of reasons for backwardness in countries is how fundamental most of them are, Lack of natural resources, an unkind climate, and geograph- ical remoteness are characteristics about which there is not much to be done. In this category of great handicaps, which are very difficult or impossible to overcome, must be included restrictive religious and philosophical concepts antagonistic to progress, and, to a somewhat lesser degree, the drawback of a difficult, complex or antiquated lan- guage. Since the United States is the nation on which the major burden of improving the conditions of backward countries seems likely to re- main, and since we are apparently dedicated to the principle of com- plete non-interference in any way with the national sovereignty of other nations, the problem of an unsatisfactory governmental system and the adverse influence of powerful national neighbors likewise rank high in the category of things that we cannot do much about. The problem of population magnitude is also one in which we can help only by indirection, if at all. This analysis so far has served considerably to reduce the list of things that can be done practically. The items that remain fall into two main classes, namely, those which involve aid in the form of capi- 190 Backward Areas tal to be put at the disposal of the backward country, and those in which expert counsel is needed. The line of demarcation is not clear- cut in view of the overlapping of the fields of capital expenditure and expert counsel. The remaining items, however, may reasonably be separated now into these two groups. The class of aid in the form of counsel without capital from outside includes such problems as an unsatisfactory land tenure system, an out- moded currency and credit system, a restrictive taxation system, low national health level and inadequate diet and a defective system of education, including the need for the training and development of skills within the population. So far as deficient energy on the part of the population is due to inadequate diet, and a generally low level of individual health, the problem comes within the category of aid in the form of counsel. The class of aid in the form of capital includes necessary provision and improvement in the fields of transportation and communication, and development of such natural resources as exist in the backward country. There is great misunderstanding as regards the possible aid which foreign capital can and should furnish in this respect. In the first place, a study of the conditions in a backward country usually leads to the conclusion that almost any such country has substantial stores of domestic capital. It may be hoarded in the form of money or jewels, or employed by its owners in usurious loans, and in commodity and land speculation. These domestic capitalists who exemplify such primitive forms of capital use are following the methods of their an- cestors made necessary by the economic ignorance or rapacity of their rulers. They may welcome the entrance of foreign capital, but seem generally unwilling to risk their own in the development of their coun- try. Interesting this domestic capital in modern forms of development investment is a slow and discouraging process.” The provision of adequate domestic development capital by the government of a backward country presents almost insurmountable problems. In general the government budgets of such countries do not provide a margin of income over expenditure to do the job. The domes- tic capitalist is simply not interested in acquiring the long-term bonds of his government as an alternative to the types of investment in which he currently is using his capital. For the government to borrow from its central bank promptly leads to inflation. This brings us to the 195 Barker does not include here as capital the forms adduced by Mudaliar (page 160). James Barker 191 consideration of problems related to the use of foreign capital in de- veloping a backward country. Foreign capital can theoretically be made available to a backward country in a number of ways as follows: (a) The sale to foreign investors of the backward country's govern- ment bonds issued in foreign currencies. Comment: The credit standing of these countries is seldom good enough to make the bonds salable. (b) Making such bonds salable through the guarantee of another foreign country whose credit is good. Comment: It is not likely that any country other than the United States could make such bonds salable by its guarantee, and the sound- ness for the United States of giving such guarantees is open to great question. (c) Gifts of foreign currency or its equivalent in goods to a back- ward country by a foreign nation. Comment: The United States is the only country economically or philosophically in a position to make such gifts. (d) Loans instead of gifts as in (c). Comment: Same as for (c). (e) Loans of foreign currency by the International Bank. Comment: The International Bank is in the last analysis a bank and not a charitable institution. It must make its loans with due regard to their soundness, or it will find difficulty in floating the bond issues through which, as time goes on, it will have to provide the funds which in turn it will loan to its borrowers. (f) Where the backward country is possessed of an exploitable natural resource, foreign capital can become available to the backward country through such exploitation by foreign capitalists. Comment: Such exploitation by foreign capital is almost sure to be the target for nationalistic elements in the backward country, no mat- ter how sound and generous the terms of the contract may be. The danger of a change in government and hence of policy toward foreign investments is always present, and acts as a deterrent to new ventures of this character. (g) The backward country can endeavor to interest foreign cap- italists in bringing capital into the country by offering them safety of investment, and opportunity for profitable actuation. Comment: The comment on (f) applies here. Governments are notoriously amoral and unethical in dealing with foreign private in- vestors. Not much can be expected from this source, unless the United 192 Backward Areas States Government is willing to give its guarantees as in (b); and as a policy for us, it would be unsound. In relation to this problem of bringing foreign-currency capital into backward countries, there are certain aspects of great importance which are not generally understood. Foreign currency can be spent abroad by a backward country on machinery for development, but when that equipment is brought into the backward country, it must be transported, housed and installed. The backward country must spend substantial amounts of its domestic currency to accomplish effective installation. The safe magnitude and rapidity of this installation job will be determined by the effect on the domestic price level of these domestic-currency expenditures made by the government in compe- tition with normal domestic demands for the same services. In other words, a backward country will find it difficult to do an effective job of any magnitude in spending foreign currencies for domestic develop- ment without the phenomenon of inflation, which will seriously affect its domestic price level.” It is evident that the answer to the question of who is to provide the capital to develop backward countries is—the United States Govern- ment. Likewise since expert counsel is an expensive commodity, if it is to be provided for backward countries on an extensive scale, the United States is going to pay for it. Whether or not we can afford to do it on anything like the scale proposed by our government is not the question here. The aim of this analysis has been to face the facts of aid to backward countries frankly and factually. Foreign capital alone is not the answer, a fact too little understood. Advice and counsel can help if they are wise, and if the backward countries heed them. For- eign administration of domestic aid is seldom, if ever, successful. Even a backward country is sure to resent the actuation of foreign admin- istrators. The wise foreign counsellor may sit at the elbow of domestic functionaries, and offer guidance from his expert knowledge, but as soon as he accepts authority to order things done, he is on the way out, for his position will become increasingly untenable. The development of backward countries is an evolutionary process. All the help that the outside world can give them will be effective only to the degree that they help themselves. A wise occupation authority may conceivably rebuild another country on a new and sounder basis, though even that is doubtful as a long-time accomplishment. No 106 Ryckmans writes, “Mr. Barker here makes an extremely important and all too little understood point about foreign currency expenditures”; see also Ryckmans, page 148 and footnote 69. Summary 193 sounder proverb ever was enunciated by man than the one which says “God helps those that help themselves.” The processes of evolu- tion are slow. We Americans may be able to accelerate them a little in backward countries if we paraphrase the proverb to read, “The United States helps those that help themselves,” act accordingly, and do not expect too much. :k >k >k >}: :k Professor Padelford concluded: “In conclusion may I say that as we face the second half of the technological century, I think we can all agree that science must not only hold before itself as its constant goal the welfare of human beings, which has been its goal since Francis Bacon first expressed it, but that it must walk in ever closer company with the humanities and that the time has come when the men of science as well as of business and of state must capitalize upon the adventure of ideas.” What can we say as to the conclusions of this panel? Barker laid down a detailed list of reasons why a country was back- ward. These were geographic, political and economic, ethnic, philo- sophical. They agreed very closely with the argument of Hailey, who said that the standard of a nation depends upon its natural resources and the capacity of its people; and of Ryckmans, who asserted that high standards are not a natural condition of mankind but come about when a healthy, resourceful, hard-working and well-governed people have access to rich natural resources. Barker pointed out that many of the reasons for backwardness—climate, geographic location, lack of resources—were fundamental and hardly alterable; that many others such as ethnic and philosophic positions and even some political atti- tudes were subject to change only slowly. This echoed the views of Hailey and Ryckmans, who felt that the process of raising the back- ward countries must be evolutionary and therefore that patience was needed. The two colonial administrators went on to argue that though good government was no substitute for self-government, nonetheless self-government was not synonymous with economic progress. Both of them pointed to areas not self-governed which had higher standards than other self-governed areas. Ryckmans suggested that the reasons for underdeveloped areas are not constant from area to area and that therefore each must be considered as a separate problem. He was optimistic about the intentions of the colonial powers to train the colonies for self-government and to release them as soon as they were 194 Backward Areas ready; but he was also confident, as was Hailey, that the peoples of the backward areas could not by themselves build up their health and vitality or finance their education or advance their standards out of the savings from the wages of unskilled labor, which were at present nearly their only immediate cash resource. Thus he felt that the colo- nial powers must furnish not only advice and guidance but also funds, and this he said they were beginning to do; Hailey had described the British plans along these lines and had said that no plan would be good unless it followed a careful ascertainment of the facts and close consideration of the human factors and a clear view of how external capital and technical skills could usefully be applied. He was hopeful for the future but thought, as did Ryckmans, that we must be patient. Barker emphasized this when he admonished the United States not to expect too much. To almost all of this thesis Mudaliar took strong exception. Standing on the platform that colonialism inevitably meant exploitation, and that it would not exist if it were not profitable, he suggested that these profits might remain in the backward areas to their advantage. He said that nothing was so important as the soul and feelings of a people and thus seemed to argue for the immediate autonomy of all peoples. He insisted that the resources of the lands plus the labor potentials of the people were true capital resources and would be adequate to pay for the necessary progress, though he did not say how this would be arranged save as he pointed out that all of the nations had in war spent far more than would be required to produce the beneficial results in peace. He insisted that the record of the colonial powers was one of overweening slowness and that the fascination of evolution could no longer be pandered to as a stopgap against revolution. He warned that no peoples were so susceptible to the fallacy of Communism as the overly poor and illiterate peoples, in short, as the peoples of the back- ward areas. Rockefeller and Bissell directed their attention to the ways by which financing would be possible in the backward areas. Rockefeller ap- proved Mudaliar's definition of the capital resources of such areas. He cited the specific examples of agricultural gains in Brazil and Ven- ezuela through the introduction of modern technological process as a result of combined investment in these countries by local capital and outside capital from the United States. He insisted that much more could be done along these lines, and that it must be done to take care of the diminishing agricultural labor in these lands, which was being steadily siphoned off to industry. Summary 195 Bissell deprecated the rapid and spectacular efforts to establish heavy industry in backward areas as bad both for the areas and for the world economy. He felt that the agricultural output of these countries should be vastly and efficiently expanded to improve the trading re- lationships of the world, and argued that the forward areas should continue to rely on the backward for raw materials and food. If the backward areas would work in these directions and in those of light industry, if they would refrain from spectacular public-works projects or costly efforts calculated only temporarily to improve consumption, and if they could offer stable governments, he was optimistic that inter- national investment could operate favorably over several decades dur- ing the period when the backward areas were raising their productiv- ity, national incomes and standards of living. The latter part of this, at any rate, was essentially Barker's final argument as well. On one major point all were agreed: The human factor was the most important thing. The abuses of the earlier colonial system were condemned by all, each in a different way. Bissell's thesis as to the division of the world into industrial and agrarian areas was, in the absence of discussion, not contested; nor was there an opportunity for Mudaliar to explain how he would transfer the latent indigenous resources of the backward areas into immediate working capital. The largest area of disagreement, and it was very large and very funda- mental, was whether, aided only by finance and technical advice, the backward areas could immediately assume full world responsibility and thus give new spirit to their citizens, or whether the evolutionary process of the colonial system, perhaps accelerated, was the only one upon which the world could sensibly rely. Those who discussed the point were all agreed that a major economic and intellectual responsi- bility rested henceforth on the United States; the panel seemed agreed that, contrary to the previous history of this nation, our country was now prepared to accept this responsibility, C H A PTE R V Science, Materialism and the Human Spirit F THE WESTERN WORLD has historians one hundred years I from now they may look upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki as inver- sion points at the nadir of progress in human character. For cen- turies the sincere marriage of God and the flag had been losing its savor. The conviction which stirred Henry the Fifth, Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Follow your spirit, and upon this charge Cry “God for Harry! England and Saint George!” ” had become pale by 1914 when Kaiser Wilhelm talked of Gott mit uns; by the war of 1989, victory and the Deity were seldom invoked to- gether save as the merest convention.” Nor had it been easy for many years to see exactly what convictions now urge men on to fight and die. At least these convictions were not clean-cut. They had not been influential for many when it was a matter of Ethiopia, or Spain or Czechoslovakia. For America as a whole they had become real only, it seemed, when it was a matter of the Low Countries, of France, of England. And certainly these convictions, whatever they were, had many ingredients. Not the least of these was 1. “But no wight was so wise that knew the way to Truth”—Piers Plowman (A.D. 1862), The Vision of a People's Christ, by William Langland, A Version for the Modern Reader, by Arthur Burrell (London and Toronto, J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., New York, E. P. Dutton and Co., 1912) page 97, The Vision of the Search for Truth, line 1. * Shakespeare, King Henry V, Act III, Scene 1, lines 1, 33 and 34. * The Philadelphia Standard and Times (Pennsylvania), for April 22, 1949, in an editorial about this panel, called “Mind Over Matter,” reminded us: “A ray of hope, yes, but the memory of what happened just a few days before this convoca- tion still lingers in our mind. The Atlantic Pact was signed in Washington without any official recognition of God. No prayer, no mention of God save a few passing references made by the representatives from the Netherlands and Italy. “Why should we expect great things of this treaty when even God is ignored?” 196 The Problem I97 fear; another had to do with resentment against bullies. As time went on, these became solidified and to some extent rationalized into con- victions about freedom; and it was perhaps with this conviction upper- most that the Western Powers went on to victory, not quite certain, perhaps preferring not to ask, whether their powerful partner held the same convictions. How had this come about? The story is much too long to tell here but it is freely recorded in history. Growth of commercialism, growth of mercantilism, growth of imperialism, changes in the scale of human affairs, all had contributed to a cynicism and an abandonment of faith, as faith was understood in earlier days. Growth of knowledge, too, had a hand. Many of the things which faith demanded no longer seemed to ring true. As early as 1650 Robert Burton had quoted “Ignorance is the mother of devotion” + and this notion had grown. In any event a hard core of cynicism seemed to be expanding throughout the Western World. This was less a matter of whether or not people went to church, of whether or not they contributed to charity, of whether or not as in- dividuals they behaved according to decent ethical standards, of whether these standards, if never expressed specifically, if somewhat vague at their boundaries, had some common currency. It was not a matter of whether in a strange counterflow the social senses of the West were moving forward while the combined spiritual senses seemed to be moving backwards. To the almost total responsibility of the Middle Ages had succeeded the almost total irresponsibility of the early Industrial Revolution. Now in the twentieth century and between wars it was clear enough that social reforms, both in the privileged and underprivileged lands, were moving with a strength they had seldom exhibited before; and that they were coming about on the whole rather more because of the conscience of those who might have resisted them than because of the power of those who might have tried to impose them. So in a sense there was a spiritual quality to the culture and one which was growing; one which was affronted by the conduct of Fascists and Nazis after this conduct reached a certain level; one which could be affronted again by the reported conduct of an erstwhile ally; one which could best express itself in terms of respect for the dignity of 4 Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, The Sixteenth Edition Printed from the Authorized Copy of 1651 (London, B. Blake, 18, Bell Yard, Temple Bar, and J. Chidley, 123 Aldersgate Street, 1838) [Part 3, Sec. 4. Mem. 1. Subs. 2] page 678. 198 Science and Faith the individual," and of every individual; the right of the individual to live, to eat and be clothed and be sheltered decently, to educate him- self and to progress as far as his capacity permitted. This spiritual qual- ity, allied to fear, won a victory. At the end of that victory and on the plea that it would save Ameri- can lives, American forces devastated two Japanese cities with their new weapon. This weapon did not seem to have been needed to win this victory; as it happened to be used, it was more of a political weapon than a military one. It killed a great many enemies, human beings, who need not have died. And as the first excitement over the event receded, reports came back to the United States from men like John R. Hersey and Norman Cousins and David Bradley." Scientists who had made the bomb possible stepped into the political arena in an effort to have good come from what they had created. As all this went on, fear grew great in the minds of the percipient, fear which could be assuaged only by the blunting which occurs after fear has been met every morning. 5 But even this problem of the individual could not be expressed very clearly. See, for example, the discussion in Chapter VI. Note also the statement of an out- standing and sentient spokesman for science, J. Robert Oppenheimer, in Life, Oc- tober 10, 1949, page 186: “We are gradually coming to a critical awareness of the fact that it is much harder to tell the truth than we like to think. It is difficult even to be candid unless one has a vast community of experience and knowledge in terms of which to talk. In politics the great actions and the great men are those that reveal the relations and harmony between views, generalizations and ideals which superficially appear neither compatible nor relevant. There is surely need for this today in coping with the question of the role of the individual in society —whether the individual is an instrument of society or an end of society. Neither the human soul as something to be saved nor man as a part of society can be ig- mored; it is not easy to consider these two concepts without some sense that each complements the other. “We have been alerted to this kind of duality by our experience in science. In exploring new parts of the world we come upon wonders which cause us to erect a new image of what the world is like. And every once in a while we come across phenomena that look back reproachfully at the man who is studying them and cause him to ask whether his way of thinking about things is entirely straight. That is what happened in atomic physics; and these experiences give to physicists a cer- tain sense of humility as to the power of human thought, as to things that are built into it by accident and by question—these mark him with a little modesty before unfamiliar problems.” 6 John R. Hersey, Hiroshima (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1946). Originally it appeared in The New Yorker. Norman Cousins, “Hiroshima, Four Years Later,” the Saturday Review of Lit- erature, September 17, 1949. The reader may be interested to consult SRL for October 8, 1949 (pages 26–27) to note the overwhelming response to Mr. Cousins' suggestion of “moral adoptions” of Japanese orphans. David B. Bradley, No Place to Hide (Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1948). The Problem 199 This fear took many forms. For most, perhaps all it meant was that they too might sometime die the way many a Japanese had died. Those who looked further might find it not so very important whether they as individuals and all their families too might die; they might worry about the death of their culture. Some had even suggested that the culture had already died, the day it had reached the point when its honest thinking leaders could decide to use the weapon at all. It is of course much too early to say who was right. But it is clear that in the year 1949 there was great confusion about all these things. Strangely enough, and up to this time of writing, the confusion was less after the long-predicted news that the U.S.S.R. had managed an atomic explosion " than it had been before. Some of the moral issues, if not the political ones, seemed clearer after that had happened. But much of the action and the writing of the first half of the twen- tieth century had shown clearly enough that many people were dis- turbed, disturbed as some said about the decay of morals (a statement which would be very hard to prove); disturbed as others felt by the lack of any common symbols which could epitomize those standards of act and feeling to which most people in the culture could strive. A vacuum had somehow been left by the advance of knowledge, by the development of contrivances to make man's physical if not his spiritual life easier than it had been in 1900. And people, at least most people (for some had always clung to earlier convictions) were desperately looking for new symbols, or, failing those, for a scapegoat. Now there was one type of thinking and study which best typified the times and this was the thinking of natural science. No other field of human intellectual development had made such strides during the period in question. Its capacity to isolate and nail down certain kinds of facts (if not all kinds) was undisputed. There was a comfort in being able to nail down any kind of fact, and so the process by which this was done had become no longer one which was attacked in the open by any church. On the contrary it had attained extraordinary respectability; and there were many who were trying to apply the same methods to all sorts of other activities, even to all activities, in the eager search for what man has always sought in vain: absolute truth. Not only was this method of thinking the most respected as a method but the utilitarian advantages were manifest. Not only had they brought high physical standards of living to those nations where sci- ence was fostered and where engineering was brilliant; but they had, 7 Announcement by President Truman, The New York Times, September 24, 1949, page 1, column 8. 200 Science and Faith in the final analysis, brought victory to the side which pursued them most vigorously and intelligently.” It might have seemed ironic to some that the fundamental discoveries of physics or chemistry, the results of work of men of many races, many faiths, many flags, and almost in- variably the results of work in peace and without either the guidance or control of a military mind, managed to coalesce for victory for one set of flags and not for another. Others would find no irony but simply a justification of democracy. But it was clearly ironic that when the victory was won, when science had produced at long last a terrifying weapon, there were many who felt that the scientists themselves were to blame. It fell to the chemists to lead the military procession in the first World War but tactical or human considerations restrained the maximum application of their frightening discoveries; the second war was a physicists' war and this time the political decision was the other way. So there was clearly a tendency among the unthinking to blame the scientists for the fruits of their science whether measured in material or spiritual things; to say on the one hand that they should be re- strained lest they kill all mankind, forgetting that the decision to kill was not a scientific decision; that the weapons which killed were the product of many men and countless resources (most of the men were not scientists and few if any of the resources belonged to them); that scientists had, at considerable sacrifice, worked hard after the event to bring the truths home to the public, long before these truths had seemed to impress the statesmen, much less the politicians; and to say on the other hand that the loss of symbols, the loss of spiritual direction, was also to be blamed on the scientists since it was the ap- plication of their lore which had so distracted man from the spiritual side of life. This was certainly the loose kind of allegation which kept cropping up in discussions throughout the Western World, a frightened world, a confused world, but one which, it must be remembered, was holding the significance of the human being higher perhaps than it ever had been held before. Did this mean in fact that the culture had lost spiritual direction? Did it mean that materialism held sway? These were widely stated assumptions which had not been subjected to very rigorous test. And if these things were true, was it bad or good? Was there a road back? Should there be a road back? And how far were the scientists, or per- haps rather the discipline of science itself, to blame for the situation? *Which was also the side of democracy, of freedom, of belief in the rights of IIlall. The Problem 20I It was not natural to expect that any answers could be found ready- made in one or even many sessions. There had been much writing on these subjects, profound and careful writing; there had been many discussions. Obviously a single panel in an M.I.T. Convocation could be expected to do little more than restate the questions. The significant thing, as in all meetings of this sort, was not what might finally be de- cided in the meeting, for it was unlikely that anything would be de- cided, or what would be agreed upon, for it was almost certain that nothing would be agreed upon. Rather it was significant that a public discussion on a subject of this sort could occur at all at an institution like M.I.T. It would have seemed most unnatural twenty years before; and there would have been scant interest in it at the beginning of the century. Now, however, there was no doubt that it was fitting; and the very naturalness of having it was perhaps the most important thing about it. That it was obvious does not seem to have been obvious. No single thing that happened at the Convocation attracted more favorable (and occasionally surprised) newspaper attention than that this subject was on the agenda at all. It should not have been surprising, either, that this panel turned away more listeners from its doors than all the other panels put together.” The audience swarmed over the seats, sat double in the aisles, stood on the stairs until there was no empty nook or cranny. Like the other panels, the members of this group had met at break- fast. Now they came to the hall to debate issues which had been formally stated in the program as follows: “A much discussed dictum holds that the great failure of the twen- tieth century has been that it does not provide a basis for continued common action on any high moral plane. Along with this is a tendency to blame the alleged deterioration of traditional Western religion and morals on the growth of natural science and applied technology. But there is also evidence to suggest that this entire hypothesis is fallacious and that it rests on errors of fact. What is this evidence? What bases * Partly an accident. M.I.T. has three halls suitable for reasonably large gather- ings. Since the panels were contemporaneous, all the halls had to be used. The Rockwell Cage, already described (page 1), seated some 4,500; Morss Hall in the Walker Memorial, 1,100; Huntington Hall seated 550. Whatever panel had occupied Huntington Hall would have been “oversold” although there was no suspicion that more than 6,000 persons would attend the day sessions. The best preliminary guess estimated the order of attendance for the three subjects and as- signed the halls accordingly. The guess may have been wrong; but all the halls were filled. In particular, the numbers turned away from the “spiritual” panels were very large, indeed. 202 Science and Faith exist for continuance of the old morality or for the creation of a new common standard of conduct at the highest levels of the human spirit?” For this panel the Institute had summoned three philosophers and one natural scientist. The panel was made up of people known to have widely differing views. On the one hand was one of the most distin- guished of all contemporary philosophers, certainly the greatest Roman Catholic philosopher of the day. Opposed to him was a physicist, a Nobel-prizeman from Harvard University, known to have distinct and not always orthodox views on the matters under discussion. There was an outspoken expositor of a practical philosophy for today, whose recent Atlantic Monthly article “ had been strongly praised and blamed; and a college president, a liberal Protestant theologian and philosopher.” The moderator, Everett Moore Baker,” had himself been trained in theology. Dean Baker opened the meeting as follows: “We are met to discuss fundamental concepts having to do with the motivations of men. We are concerned here with the philosophies of men. If our philosophies are destructive, science has armed us with weapons to destroy. If our philosophies are creative, science has given us the equipment to create. As we approach the mid-point of our cen- tury we are in a precarious position. We have more knowledge of the material nature of our universe than men have ever had and we have more power, more means and methods of using our power than men have ever had. We are, moreover, obviously quite confused. I am not speaking, of course, of just those of us who are gathered here. I am thinking in terms of men in general the world around. What we have called the laws of God, what some men call the laws of the universe, and what some of us call by other names and some of us don't recog- nize at all as law, what once man thought revealed an absolute, and represented ultimate authority, now many people question and some cast aside. One of the questions that vexes the minds of many men, and one upon which the members of this panel may shed some light, is whether or not the authorities born of man's experience and subject to man's revision, can have the same validity as authorities one time established or imposed by philosophical argument or theological doc- 19 Walter T. Stace, “Man Against Darkness,” The Atlantic Monthly, September, 1948, page 53, Vol. 182, No. 3. 11 Respectively, Jacques Maritain, Percy Williams Bridgman, Walter Terence Stace, Julius Seelye Bixler. * For a biographical note on Dean Baker, see Biographical Notes, page 518. Everett Baker 203 trine.” I have asked Professor Karl Deutsch 14 to assist me with the guiding of this panel and its discussion, and he has phrased three questions to which we believe our speakers will direct our thinking. “One of them is: Are there any objective or common standards of truth and moral obligations, or are we merely acting out our past, following our psychological drives and group mores in the world of elusive electrons; is there any truth about man or outside of man that can be found and tested? “Another question is prompted by this first one and is perhaps a proper opposite: In a world of technical and economic fact (that's a word about which we may have some argument), what place is there for the value of integrity; how meaningful are such things as tradition, personality or integrity in this world today? What significance can these things have for our crucial problems of security and freedom in a world of action? “And the last of these three questions—every philosophy can be tested by its fruits in conduct: What are the courses of action our phi- losophers suggest? What are the alternatives of our fate if we fail to act? How much agreement on conduct can we find among people who hold different philosophies?” “I shall not take any time to describe our panel members. They are all too well known to you for me to be able to add any information that is not already in your hands in the little biographical sketches about all the panel members. Our procedure will be to give each of our guests opportunity to present his initial statement. Then each will speak and comment on his colleagues’ arguments. The second round of comments will be quite brief. And then Professor Deutsch will present several questions for comment to one or more of our guests, in each case allowing the other guests to comment if they care to. This time we hope, and we feel quite sure, that we will have an opportunity for lively give-and-take between the members of our panel. * The speakers tended to state the question in reverse, i.e., “Do authorities rest- ing on things outside man's scientifically verifiable experience have the validity of those resting on fact?” Subject to some discussion as to the definition of “fact,” Maritain would say not only, yes, but that they may have higher validity, adding that while such authorities transcend sense experience, our knowledge of them rests on fact or experiential data. The others in varying degrees say no; and Bridg- man might add that the kind of validity they have is determined by the sort of test that is applied to check their validity. 14 Karl Wolfgang Deutsch, Associate Professor of History at M.I.T. * The reader will note that although the speakers naturally touched on these questions indirectly, none attempted to answer them explicitly. 204 Science and Faith And we think that that give-and-take by them with each other will be of interest to you. “I am very glad and highly honored to have this opportunity to present this audience to these our guests and them to you.” Dean Baker then introduced Dr. Bixler.” JULIUS SEELYE BIXLER This is a pretty large order that's been given us and I thought that the best way of trying to meet it would be to concentrate on one ques- tion. You remember the rather pompous lecturer who strode up and down the platform gesturing a good deal and finally he said, “Shall I ask myself a question?” and from the top gallery came a high voice saying, “Well, if you do, you will get a damned silly answer.” The members of this panel have been asked whether there is any basis for continued common action at the highest spiritual level. For me there is only one answer. We have such a basis and to see what it is we have only to draw the implications of what we are already doing. The fact that we have not done what we know is right does not, after all, prove that what we believe to be right is itself wrong.” [Bixler elaborated ad lib: I feel that our differences of opinion about these very important topics, religion, and philosophy, and science and the rest, may lead us to greater diversity than is justified by the facts. Actually we have a common intel- lectual method and if that be true, it seems as though we ought to have a basis for agreement, as well.] It is clear that we have failed to live up to what we profess. It is also clear that we are on the point of losing our nerve. Today we stand in special danger of underrating thought and its power. What we call “reason” and “mind” are on the defensive. The constant attack on the so-called “liberal-optimistic” view is one evidence. In many areas of life the arts of persuasion are yielding to the insistent pressures of violent compulsion as a means of deciding issues. The cult of the “daemonic” in contemporary theology, the use of distortion in modern art, and the retreat into the unconscious in present-day literature all indicate a growing suspicion that mind cannot face up to and solve the problems of life today. Inevitably science is summoned before the 16 For a brief biography of Bixler, see Biographical Notes, page 515. 17 Bixler consistently argued that there was a common intellectual method and that all kinds of experience ought to be subject to some unity of test; but this common intellectual method seemed to exist only to a very limited extent for such different persons as Maritain and Bridgman, Mudaliar and Ryckmans. J. Seelye Bixler 205 bar of judgment and is labeled a false messiah which has not brought the salvation it promised. [Bixler elaborated this in his extemporaneous text: . . those of us who at heart are in agreement about many of these topics actually think we differ because we hear so many say, “Well, science, after all, occupies one sphere and philosophy and religion another, and if you are going to be religious you have got to turn your back on the scientific area.” Perhaps I can sharpen up my remarks if I observe that one writer who is referred to a great deal today seems to me in his main emphasis to be wrong, and that is Kierkegaard. With all his brilliance, it strikes me that when Kierkegaard says we must turn our backs on the mind, and on reason, and on all cultural values, if we are going to find God, he is making a mistaken emphasis. To me the interesting thing is the continuity that underlies our thought, our emotional perceptiveness of goodness and beauty, and also our awareness of God. That is to say, it seems to me that the standards we set up for ourselves in scientific activity and in the intellectual life in general, such as those of consistency and coherence, must apply elsewhere. They must apply in art, and also apply in religion. Art and religion, of course, are not the same things as science; nevertheless we don't leave consistency and coherence behind when we enter these areas.”] At least part of the trouble has come from our inability to under- stand what our intellectual methods imply and what they can be ex- pected to do. Of course there is a sense in which science has failed to show the positive moral influence that was expected of it fifty years ago. Its body of knowledge is neutral. It will hire out to any master and its results can be used for evil purposes as well as good. Yet there is also a sense in which, as a method of inquiry and as an activity car- ried on in accordance with standards that are valid above the plane of utility, it is neither evil nor neutral but an expression of spiritual ideal- ism. It presents us with ethical demands and with a basis for a con- tinued common action on a level that is very high. Opposed to what is claimed by many today, and especially by some of the most eloquent writers in the theological camp, I think it is im- portant to remember that there can be no sharp break between our 18 Bixler's crucial assumption is that there are standards of continuity, con- sistency and coherence, which are applicable to all fields of thought and all aspects of the mind. Just what these standards of “continuity,” “consistency” and “co- herence” are, or how they are to be discovered and tested, he did not say. These are still major problems in the philosophy of science; and if Bixler is right, the answers found there will be important for moralists and theologians. Bridgman's remarks on “natural intelligence” later in this discussion represent another attack on this problem. 206 Science and Faith intellectual and our other activities.” Wherever thought is relevant its standards of consistency reign supreme and we should not forget that its relevance is very nearly all-pervasive. It is true that parts of our ex- perience are non-rational in the sense that our concern with their emo- tional content is not analytical and that we do not expect them to aid us in the search for factual truth or to submit to the tests this search requires. Our interest in art, for example, is not based on its power to throw light on the nature of the physical world. Nor should we expect religion to be a substitute either for geology or for history. But none of our experiences should be irrational in the sense of forcing us to adopt attitudes or beliefs that run counter to what our intellectual standards of consistency demand.” It may well be that our religious faith operates partly in a realm where scientific tests do not apply. But if this is so we must be clear in our own minds where and why they do not apply, and if we leave them behind we must know where to pick them up again. The standards of consistency by which reason works must never be lost sight of and when knowledge or true belief are in question they must always be employed.* Psychologically, if not 19 As Maritain will shortly contradict. Maritain's comment: “I have never thought that there was a sharp break between our intellectual and our other ac- tivities. I have pointed out that those particular intellectual activities which deal with speculative knowledge (either science or speculative philosophy) have their own criteria of truth quite independently of our practical activities, and cannot be judged by them. But our practical activities depend on our practical or moral philosophy, and our moral philosophy depends on our metaphysics (as well as on our knowledge in the sciences of nature and man).” 29 A superficial agreement will appear to exist between Bridgman, Stace and Bixler (but not Maritain) on this point, but this agreement is most general and the careful reader will find substantial divergences in detail and in the individual's interpretation of what is and what is not an “intellectual standard of consistency.” Maritain's comment: “Same observation as for footnote 19. I have never ad- mitted that philosophical knowledge or religious faith run counter to what our intellectual standards of consistency demand.’ On the contrary, my contention is that our intellectual standards of consistency demand recognition of and respect for science, philosophy and religious faith together.” * The position of some Catholics is quite different. On the highest matters “in- tellectual standards of consistency” are hardly invoked at all by them. This ap- pears sharply in a letter from the Reverend Casimir E. Paulonis of Lake Ronkon- koma, L.I., to The Tablet (Brooklyn, N.Y.), published on May 21. Father Paulonis writes at length about this panel and the M.I.T. Convocation, making much (as many writers to religious journals did) of the fact that M.I.T. was discussing such questions and drawing the inference that this meant there was uneasiness in “the temple of science.” The important thing, he said, relevant to the point under dis- cussion, was: “How true it is that a Catholic child well instructed in the Catechism pos- sesses greater truth than the learned philosopher or scientist lacking such knowl- edge. Without being facetious, M.I.T. might have included such a Catholic child J. Seelye Bixler 2O7 politically, we live in one world. On no other assumption can we keep our mental health or prepare ourselves for the colossal tasks that con- front us. This leads to the belief that we should be more careful in the dis- tinctions we draw within the intellectual life. As we have seen, science falls naturally into two parts—a body of knowledge and a method of inquiry. Often we talk today as though we were afraid of science. What we are actually afraid of, however, is the towering, mushroom- shaped body of accumulated fact which can so easily blast all our hopes to nothingness if used for the wrong purpose. Science as fact is neutral, with great possibilities for evil looming up behind its neutral- ity. As a method of inquiry, however, it can only be regarded as on the side of the angels and as offering a positive basis for hope. From its method there are at least three spiritual lessons to be learned.” The first is the need for integrity. Even the humblest scien- tific worker can hardly fail to see how futile is evasion or pretense. “Be sure your sin will find you out!” might well be inscribed over the laboratory door. If you try to fool the public, or even yourself, science tells us in effect, you may get away with it for a while, but sooner or later others in the field will catch up with you and they will expose your shame for all to see. Utter honesty is required in facing the facts and complete candor in weaving them into a consistent web. In science wishful thinking is exposed as the enemy of maturity it actually is. In the second place science is prepared to teach us the lesson that we seem to find hardest to learn—that is, how to coöperate. What ac- tivity in history offers a more striking illustration both of the need for agreement and of the ways in which it can be found? In the realm of science no man lives to himself alone. Not only does he build on the work of others. His own results must be checked and confirmed many times over before they can be accepted. Prejudice has to be eliminated. The scientific laborer must free himself of provincialism and must be ready to enter into the state of mind and accept the premises of his colleague no matter how far apart the two may be in temperament or in space. Science is the one discipline where disagreement simply can- in its program of speakers, if it honestly sought answers to these three fundamental questions.” * These spiritual lessons are frequently stressed in the writing of modern scien- tists. They are to be found in Compton's address at the Convocation (pages 25, 26), in Bridgman's text at this panel (page 282), and especially well formu- lated in an address by J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Second Arthur Dehon Little Memorial Lecture at M.I.T. in 1947, under the title of “Physics in the Contem- porary World.” This is quoted at length in Appendix E. 208 Science and Faith not be tolerated. In its world differences of opinion mean inadequacy. Presuppositions must be brought out into the open. Assumptions must be examined and criticized. For the scientist the truth lies in what is shared and disparity in belief or idea exists only to be overcome. [Bixler elaborated this extemporaneously: I think that after thousands of years of religion, and of preaching the Golden Rule, we have at last developed an intellectual method which teaches us one important way in which it can be practiced.] In the third place, science introduces us to what we can only call the Kingdom of Ends in themselves and so brings us at least to the threshold of religion. Thomas Henry Huxley described the attitude of complete humility before that which has a right to claim the last measure of devotion when he wrote to Charles Kingsley: “Sit down be- fore fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.” Here, as it seems to me, we face the dis- tinction the philosopher often makes between the instrumental and the intrinsic value, between that which is important because of some use we wish to make of it and that which lays a claim on us for what it is in itself. If we ask why we seek the truth I think we find two answers. We seek it because we want to use it, and we also seek it because as truth it ought to be sought. The case is like that of justice which is an ideal that we honor simply because it is justice and not because it is useful or pleasant. [Bixler expanded this when he spoke, as follows: In the same way sexual love, we say, originated in the animal need of getting another generation born, but now that it is here, the real reason for getting another generation born is that spiritual love may go on. In other words, there is an important distinction in life, I should say, between that which we value because it is useful, and that which we value because of the fact that in itself it lays down certain demands for us to follow. Truth, I think, is the most clearly recognizable of these intrinsic ends.] Is it not a fact that an exclusive concern with the usefulness of truth is characteristic of the earlier years either of the individual or of so- ciety? For the child and also for primitive man truth is important merely for what can immediately be obtained through it. But the mature mind sees it as important also for another reason. Often a boy 28 Leonard Huxley, Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley (London, Mac- millan and Co., Limited, 1900), Vol. 1, Ch. xv.1, page 219. See also Bridgman, page 230. J. Seelye Bixler 209 comes to college with the idea that the truth is something to be used for his immediate uncriticized purposes of the moment. Sometimes that same boy awakens in college to the purposes the truth has for him. When that occurs education has really done its job! In a memorable passage * in the Meno Plato makes Socrates ex- claim: “Some things I have said of which I am not altogether con- fident. But that we shall be better and braver and less helpless if we think we ought to inquire, than we should have been if we indulged in the idle fancy that there was no knowing and no use seeking to know what we do not know;-that is a theme upon which I am ready to fight, in word and deed, to the utmost of my power.”” “You cannot question my right to inquire,” Socrates here says in effect, “because if you try to, you assume the same right for yourself.” Freedom of inquiry is an unshakable ideal, made so by the rules of the mind themselves. The claim laid on us by truth is irresistible. You cannot avoid it; you can only submit to it humbly, as Huxley said, and find spiritual strength in doing so. Here, as I see it, science and religion meet, and art and ethics meet with them. Science as an intellectual activity has developed methods of inquiry which show the presence of an intrinsic value, a goal with its own inherent reasonableness, an end which does not point beyond itself for its justification. Religion is our response to just such an end. God, whatever else he may be, is a God whose claim on us is that of the value we cannot question. The claim is seen most clearly in the case of truth because of all our values it is truth whose demands are most sharply defined and inescapable. But the standards and methods of coherence which we find in the search for truth have only to be ex- tended and adapted to new material to apply in ethics and in art. Justice, as Plato taught, is the health of the state, or the coherent and integrated working of its parts. Beauty, in spite of the distortions and cacophonies to which the modern eye and ear are exposed, depends finally on a balance, rhythm and harmony in which mind and heart alike can find the peace that only wholeness brings. Instead of losing faith in science should we not, then, recover its religious implications?” Instead of either making merry or growing 24 Bixler says this quotation from Plato seems to him to represent the corner- stone of the liberal point of view in these matters. 25 The Dialogues of Plato, B. Jowett, ed. (New York, Oxford University Press, and London, Henry Frowde, 1892), Vol. II, p. 47, lines 102–107. 26 See also Appendix E. The difficulty is that the scientific method and the con- sequent consolations, whatever they may be, for those who follow it has not been demonstrably applicable to all problems and interests of men, nor has anyone 210 Science and Faith bitter over the futilities of reason should we not try to see more clearly what it requires? As Professor Whitehead has reminded us, whereas Ulysses shared his reason with the foxes, Plato shared his with the gods. Reason presents us with the fact of a claim made upon human life. It takes us into the presence of that which we worship and obey. In doing so it lifts us above the fragmentary attitudes and beliefs by which we are kept from realizing our basic unity as men. We know that our world cannot much longer continue half slave and half free, half rubble and half skyscraper, half starved and half surfeited.” We begin to have grave doubts whether it can continue half democratic and half totalitarian. A house divided against itself cannot stand, and a world which indulges too long in the pleasures of competitive seriously suggested that it can be; or that all those to which it cannot should no longer be recognized as problems or interests. The end result is that science may offer these consolations to its own priesthood, and may be suggestive to the rest; but it will give little consolation to non-scientists nor even to those scientists who feel the urge to get beyond the questions of science to the more troublesome ones of life. It is surely neither possible nor desirable that all humans shall become sci- entists. Many will, by this token, be denied the consolations not denied to the inept by previous religions. Hence as a universal basis for a new faith, science may leave something to be desired. Note how Maritain (page 223) categorically de- nies this opportunity to science. 27 Bixler’s remark has solid facts behind it. According to the figures of Mr. Colin Clark, more than one-half of mankind between 1925 and 1934 lived in countries with incomes equivalent to less than $200.00 per capita of their occupied popula- tion, while the corresponding incomes in the United States, New Zealand, Canada and Great Britain all averaged well above $1,000.00 [Colin Clark, The Conditions of Economic Progress (used with the permission of The Macmillan Company, New York), pages 53–58]. Four years after the second World War, toward the end of 1949, The New York Times published a map showing the distribution of food—or hunger—in the world. Countries consuming more than 2,700 calories of food per day for each person included the United States, Australia, the Argentine, Britain, Scandinavia, Switzerland, and others; the middling category of 2,100– 2,700 calories included many “Western” and “Eastern” bloc countries, among them France, Italy, Austria, Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, etc.; the substandard diet of 1,800–2,100 calories was shown as the average for Portugal, Yugoslavia, China, Colombia, Mexico and Southeast Asia; and the world's hun- griest countries, with an average food consumption of less than 1,800 daily calo- ries per person, were shown to be India, Japan, Algeria and the Philippines. The two lowest-fed categories included countries comprising more than one-half of mankind (The New York Times, Sunday, December 4, 1949, page E7). The same remarks could be made about many other resources, e.g., pounds of copper per capita, etc. The grave problems of food supplies and populations were discussed elsewhere at the Convocation, and Bixler's concern was echoed forcefully by Mudaliar (page 163). The strong spontaneous applause of the large American audience for the latter's appeal confirmed once again what Bixler had expressed, and Mudaliar had again appealed to, a deeply held sense of responsibility among the people of our country. * J. Seelye Bixler 211 struggle cannot endure. Whatever clues we can find to that which is valid above the competitive plane should be followed with all energy. Whatever steps our own limited and faltering reason can help us to take toward what is broad, humane and universal should be en- couraged with all enthusiasm. Science, we have indicated, is not merely science. Under one as- pect it is morality; under another it takes us to the threshold of re- ligion. This is of course not to say that morality and religion are merely science themselves. They contain many other ranges of experience which bring diverse attitudes into play. But between science and the others there can be no contradiction. The relations of the various fields must be supplementary. This leads us to ask whether as a practical measure we should not pay more attention to what so many of our leading scientists are today urging on us and should not force educa- tion to break down the lines of departmentalization it has allowed to grow up. Instead of merely biology, physics and chemistry, we have today bio-physics and physical chemistry. Similarly in the social sciences, instead of economics, government, psychology and sociology, we have concepts that refuse to fit into the accustomed grooves. The truly creative ideas come today from those who have by-passed the barriers between the individual disciplines and who, in addition to their mastery of one field of specialization, have been able to get the over-all view. One of our great tasks appears to be that of encouraging all efforts at synthesis in the learning process. Not only should there be no boundaries within the divisions of physical science and social science, but the walls between these two great fields must themselves be worn down. When we enter the laboratory the door that leads to the marketplace must not be permanently closed. Professor Whitehead, to quote him again, has left us in no doubt where he stood on this important issue. “The increasing departmentalization of universities during the past hundred years,” he said, “however necessary for ad- ministrative purposes—has tended to trivialize the mentality of the teaching profession.” ” The main thing, then, is that we should keep our nerve and as a means to this we should not allow ourselves to think that our ethical situation is essentially new. It is true that some of our inconsistencies are exposed more sharply than before. The results of greed and ig- 28 Alfred North Whitehead, Modes of Thought (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1988), page 178. - 212 Science and Faith norance are more painfully apparent to us than they were to our forebears. The abuse of our knowledge for acquisitive and competi- tive purposes stands out more clearly as the dangerous evil it is. But the present crisis may help us to see the whole-making and coöpera- tive instincts which are also part of our human heritage. The atomic age need not be an atomistic age. It is a fact that we are confronted with problems that seem terrifyingly new. But the laws of nature with which we must deal are the same laws we have always known and it is against their background that human life has always been lived. We should remember that the scientists and we ourselves are but parts of the same human race which with trial and error but also with some success has traveled the path of knowledge to the point where it now has a surprising degree of control over the physical world. In spite of failure and backsliding we have also succeeded in defining free inquiry as a goal in the world of the spirit and have developed habits of work and thought where the implications of this goal are being worked out. Difficult as are the times in which we live, and menacing as are some of the conditions that confront us, let us not forget that our heritage includes high achievement and that our pres- ence here in this institution is itself the result of years of successful effort. Men have always set before themselves aims that are worth- while. Some—let us thank God—have been realized. Institutions of learning have been established and maintained often in the midst of difficulties that appeared insuperable. Through persevering effort laboratories and workshops have unveiled many of the secrets that for centuries were hidden. We are ready now to reap the fruits of thou- sands of years of labor and we cannot believe that our own generation or those that follow will fail to see the job through. “Knowledge,” said Francis Bacon, “means power.” Knowledge rightly treated can also mean insight. Separated from questions of worth and value, knowledge remains deficient, but united with them it reveals our highest good. Immanuel Kant has borne witness to his own growth toward this idea in the following passage: “I am,” said Kant, “an investigator by inclination. I feel a great thirst for knowledge and impatient eagerness to advance, also satisfaction at each progressive step. There was a time when I thought that all this could constitute the honor of humanity and I despised the mob which knows nothing about it. Rousseau set me straight. This dazzling excellence vanishes. I learn to honor men, and would consider myself much less useful Walter Stace 213 than common laborers if I did not believe that this purpose could give all the others a value—to establish the rights of humanity.” ” ::: >k >k :k >k Dean Baker then introduced the second speaker, Walter T. Stace.” WALTER TERENCE STACE In these remarks, I shall refer to the modern age in our Western civilization; and by this I shall mean roughly the last three hundred years. The outstanding characteristic of this age is that all its think- ing about the world is dominated by the scientific spirit. In this respect it is something wholly new, something unique in the world's history. What has been the effect of this fact upon our general views of the nature of the universe, that is, upon our philosophies? I answer this question as follows. In all previous advanced cultures, we find the belief that the world is a moral order. Our culture, which once believed this too, is coming more and more to hold the opposite view, that the world is not a moral order.” And this, I think, is directly or indirectly due to the influence of science. I must try to say what is meant by this idea of the world being, or not being, a moral order. Everyone knows that human beings often try to do what is right, to aim at what is good. The belief that the world is a moral order is the belief that this human characteristic can be anthropomorphically transferred to the non-human world, to the universe at large. It appears in different civilizations in many different forms. Plato maintained that the universe aims at the form of the good. In Chris- tianity, Judaism and Islam, this supposed tendency of the world to- wards moral goodness is personified and called God. But the belief is not necessarily combined with theism. In Buddhism and Hinduism 29 Immanuel Kant's sāmtliche Werke (ed. G. Hartenstein), VIII (Fragmente aus dem Nachlass) (1867–68), page 624. The passage is here quoted in translation. Bixler said of this quotation, “It is not an argument but it suggests to me how natural the transition is from the interest in pure investigation and pure scientific research, to recognition of a moral value. This is Kant's comment on his own life.” 80 For a brief biography of Stace, see Biographical Notes, page 527. 81 An opinion held before, for example, by Lucretius, as Professor Stace noted in his original text. The distinction, he argued, is that in our age, and for the first time, it is becoming the dominant view; not a majority view, to be sure, but the view held by a comparatively small number of intellectuals who, in the end, he believes, dominate the mass mind. 214 Science and Faith it appears as the law of Karma, which is the law that every soul in the end receives its just deserts, if not in this life then in another. Although in Buddhism there are gods, or at least great spirits, they are not the source of the law of Karma. They are themselves subject to it. The law is a quite impersonal law of the universe, like the law of gravita- tion. This may count as a non-theistic form of the belief that the world is a moral order. In one form or another men have generally believed that somehow the universe is ultimately just. And the common cliché, that “truth must prevail in the end,” for which there seems little evidence, is perhaps just another expression of the view that the world is moral. In our Western culture this ancient human belief seems to me to be breaking down. Though the opposite view, that the world is not a moral order, may be very rarely explicitly stated, it is the background of much modern thinking. It is often expressed by saying that the universe is indifferent to our values. Again, the now frequently re- iterated assertion that morality is a human thing,” not a supernatural thing, implies this view. It is the common ground of all philosophies which style themselves “naturalistic.” It is also at the bottom of the commonly stated opinions of anthropologists, sociologists, psycholo- gists and many philosophers, that moral codes express nothing but human emotions and are consequently variable and relative. Moral predicates are then called subjective, which is another way of saying that the objective non-human world is not a moral order. How is science responsible for this revolutionary change of view? Perhaps in a very indirect way only. It is not that science proves that the world is not moral. Science as such is not concerned with values, and proves nothing of the sort. Nevertheless as a matter of history, it was the seventeenth century science which originally suggested this view to the modern mind by its insistence on mechanistic categories. Everyone has heard of Newton's world-machine. The world is like a clock, run by the laws of motion and the law of gravitation. That view may be out of date scientifically now; nevertheless, it has molded the modern mind. Now even if the world is like a clock, this does not prove that the world is not guided by a moral purpose. After all a clock, though it is a pure machine, carries out human purposes. But what happened was that the human mind, dazzled by the brilliant successes of science in explaining everything mechanically, saw no need for an additional teleological explanation. Since mechanical explanation seemed completely to account for the facts, there seemed no room left 32 Constantly reiterated by John Dewey. Walter Stace 215 for teleological explanation, which was accordingly simply jostled un- ceremoniously out of the human mind. This was scarcely logical, but it had its tremendous effect. If the world is not governed by purpose, it obviously cannot aim at a good purpose, in other words it is not a moral order. Although such a view does not strictly follow from science, but is only suggested by science, I think we have nevertheless to accept it on other grounds. To suppose that the world aims, as some human beings do, at noble ends, is plainly anthropomorphic.” And perhaps the chief ground for refusing to admit purpose in nature is simply that there is no evidence of it. The supposed evidences of design in the world turn out to be fallacious. And the phenomena of mysticism, of religious ex- perience, and the like, prove nothing to the point. Of course this last is no more than a dogmatic statement of my opinion, but I cannot be expected to give reasons for it in a fifteen-minute paper. Although we have to accept it, the belief that the world is not a moral order has had, and is having, very disturbing results. I am con- vinced that it is at the bottom of the moral chaos in the modern world. The point is that morality was supposed formerly to have religious, or at any rate metaphysical, foundations. These foundations have dis- appeared, for this is the meaning of saying that the world outside us is not a moral order; that morality is not founded in God, or in the uni- verse; that it is not objective, but subjective; that it is merely human. The result is that moral values, having lost their traditional founda- tions, seem to be crumbling. From the premise that morality is human the conclusion is drawn—wrongly as I think—that morality is merely relative, that what is right for one culture is wrong for another and therefore that there is no objective difference between right and wrong. The popular doctrine of the relativity of morals is merely a way of saying that morality has no foundation at all. This, translated from theory into action, is the creed of the Hitlers and the Mussolinis and the Stalins, who have destroyed or are destroying international mor- als.34 * See footnote 11, Chapter III. Does the world ecology, for example, need man at all? And if not, what price anthropomorphism? * In their professed philosophies, Mussolini defined Fascism as “relativism in action” [Relativismo e Fascismo (Milano, Diuturma, 1924), pages 374–7]. The other two men each asserted in their professed philosophies that morality did have a foundation. Hitler in Mein Kampf tried to base “German morality” on his assumption of a law of nature ordaining an inevitable struggle for survival be- tween “naturally” unequal peoples and races; Stalin and his followers base their “Marxist morality” on what they believe to be the laws of history. These last two 216 Science and Faith If this is the correct diagnosis of our disease, the direction in which we should attempt to find a cure is plain. The task of thought in our time as I see it, is to replace the lost religious and metaphysical founda- tion of morals by a secular and naturalistic foundation. And I do not believe that this is an impossible, or even a very difficult task. I will explain why. Is there not an obvious mistake in the thinking which has led us to this impasse? We have argued that if values are not based in the non-human world outside us, then they are not objective, they are just human and subjective. And this has seemed to us to mean that they are baseless. But why should they be baseless because they are founded in human, rather than non-human, nature? Is not human nature an objective reality? There are truths about human personal- ity—call them psychological truths if you like—just as truly as there are physical truths. There are, for instance, the laws of the association of thought, nowadays called the laws of conditioning. These psychologi- cal laws or principles are just as objective as the laws of physics. Now my contention is that what we call moral principles are simple principles of human personality, psychological laws, and are therefore perfectly objective. I think that the great moralists, such as Christ, Buddha, Confucius, were geniuses who discovered some of these prin- ciples about human nature. For instance, just as the scientists discov- ered that passing an electric current through water produces hydro- gen and oxygen, just as some agriculturist discovered that fertilizers produce larger and healthier plants, so the moralists discovered that such things as malice and hatred if widespread in human societies tend to produce misery, while such things as love, affection and unselfish- ness tend to produce joy, happiness, welfare and the like. Why is this principle branded as “subjective” while the principle that fertilizers produce healthy plants is admittedly objective? Apparently the root of this fallacy is a semantic confusion about the words “subjective” and “objective.” Psychological laws may be called subjective in the sense that the area of which they hold true is the area of “subjects,” that is minds, not the object of minds. They are truths about minds, not about the objects of minds. But truths about minds are just as ob- jectively true as truths about anything else. Emotions are subjective, ideologies assert, therefore, that there are definite answers to moral questions which can be discovered and which are binding even on the rulers of a State; but they disagree what these answers are, both with the liberal and conservative philosophies of the West, and with each other. Walter Stace 217 but psychological laws or statements or principles about emotions, if they are true at all, are objective truths.” Thus there is no difference in objectivity between the botanical statement that fertilizers tend to produce healthy plants and the psy- chological statement that malice and hate tend to produce unhappy human beings, love and affection happy ones. Nor is there in principle any difference as regards empirical verifiability. Both the results pro- duced by fertilizers and the results produced by malice or love are known in the same way—by observing the facts. And just as when an agriculturist says, “Fertilize your plants,” his advice has a solid founda- tion in known facts about plants, so when the moralist says “Love your neighbor,” his advice has a solid foundation in known facts about human beings.” Miss Ruth Benedict in her book—Patterns of Culture *—tells us that the Dobu Islanders disagree with this advice of Jesus Christ about loving your neighbor. They found their culture on treachery and ill- will. They act as if they supposed that treachery and ill-will are likely to produce the sort of society in which they will be most happy. Miss Benedict seems to conclude that treachery and ill-will are, for the Dobu Islanders, good. My own conclusion is that the Dobu Islanders are simply mistaken. They would find, if they could be induced to try, that good faith and goodwill would produce in their society a much happier state of affairs for them than exists at present. People are often mistaken about what is good for the health of their bodies. That is why we have doctors. And people are just as likely to be mistaken about what will be good for the happiness of their souls. That is why we have moralists. The Dobu Islanders need someone to correct their moral or sociological mistakes.” I have compared moral laws to scientific principles. In respect of objectivity they are entirely comparable, but in respect of precision of course they are not. Love and hate are vague concepts and they can never be reduced to mathematical equations. But love and hate are just as real and objective as oxygen and hydrogen; and they just as truly produce effects in the world. And to know these effects is just * These sentences admirably confirm Bridgman's later concern about semantics. ** One piece of advice may, of course, be easier to carry out than the other; the agriculturist can sometimes describe the fertilizer unequivocally. 87 Patterns of Culture (Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1984), page 180. 88 To some, this might have sounded like the voice of a British colonial admin- istrator. To others it might have recalled the voice of Socrates speaking to the citizens of Athens. 218 Science and Faith as much knowledge although it may never be capable of the precision of mathematics and physics.” Also we know much less about the laws of personality than we do about the laws of physics. This means that our moral knowledge is very elementary. But this is no reason for declaring that what knowl- edge we have is baseless. What we have to do is to advance in this knowledge. To sum up: My thesis is that morals were formerly believed to have supernatural or metaphysical foundations. This belief is disappearing, so that morals seem now to have no foundation. This has produced a crisis in the human spirit, a loss of moral faith. But this is all based on a mistake. Morals have a perfectly firm and objective foundation in human personality. If men can be brought to understand this, then moral faith may be restored. The problem is really one of education. >k :k :k >k :k Dean Baker then introduced Jacques Maritain.” JACQUES MARITAIN It is a fact that the Western World's consciousness is deeply troubled and divided. Obviously there is a problem: the crisis is first intel- lectual; its main symptom in this regard is not so much dogmatic ma- terialism as that kind of abdication of reason which makes man un- able to believe in anything but facts and figures and sense-data.” And the crisis is also moral—hence an incapacity for “continued common action at the highest levels of the human spirit.” I would say, as a preliminary remark, that the problem we are fac- ing, and which deals with the role of science and technology, this problem is twofold. It has to be examined in two different perspectives. The first perspective is the perspective of the intrinsic truth of the matter. Here we are concerned with a philosophical issue. The second perspective is the perspective of the historical state of our civilization, and of our human possibilities for recovery. Let us say that the issue we are facing then is a social issue. * This raises more questions for the philosophy of science. Can something be admittedly “vague” and “never . . . capable of . . . precision,” and yet “just as real and objective” as if it were; and have “effects in the world” which can be known and, presumably, measured? What is meant here by real? At which stage do vague forces change into precise “consequences”? How do we know that a specific “consequence” is connected with one vague cause and not with another? 40 For a brief biography of Maritain, see Biographical Notes, page 522. 41 I.e., “materialism” in the metaphysical sense. Jacques Maritain 219 The two issues just mentioned should not be confused. It might be possible, after all, that men become one day intellectually and morally bewildered beyond repair. Such a negative answer to the social issue would by no means change the realities that the philosophical issue has to take into account. What is true would remain true, what is false would remain false, even if the majority of men became unable to grasp it.” The philosophical issue is both speculative and moral. In the specu- lative field our first consideration must deal with epistemology. Sum- ming up a long inquiry about the nature and the various degrees of knowledge with which I have been concerned for years, I would say that there are two typically different noetic approaches to reality: the empiriological and the ontological approach.” What I call the ** Here, of course, Maritain is assuming an absolute—truth over and above what men find themselves able to verify on factual evidence; but Bridgman will say he does not know the meaning of such an assumption. 48 Noetic: Pertaining to intellectual knowledge. Roughly stated, ontology means the study of “being,” as distinct from sense appearances or “phenomena.” It seeks to know what each thing necessarily is, as distinct from the changing rela- tionships it may happen to be mixed up in at any one time. The necessary char- acteristics of a thing together form, in this view, its essence: they make it what it is, they determine its identity, its intrinsic nature. Those aspects of a thing which are not “essential” are its “accidents” which surround its nature and together make up the conditions of its existence. The essence of a thing or an organism determines not only what it will be like at any moment (e.g., an acorn), but also what will become of it (e.g., an oak), i.e., how its intrinsic nature will unfold itself in development toward its fully realized form or goal. Telos is Greek for “goal,” and Aristotle invented the name “entelechy” for this goal-directed factor of development activating the potentialities given in the thing's or organism's inner nature. “A puppy grows up by becoming more doggy, not less,” as G. K. Chesterton put it in his book on St. Thomas Aquinas (New York, Sheed and Ward, Inc., 1933), page 18. Essences, in this view, are much more worth knowing than “accidents,” and since physical investigation cannot reliably distinguish between the two, this knowledge must be found by “metaphysics,” i.e., by non-physical methods. These methods, according to the Thomistic school of philosophy to which Maritain be- longs, rest on “basic intellectual intuitions” which deal with being, the first object “seen” by the intellect in sense experience, and are connected and extended by reasoning grounded on most general, philosophically established factual data. Mari- tain thinks that these primary intellectual insights necessarily result from the impact of objective reality upon the human mind, though they can be conceptual- ized in a more or less right or wrong manner by the various metaphysical systems. Ontology promises, therefore, knowledge which will be important, coherent, reliable, clear to intuition, logic, and common sense. The contrasting approach of “empiriology” is described in Maritain's text and elaborated in Chapter IV of his book, Les Degrés du savoir (Paris, Desclée De Brouwer, 1982). Proponents of empiriology insist that this latter approach is also a work of the intellect, and includes not only the evidence of sense impressions, i.e., changes in nervous tissue, but also that of impersonal recording devices; and it is concerned 220 Science and Faith empiriological approach tends somehow to the epistemological ideal described by Logical Positivism. Concepts and definitions—let us say, for instance, the Einsteinian definition of simultaneity—are resolved in the observable and measurable as such, that is, in the last analysis, in sense data (sense readings of measuring instruments) upon which a system of signs and symbols, especially mathematical entities, is to be built. The explanatory value of that system depends on the veri- fication of its conclusion by experience. Any judgment has meaning only to the extent that it refers to sense observation and expresses the experimental ways through which it can be verified. On the contrary, in the ontological approach, concepts and defini- tions—think for instance of the Aristotelian definition of change *— in the ontological approach, concepts and definitions are resolved in being, and express intelligible objects that abstractive visualization brings out from experience. The truth of the assertions thus established rests in the last analysis on basic intellectual intuitions, especially the first self-evident principles, such as the principles of identity, of uni- versal intelligibility, of causality, finality, etc. Now I would say that the empiriological approach is peculiar to science. I mean psychological and social sciences as well as physics or biology. Scientific theories deal with the observable and measurable as such, not with “being” grasped in its own intelligibility.” with the structure of relations between different kinds of data rather than with data from any single source. Thus one might define an “empiriological” approach as one which uses data derived from sense impressions and physical operations of measurement corrected by any system of standardized calculating rules—such as systems of logic or geometry—so that both observations and calculations can be accurately repeated by any competent investigator. Maritain would insist that, “In this type of knowledge the conditions of observation and measurement of the object play an essential and necessary part as regards the very definition of things—and the ex- planation proceeds by means of laws or regularities linking together entities which have meaning only with respect to the determined methods through which phe- momena are observed and measured. Einsteinian physics is, in my opinion, the most enlightening example of this type of knowledge.” 44 “The act (entelechy) of what exists potentially, insofar as it exists poten- tially” (Aristotle, Physics, Bk. III, ch. 1, 201 a 10). “The act (entelechy) of what is potential as potential” (ibid., 201 b 4). For “entelechy” see also the preceding footnote. * In the subsequent discussion, quite a skirmish developed over this statement which separates “being” from measurable facts about the object. See particularly Stace's comments (page 240). Maritain's comment: “In order to avoid misunderstanding, I should like to make clear that I mean to distinguish, not to separate being from measurable facts about the object. (My motto is “To distinguish in order to unite.”) Every intellectual knowledge, scientific as well as philosophical, deals with being. But scientific Jacques Maritain 221 On the contrary, the ontological approach is peculiar to philosophy and metaphysics. They deal with being and the intelligible structure of things, not with the mathematical or experimental explanation of phenomena. Though through quite other ways, religious faith also looks at things in an ontological (or even supra-ontological) perspective. Because science is at work on a specifically different plane of knowl- edge, science, while progressing ad infinitum in the knowledge of things, will never propose any answer or pose any question dealing with the specific object with which ontological or philosophical knowledge is concerned. - We can advance endlessly in our knowledge of the ocular apparatus and the nerve centers of vision, but the question “what is sensation” will always depend upon another order of knowledge. We can advance endlessly in our knowledge of the chemical constitution or the physi- knowledge deals with being only insofar as being appears to the senses and to the sense reading of measuring instruments, and thus is the ground upon which a system of explanatory constructed entities (entia rationis cum fundamento in re, especially mathematical entities) is founded. Philosophical knowledge deals with being itself, insofar as its essential structures are grasped by the intellect.” This argument about “being” is a very old one. Consider, for example, the case of William of Occam who died about 1850. This Franciscan monk was the leader, or at least a principal participant, in a revolt of the Franciscans against Pope John XXII at Perugia. He was imprisoned for heresy in the Papal Palace at Avignon for 17 weeks and, escaping, went to Munich where he aided in the con- test waged by the King of Bavaria with the papal curia. Occam is perhaps most famous for a saying known as “Occam's razor” which says, “Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem” but he also led a good deal of discussion against the medieval philosophies which had been based on Platonic realism. Occam held that the destructive effect of his principles theo- logically would not destroy faith. A very good statement on the point at hand was made by Prof. F. G. Young on a Third Programme broadcast of the British Broadcasting Corporation: “Medieval Platonists, and in particular St. Augustine, held that abstract terms such as ‘whiteness’ or ‘bedness', that is the quality of possessing the properties we normally attribute to a bed, stood for something having existence apart from that of any white object or of any particular bed. To such philosophers the idea expressed in the abstract term was the only reality worthy of serious consideration. This view we may call idealistic realism'. The nominalist view developed by Occam and his followers held, on the other hand, that abstract or universal terms are terms without any corresponding reality—that is they do not exist except within the mind, and serve not only for the purposes of classification but also for other mental processes involving judgment. To the Occamist the white object or the bed on which he lay was the reality and the legitimate and primary object of consideration, not the abstract concept of ‘whiteness’ or ‘bedness’”. The Listener, December 15, 1949, page 1089. Maritain insists that Thomistic epistemology is as opposed to Platonic or idealist realism as to nominalism. 222 Science and Faith ology of the human being, or even in his psychology empirically con- sidered, but the question “has man a spiritual soul” will always depend upon another order of knowledge. After these preliminary remarks, my contention is that science and technology, considered in their very natures, are by no means re- sponsible for the intellectual crisis of our time. They accomplish in their own sphere their specific task, which not only practically and as to the mastery over nature but also speculatively and as to the knowledge of truth, gives testimony to the greatness of the human spirit. Neither does that task impair the workings of the human spirit in its other domains, nor entail by itself any kind of materialism. What is responsible for the crisis is the impact of the prodigious development of science in modern times on human reason's myth- making suggestibility and natural lust for facility. Common conscious- ness was to expect from science the solution to every problem, and to mistake the progress of science for the advent of a new metaphysics and religion. First of all, philosophers were either to construct pseudo- metaphysics that were but spurious extrapolations of science, like universal mechanism or monistic evolutionism, or to betray philosophy in repudiating metaphysics, assuming that what has no meaning for the scientist has no meaning at all, and making reason a mere opera- tor of sensory devices. Science has not been responsible; it has been but a per accidens occasion for that process of deterioration of philosophical reason, and science itself provides a remedy. First because it preserves and treas- ures, on its own level, the sense of truth and of rational objectivity.” Second, because—despite the deontologized or merely phenomenal- ist character of science made—science in the making, I mean the pio- neering scientist, the great discoverer, the man of vision, who renews scientific concepts, is quickened by a power of poetic insight and a thirst for being that science itself cannot satisfy, and which incite him toward questions that are beyond the scope of science: determinism and freedom, matter and spirit, the origin and destiny of the universe, the existence of God. In this connection we must pay great and respectful attention to the experience of many contemporary scientists who have been led by their meditation upon science either into the philosophical or the religious realm. Yet one cannot properly answer philosophical ques- tions without genuine philosophical equipment. The next step for such * This description of science appears in one guise or another in every paper; as a point of agreement it almost furnished a motif for the panel. Jacques Maritain 223 scientists is to become themselves philosophers, and to recognize the autonomous sphere of philosophical truth. Thus a serious possibility exists that a reconciliation of science and wisdom may be achieved in a number of minds. Far from being im- possible, this reconciliation is in line with the deepest aspirations of our time. But as to our civilization as a whole this would require in our contemporaries a vigor and range of intellect the probability of which seems to be questionable. Let us pass now to the moral field: Science and technology provide us with means. The determination of the human ends for which those means are to be used presupposes knowledge of what is man and what is the meaning of human life, and this is not the job of science and technology, but of metaphysics, ethics and religion. Science and technology—precisely because they are not concerned with the values, ends and standards of the human life as a whole, are not in a position to make the means which they provide man serve good rather than evil purposes, peace rather than war, emancipation rather than enslavement of mankind. Science cannot eat the cake and have it. It enjoys a great privilege with respect to the unquestionability of its results and to its power of making agreement between minds, namely the privilege of being a merely factual knowledge. It cannot go beyond the factual. Science and technology, considered in their very nature, are not responsible for the moral crisis of our time, nor for the destructive or besotting and dehumanizing use we are making of the means that they put in our hands, nor for the civilization, technocratic in type, which worshippers of technology wish to prepare for us. What is responsible for the crisis is greed and will to power, and the temptation to which the kind of an omnipotence meted out by science and technology gives rise in the human race, which has not yet succeeded in submitting to reason the behavior of man, espe- cially collective man. Thus the human person is threatened today with all-pervading slavery, not through the fault of science, but through that of the enlarged power granted by science and technology (that is, by reason mastering natural phenomena) to human foolishness. The moral problem thus faced by the scientist, his sense of responsi- bility toward the human community, his realization of the fact that mankind equipped with technology cannot survive without ethical wisdom, are making for him the rediscovery of the true ends and supreme standards of human life a matter of emergency. Such a re- 224 Science and Faith discovery cannot be brought about by science itself, as I just put it, but by ethical awareness and ethical philosophy, and religious faith. Especially moral philosophy has to make clear, against some logical positivists and so-called theorists of values, that moral values and standards can be the object of intrinsically true assertions, established not by scientific but by philosophical reason. So a trend is developing within the scientific world toward a wisdom and a spiritual unification of man that are beyond the scope of merely scientific work. Where it is a question of moral recovery, not only reason but all the highest spiritual activities in man must be called to work. As Bergson put it, the world's body, now larger, calls for a surplus of soul, so that the mechanical and the mystical summon one another. In other terms, technology can really perform its task of human liberation only if the sense of inner freedom and contemplative love is made by the Gospel's inspiration to play a leading part in the new industrial civilization. Coming now to what I have called the social issue: Since science's competence extends to observable and measurable phenomena, not to being itself in its own intellectually perceivable constitution, and to the means, not to the ends of human life, it would be nonsense to expect that the progress of science will provide men with a new type of metaphysics, ethics or religion.” The development of the scientific spirit, and the progress of science and technology, im- prove in an invaluable manner the inner, intellectual and moral, as well as the external and material equipment of human life. Yet it is up to ontological knowledge, not to science, to judge of the values, norms and ends which make human life simply good or bad. However important and indispensable the action of ideas, of philo- sophical understanding and religious enlightenment may be for the destiny and possible recovery of the world, the issue, as soon as it is a question of the collective life of men and of the attitude of mass consciousness, the issue shifts for a considerable part from the realm of truth to be known to the realm of historical and social achievements to be attained. Thus, by a kind of pseudomorphosis, problems which in themselves are philosophical or spiritual become posed in or trans- posed into social terms. If man were to lose terrestrial hope in the Gospel, I am afraid our hope in a spiritual recovery of civilization would be doomed to disappointment. 47 There could be dispute about this statement; some would assert that the progress of Science has already provided new types; whether science itself has so done may be quite a different question. Percy Bridgman 225 Will the progressive transformation of society that we are facing today be able to manifest the power of freedom and justice and of spiritual energies by securing both the technological structure of our emergent civilization and its supra-technological guiding inspiration, the organization of the world and the individual liberty as well as the autonomy of groups starting from the bottom, the accession of new classes to ownership and power and the freedoms claimed by science and intelligence in quest of truth, as well as by the word of God in quest of human hearts? If the efforts made toward such an historical ideal are to succeed, a general recovery can be expected, extending to the highest functions of the human spirit. If those efforts are to be a failure, a general worsening in our spiritual condition is to be expected—whatever the winners in the political game may be—with a general domination of materialism and a general enslavement of the human person. Then truth and the high requirements of art and poetry, science and philos- ophy, religion and spirituality, would continue to be served but in the catacombs of human history, and under the conditions of a suffering Diaspora. >k >k >k >k >k Dean Baker then remarked: “It seems I sense a difference of opinion already expressed, and if I know our last speaker at all, I think there will be still more difference. It is these differences that make life interesting and make our search for truth more exciting. Professor Bridgman.” PERCY WILLIAMS BRIDGMAN The connotation of the words of our official topic, namely, “Science, Materialism and the Human Spirit” in their background of usage in modern society, is not, I think, altogether a pleasant one. In certain circles, at least, science is regarded as devoid of emotional elements, coldly logical and completely materialistic, while materialism is a term of opprobrium for a brand of philosophy which sees nothing beyond the world of the senses and is callously indifferent to the higher things of the spirit. Since science is coming to play such a large role in modern life, it is important to examine the justification for this widespread feeling that science is in some way inimical to a realization by man of the highest within him. Such an examination demands in the first place a clear understand- ing of the meaning of the terms science and materialism. “Human 48 For a brief biography of Bridgman, see Biographical Notes, page 515. 226 Science and Faith spirit” might perhaps be thought to be most in need of definition, but I think a certain vagueness is tolerable here. We can get along with the negative qualification that I shall not use “human spirit” with any extranatural connotation, and in particular do not imply the existence of a soul in the sense of the theologian or make any commitments with regard to a future life. But “science” requires clarification because we shall be concerned with a wider range of human activity than is often covered by the accepted usage of “scientific.” “This is often restricted to imply the physical and biological sciences, whereas we shall want to cover psychology and the social sciences. Even more generally, I shall want to cover in this discussion all those activities to which the word “intelligent” is applicable, regarding science as only a special case of the exercise of intelligence in special fields. Some may want to use intelligence with a wider connotation than I shall employ here; my use of it in the sense that intelligence becomes identical with science in certain fields sufficiently indicates the sort of restriction I have in mind. Perhaps it would be better to qualify it by saying “nat- ural intelligence.” Some people, for example, might say that conscience as the voice of God is a form of intelligence; it is usage like this that I am trying to exclude.” 49 Maritain also includes them (page 241); note also Bixler’s plea (page 211) to break down the walls between the social and the natural sciences. This process is evolving. Some modern natural science, as Bridgman will shortly say, is being forced to statistical methods; instrumentation from natural science has increasing value for some kinds of social science laboratory work. It is no longer an anomaly that serious scholarship in economics, psychology, sociology, political science or history should exist among the faculties of an institution which is primarily dedi- cated to technological studies, an institution such as M.I.T. 50 When Bridgman defined science in terms of “natural intelligence,” his listen- ers might have thought of such accepted meanings of “intelligence” as “under- standing.” [Concise Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford University Press, 1934), page 594; cf. “intellect”—“faculty of knowing and reasoning,” ibid.] To “under- stand,” in turn, has been translated as to “grasp mentally, perceive the signifi- cance or explanation or cause or nature of, know how to deal with.” (Ibid., page 1850.) In all these cases, “intelligence” seems to involve thought, i.e., the abstracting of symbols from the outside world, followed by their storage, recombination and recall, and their reapplication to new observations or actions in the outside world. If all thought follows this general description, reason has the added char- acteristic that as many of these operations as possible are standardized so as to be repeatable and retraceable by the thinker himself at some later time, or by others. The fact that certain concepts and certain rules of counting, thinking or calculating have been standardized and made retraceable, however, says nothing about their ability to predict correctly events in physical nature. Science then, in- volves the selection of those rational procedures which lead to predictions about the outside world which can be verified by observation and experiment. It follows from this, that “natural intelligence” is a broader concept than “sci- Percy Bridgman 227 Turning now to “materialism”: this has had a special implication in traditional usage, and originally was associated with a mechanical theory of the construction of the universe.” At one time materialism involved a very special mechanical hypothesis, namely that the uni- verse could be explained in terms of the actions on each other of particles endowed with mass and exerting forces on each other which were knowable and which presumably in the last analysis could be re- duced to inverse square forces. This special thesis was abandoned when the significance of the electromagnetic field equations was properly appreciated, and was presently replaced by the less re- ence,” and even than “reason.” It includes all forms of thought, including the unstandardized and perhaps irretraceable mental steps by which a scientist gets his first “hunch,” “intuition” or “notion” of a new discovery—steps very different from the orderly mathematical proof or exposition by which he will communi- cate later his findings to his colleagues. But it includes a limiting commitment, too: to make the results of all mental operations as communicable as possible at any time, to subject them to the tests of reason and observation wherever possible, and to assume that in principle such communication and testing are possible and desirable in all fields of knowledge. 51. This definition of “materialism” is hardly satisfactory and certainly much too limited historically. Most philosophers would understand materialism to be a theory which believes that all the facts of the universe can be explained in terms of matter or motion; of course new notions of matter and motion could expand the notion of materialism, but this would seem to be a quibble; it would attempt to explain all psychical matters by physical and chemical changes. There have been many forms of materialism. One, unkindly called “naïve materialism” has frequently intrigued scientists, such men as Huxley or Haeckel (monism). From this doctrine Bridgman, on the evidence of this address, is not entirely free. It arises from the difficulty people have in dealing with immaterial matters, as, for example, the consciousness. Materialism began long before any understanding of gravitational attraction. There were, for example, both pre-Socratic and pre-Aristotelian versions in Greece. It had great vogue in the eighteenth century in France and in Germany from 1850–1880. The mechanistic philosophy of Descartes, who excluded any explanation which was not scientifically verifiable, lent great impetus to material- ism against the Church; and the German philosophy of the nineteenth century was particularly directed against Hegel, although it remained dominated by him; it is indeed from Hegel (“Hegelian left”) that contemporary materialism derives. To this day materialism is a tendency which seems to harmonize with the internal principles of natural science. As such it is not a term of opprobrium, even within the limitations of science; and without these limitations only to those who seek other guidance. If one passes from the definitions of metaphysics into ethics the term may con- tain more reproach; for here it means that consideration of material well-being, particularly of the individual himself, should rule in the determination of con- duct. This ethical attitude has no relation to the scientific attitude. It was in the ethical rather than in the metaphysical sense that the term was used in the pro- gram. At the end of the paragraph, however, and regardless of his definition of materialism, Bridgman does derive the historical dualism with science and goes on to make use of this linkage. See also footnote 52. 228 Science and Faith strictive thesis that the explanation of the universe could be reduced to the action on each other of particles and their fields of force. Even this more general picture is now superseded with the advent of the Heisenberg principle of indetermination and other still more recent developments, so that I doubt whether a physicist today would know whether the epithet “materialistic” was properly applicable to his subject or not.” We might therefore, if we were captious, take the position that materialism is a dead issue and refuse to discuss our pro- posed topic. But it seems to me that there was indeed a point of view underlying the old science-materialism dualism which survives and inspires present-day science, and it is to this transformed older idea in its present dress that I would like to direct your attention. It seems to me that what survives from the old point of view is the resolve by scientists and by many other people of intelligence to carry through to the utmost the program of dealing with the universe by the methods of intelligence alone, without resorting to methods which might be roughly described as mystical or supernatural.” I think it 52 The concept of “matter” has of course changed with the changes in science and technology. In early times, “matter” meant “substance,” something like the clay which is there before a vessel is shaped from it and after it is broken; or like the metal which may be shaped into a ring and melted down again. Perhaps we could say that “form” was what were those aspects of a thing which disappeared to the extent to which a thing was changed, and “matter” was what remained through all observed changes. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, “materialists” thought of this remaining “matter” as “mass” rather than as sub- stance, or as a collection of tiny pebble-like “atoms” or “corpuscles” obeying the laws of Newtonian mechanics. Some writers have noted that the conversion of matter into energy in modern physics deprives materialism of its foundations. On the other hand, twentieth century “materialists” such as the so-called “dialectical materialists,” have professed their willingness to accept the “electric theory of matter” and the convertibility of matter into energy, insisting on no other char- acteristic for matter except that it should “exist” independently of any observer. Perhaps all these usages still agree in using the word matter to emphasize the persistent remnants of any dissolved combination, or the antecedent elements of any new recombination; in short, all those aspects of any collection which are not information, and which therefore neither perish nor originate within our range of observation. Much of modern physics deals not with “matter” or “matter-energy” in this sense, but with processes or “states” of matter which can change and dis- appear, but which cannot easily be called “immaterial”; that crystals, storms and flames are processes of this kind seems generally agreed. Whether life or thought can be analyzed as such self-modifying patterns, or whether they contain some special ingredients inaccessible to scientific observation, is still in controversy. * This is the approach which footnote 63 of Chapter Iv refers to as diffi- cult for many of Mudaliar's countrymen to accept. Where theory or a mystic property has a greater ingrained importance than a physical object, it is possible to misread data to fit the theory; this which would be dishonest in Western science, is perhaps the only possible honesty for a mystic; yet if pursued it is in- Percy Bridgman 229 will be agreed that scientists as scientists are committed to carrying through such a program. I propose as the question for our examination to find what the implications and the reactions of such a commitment by the scientist are on the human spirit. Is the human spirit restricted by such a commitment, and if so are the restrictions onerous or degrad- ing? I shall discuss this subject under two headings: In the first place, what are the demands made on the human spirit in accepting such a commitment, and in the second place, what are the reactions on the human spirit resulting from carrying through the commitment to the extent to which present-day science has already carried it? Acceptance of the commitment to exclusive use of the methods of intelligence is itself an act of intelligence.” For we are not here con- evitable that the pursuer is likely to discover some scientific untruths with the subsequent penalties described by Bixler, page 207. Yet one must be sure to note that Bridgman's term “intelligence” is a large one (see footnotes 50, 54, 65) and hardly to be limited to knowledge ob- tained by experimental research. Many scientific leaders and engineers are quoted on this point by C. J. Freund in his article, “Engineering Education and Freedom from Fear,” The Journal of Engineering Education, September 1949, pages 11 et f. For example, ASEE Committee on Academic Tenure, Professional Service and Responsibility: “The physical sciences have been exceedingly fruitful in engineering technology; so far they have been equally sterile in the technology of human conduct.” Edmund W. Sinnott: “To many it (application of science) seems the only road which it is safe to follow. But there is a wide terrain into which this newest high- way of the mind can never penetrate, a country where are found the rich facts of experience—subjective, primary, immediate; our emotions, desires, purposes, values, feelings of beauty and ugliness, of right and wrong, of love and hate.” Arthur Holly Compton: “Yet it is a narrow view to say that we should live only by that which can be subjected to scientific tests.” Explicitly asked whether he would say that the methods of intelligence should exclude all the evidence of the emotions, Bridgman replied, “Certainly not.” 54. One needs to be quite careful of definitions here. Do the methods of intelli- gence exclude all the evidence of the emotions? Bridgman says “Certainly not.” Do they require that music be defined in terms of decibels, frequencies, tempos, and of the mechanical psychology of the ear; or that music must be excluded until the science of communication unravels the brain process? Must the same things be said for art? This never becomes entirely clear in what follows. Any neglect of which the speaker may be guilty is perhaps salvaged by his statement later that the conclusion as to the method of intelligence, though open to debate, is to be taken as axiomatic for his discussion. If we accept the analysis of the concept of “intelligence” suggested in footnote 50, however, “intelligence” would include the results of emotion, intuition and artistic creation wherever they contribute to the growth of verifiable knowledge. The history of science records many cases where understanding was advanced by fruitful concepts or suggestions which were first arrived at by mental proc- esses which themselves were not clearly understood. The detailed understanding of every step is more characteristic of the securely held areas of consolidated sci- entific knowledge than it is of the forays into the unknown at its growing edge where man's vision may far outreach his grasp. 230 Science and Faith cerned with the acceptance of arbitrary limitations for their own sake, as when one composes a crossword puzzle on a pattern of his own creation. We accept the commitment to the use of the methods of intelligence because that seems to us, from all the evidence at present in hand, to be the only method which has any prospect of successfully accomplishing the purpose of the scientist, which may be broadly described as understanding. The judgment that this is the only method has come from a detailed examination of all the evidence in that spirit of impersonal detachment which is usually described as “scientific.” This is not the place for argument as to the validity of the conclusion, but for our present discussion we should take this conclusion as given. In reaching this conclusion we have not allowed ourselves to be influ- enced by what it might be pleasant to believe, but have subjected ourselves voluntarily to a single supreme control, the control of agree- ment with the facts. In the face of a fact there is only one possible course of action for the scientist, namely acceptance, no matter how much the fact may be at variance with his anticipations, and no matter what havoc it may wreak on his carefully thought-out theories. In the face of the fact, the scientist has a humility almost religious.” The commitment of the scientist to the program of intelligence does not involve a blind commitment to a special “belief” about the struc- ture of the universe, nor does it constitute an act of “faith” on his part, although it is often stated that the scientist, as well as the mystic, can- not get along without his articles of faith, in this case faith in the ex- istence of uniform laws of nature. It seems to me that for the scientist faith can be no virtue, because it is inconsistent with the resolution to accept the fact as supreme. If it is accepted that the object of the sci- entist is to discover the laws of nature, as is often stated, it is perhaps justifiable to claim that the scientist, by the very form of this formula- tion, proclaims his belief that there are laws of nature before they have been established, and that this belief without adequate evidence is by definition an act of faith. But the scientist cannot commit himself in advance of the evidence even to the thesis that nature has laws. A more careful formulation of an objective of science is that it is to *The last words are very interesting. Scientists have talked a great deal about humility of late, and they are right to do so. But there are many kinds of hu- mility. A mountaineer feels it before a great peak, and not because of his knowl- edge of geology or any reproducible fact of the mountain; a seaman has it on the Ocean; an airman sometimes in the air; a painter before a sunset; and so on. Are these inexplicable humilities, these sentiments or emotions, less important or less ennobling than humility before “facts”? In this matter of humility, see also Mari- tain, page 242. The adjective “religious” is also interesting here. Percy Bridgman 231 discover in nature those regularities which exist, with certainly no commitment as to how far these regularities will be found to extend.” It seems to me that the exercise of faith is mostly a psychological device which makes it easier to carry through a program of action without continually reminding oneself that the program was adopted only because it was the program which seemed to have the greatest probability of success, or even, indeed, because it was the only pro- gram which was at all possible in the circumstances. It seems to re- quire an unusual fortitude to be able to carry through a program in the clear-eyed recognition that we are doing it because some action is necessary * and there is nothing else to do, without help from the belief that we shall be successful. Many of the situations of daily life are of this character, and faith has survival value in enabling us to carry on. But this need not restrain us from analyzing what faith in- volves, or from realizing that faith is not for the scientist when he is pushing his analysis as far as possible and making his analysis as articulate as possible. Neither do I think that when he has made the analysis he will feel a sense of spiritual loss in his inability to perform acts of faith in the conventional sense, but will rather have a feeling of spiritual attainment in that he has made a step forward in his adjust- ment to things as they are.” The resolution to accept the fact as the supreme arbiter is not neces- sary. We might prefer, as does the mystic, to live in the world of fact only insofar as we are compelled by physical necessity, and to live as much as possible in a world of our own free construction. It is true that the mystic, in so doing, runs the risk of encountering certain prac- tical inconveniences. I believe, however, that the refusal of the scientist to follow the mystic, and his resolution to submit himself to the disci- pline of the actual, is founded on something much deeper than con- siderations of convenience, and involves emotional components and value judgments which touch the human spirit. The scientist finds something abhorrent and unclean in a willingness to live in a con- * But what impelled the scientist to formulate this objective other than a “faith” that discovering the regularities in nature, insofar as they exist, is worth doing at all? Engineers and the general public might find this justification with- out faith in the historical record that “useful” applications have come from the discovery of these regularities. But the scientist, if he is to insist upon the amorality of the regularities, must also regard it as indifferent whether a “useful” applica- tion ensues from the establishment of a new regularity, and indeed this is the professed attitude of “pure” science. 57 If not by faith, how would we know that “some action is necessary”? * That many scientists have arrived at this feeling seems unquestionable. 232 Science and Faith structed world. For this feeling, no completely rational justification is possible.” Although no rational justification can be found, it is nevertheless possible to analyze out several components which make more understandable the willingness of the man of science to submit himself to this discipline. There is in the first place the intellectual challenge of the problem of adapting oneself to the external world and finding the explanation of it. This problem is enormously more difficult than the problem of constructing a world in which one may live by oneself. The joy which every true scientist feels in accepting the challenge of difficulty is, I think, not without spiritual elements. Then there is the consciousness of integrity which is the gift of the intellectual honesty that dares to discover the correct answer irrespective of personal discomfort. This consciousness of integrity abides with the scientist and is, I think, one of his most precious compensations. Finally, by voluntarily making himself the complete slave of the fact, the scientist has at the same stroke won complete freedom for himself in all other respects.” For if the fact is to be supreme, there must be no limitations on the methods by which facts are discovered, but there must be complete freedom, unfettered by extraneous considerations of any sort. There are here obviously two freedoms, an inner freedom and an outer freedom. Maximum efficiency in the output of the scientist demands that he have as much outer freedom as possible. This outer freedom comes from society; it may involve financial support and support by public opinion, or it may be denied by political compulsion. But however much society may be able to control the outer freedom of the scientist, it is powerless to touch the inner freedom of his thoughts. Once he has seen the vision, the consciousness of inner freedom abides with him, a companion of the consciousness of integrity, and is no less his solace and his strength. For him, the words of the scripture take on vital meaning, “The truth shall make you free.” " Having examined some of the spiritual implications of the commit- ment of the scientist to his program, we turn to a consideration of some of the consequences of the new insights which have been acquired in carrying out the program thus far. I believe that the most important aspects of these new insights are connected with a 59 Does not this in effect say there is some article of faith in the pursuit of science? 60 A very important point which supports Bridgman's final conclusion. See also Bixler on these components (page 207). 61 John viii:32. Percy Bridgman 233 realization of man's true intellectual position in the world, and it is to these that I shall confine my attention. One of the new insights is a growing realization of the importance of semantics to our whole intellectual enterprise.” The origin of this realization was in the experience of physics with the theory of relativ- ity, but the full sweep of the implications is, I believe, not realized even yet. The paradoxes of relativity theory were found to be associ- ated with imprecisions in the meanings of such common-sense words as mass and length and time. The tacit assumption of common sense, that the intuitive uncritical meaning of these terms was adequate for describing nature, was refuted by the discovery of unexpected experi- mental facts. When the meaning of such a term as length, for example, was made by Einstein precise enough to deal with the physical situ- ation, it was found that the meaning was not unique, but multiple, and not consistent with a common-sense treatment. The physical world proves too complex to be dealt with by common sense. We are coming to see that the situation is similar in a much wider setting, as indeed it would be a miracle if it were not, consider- ing the uncritical and haphazard way in which the whole apparatus of common-sense thinking has evolved. We see that many of the mis- understandings and failures of everyday human relations are to be laid to imprecisions in meanings. This is particularly true in the field of abstractions and of religion. For instance, the single concept of “truth” is not precise enough to do the work that we want to do with * The philosophers and the metaphysicians and the poets would seem to have observed this well before the physicists; and the introduction of the relativity ex- ample, so interesting, hardly establishes the notion that physics discovered the importance of semantics. Note, for example, the care with which such philosophers as Spinoza established definitions with which one must concur before the argu- ment can proceed. Arguments, of course, frequently centered around the defini- tions themselves. In this case science seems to be moving toward the difficulties of other forms of thought, rather than the converse. One possible difference, how- ever, might rest in the undermining of the reliability of everyday language. Defini- tions in earlier times often were based on words taken from everyday life; their meaning had been derived from the experiences of that life, which included science and technology insofar as they had become generally accepted. Much of the every- day language is usually thus based on “obsolete science,” as Phillip Frank has pointed out, but so long as the rate of technological and scientific change was slow, meanings could adapt themselves, with some time lag. Today, the speed of techno- logical change has confronted us with observations, experiments and indeed new in- dustries, where the familiar terms of length, space, time, mass, matter, energy, atom, element, etc., change their meanings rapidly. Modern semantics, as in Bridg- man's own philosophy of “operationalism,” no longer bases its definitions primarily on socially-accepted usages of words, but rather on descriptions of accurately re- producible operations and equipment. 234 Science and Faith it. We have to recognize that there are different sorts of truth, such as theological truth and scientific truth, just as relativity theory forces us to recognize that optical length is not the same as tactual length. The experience of physics gives a vision of the possibility of eventu- ally so clarifying meanings, that all misunderstandings which arise from that source shall disappear as a cause of friction between men.” But the task is obviously one of enormous difficulty and constitutes a challenge to the spirit of man. I believe that we have the techniques in hand for solving this problem, and that with adequate intellectual morale we shall find how to emancipate ourselves from the trammels of common sense and more effectively realize our potentialities. A second vision, which I believe is even more important than that of the role of semantics, is given by a realization of the implications of the discovery of unsuspected physical structures in the direction of the very small, and in the direction of the very large. In the direction of the very small, we enter a world in which the very concepts of identity and of recurrence are not applicable. Thought demands its permanent objects and its consciousness of recurrent situations; how shall we think about a world that has not these intellectual necessi- ties?” In the direction of the very large, more and more structure is being discovered by the astronomer, so that we now have no right to maintain that the universe is not open. But the most sweeping gener- alizations that we have, energy and entropy, find their meaning only in terms of closed systems. How shall we think about a truly open system? And in general, what meaning can we give to our most funda- mental concepts, such as existence itself, in realms in which the neces- sary processes of thought fail? The new vision, that results from an apprehension of the significance of this, is a vision of man isolated on an island of phenomena between the very large and the very small, which he cannot transcend be- cause of the nature of thought and meaning themselves. It is an evi- dent corollary that if man is to integrate himself, he must discover his springs of action within himself. This is a task which man has been effectively shirking since the beginning of conscious thought in his * It may perhaps be more difficult to establish unanimity as to what, for ex- ample, is “honest” than to what is “long,” even with the example of Einstein be- fore us. * The social scientist has felt this for a long time, of course; and part of the increasing camaraderie between the natural scientist and the social scientist is the final realization by the former that the latter, struggling with such problems, is not so backward as he had once seemed when his accomplishments were measured against those of natural scientists. Percy Bridgman 235 endeavor to find the solution by the invention of essences and cosmic purposes and absolutes. The acceptance by man of his essential in- tellectual limitation and isolation, which make meaningless his abso- lutes, will confer upon him a freedom similar to the freedom of the scientist in accepting the fact as his supreme arbiter. For it will free him of the consequences of attempting to do with his mind things which cannot be done because of the nature of thought itself, attempts which have cluttered his entire intellectual history.” There will emerge the vision that man is standing on the very threshold of his potential development, and that this can be attained * This is the culmination of Bridgman's argument. It requires that man shall find all his motivations within himself and not from some mysterious outer force. Of course, it is directly antithetical to the teaching of most churches, and espe- cially of the Catholic Church, as Stace has developed in detail (page 216). The position is essentially the same as that of Stace in this important particular, al- though Bridgman appears more dogmatic about the kinds of evidence which may permissibly shape the man's motivations. These apparent denials of some types of experience, and especially of emotional experience, are more the result of the ellipses of Bridgman's argument than because they represent what he thinks; al- though no contradiction of the denials stands on the record. Rather, Bridgman commented some time afterwards: “I picked the term ‘natural intelligence be- cause . . . I meant . . . that I do not presuppose behind us a divinity which talks to us with the voice of conscience. I deny that there is an inner voice by which the world becomes known to us directly, i.e., metaphysically; or that such inner voices or intuitions have any validity as a test of truth in the external world.” For a quite different apparent attitude to these “value” areas, see Tuve, page 274. Maritain's comment: “The statement which appears at the beginning of this footnote it requires that man shall find all his motivations within himself and not from some mysterious outer force' is equivocal. “St. Thomas teaches that man must never act contrary to the dictates of his own conscience (even if his conscience is in error). He also teaches that grace is in man a kind of nature grafted on his own nature, which endows him with inner God-given virtues and gifts. In this sense, it is not antithetical to, but consistent with, the teaching of the Catholic Church to say that all man’s ‘motivations’—that is, forces driving toward self-determination—are within himself “Now, for Catholic faith, first, Natural Law (which is the law of human na- ture as ruling human individuals, and as part of the universal order of nature) has force of law because it expresses the order of divine Reason; and second, there are also divine positive precepts, as well as the New Law expressed in the Gospel, which essentially pertains to divine grace and charity superior to nature. In this sense it is antithetical to the teaching of the Catholic Church to say that all man's motivations'—that is, rules or norms of conduct—are within himself. They come from above (I mean even in the realm of nature and of merely rational ethics, and as regards Natural Law), and they are made interior to man by virtue of his reason, and of faith and love. “Finally the phrase 'some mysterious outer force' used in the statement men- tioned above, obviously does not refer to God, whose essence is a mystery, no doubt, but a transcendent mystery, and who is not an outer force like that of the sorcerers or spiritists. Now we may wonder to what it can refer?” 236 Science and Faith only by breaking drastically with the past. It seems to me that educa- tion can have no more important function than to impart this vision. The challenge to the human spirit of a vision like this is too obvious to need elaboration; what the eventual unfolding of the spirit may be, no man may venture to predict. >k :k >k >k >k At the end of Bridgman's paper the panel at once went into free discussion, which is now reproduced in the form of a dialogue. BAKER: There are the four statements of our four guests and now, according to our announced procedure, we will ask Dr. Bixler to comment in any way he may care to, on one, or more, or all, of the papers. BIxLER: Well, where do we agree and where do we differ? The statements of the naturalistic position that have been given to us seem to me to have been very well drawn. Professor Stace and Professor Bridgman, as I understand it, both take this position. But as they define it I feel that all the old questions reappear and that you can't help asking, “So what; what next? What do you do with the area that isn't touched by this statement?” We have heard here two excellent descriptions of what the scientist is after, explaining what he does, and what the limits of his procedures are. I think we shall all agree that when we are dealing with the physical world we have certain methods of treating it that are well de- fined, based as they are on what we expect our senses to do. But do we live only by the knowledge that we have of the physical world? Professor Bridgman suggests certain moral attributes such as integrity, which are very important. Are they completely separated from what we know? Do we know, for example, that they are good? If so, how? And do they, in their turn, open up certain vistas that help us to understand the nature of life in general? It seems to me that the question that really emerges is: do the methods that we use in dealing with the physical world throw light on our moral and spiritual atti- tudes? And if not, how is light thrown on them? For that we have some light, flickering and faltering as it may be, is hard to deny. What is the relation of the rest of our life to this particular way of knowing? For it is a particular way of knowing, as everybody has said this morning. It is a way of explaining a particular set of facts found in a particular area of our experience. Now, granting the mistakes that religion has made, in trying to draw a picture of the physical world and trying to interpret the historical Discussion 237 process, it still seems to me that in its own sphere it points to some recognizable truths by which men live and indicates ways in which they can be verified. In other words, it points to the need for faith and I should be inclined to define faith in a somewhat different way from that used by Professor Bridgman. I think that the faith of the religious man has never been better ex- pressed than by William James, when he talked about it as “an opti- mistic acceptance of life.” Of course, that is not the same as knowing the physical world, but it does involve a type of knowledge and a type that can be justified. You remember James' famous pun: * “Is life worth living? It depends on the liver.” And you can make that pun in French too: “C'est une question de foi(e).” That type of attitude, that kind of faith, seems to me to involve courage and love and, along with them it implies a belief about what must be true of a world in which courage and love appear. So when Professor Bridgman says, “The springs of action are within a man himself,” I think he is se- mantically vague. I don't know just what that means or what the operations are which would test its meaning and truth. And when Professor Bridgman talks about the mystic as “creating his own uni- verse,” I think again, that he is not semantically accurate. Read, for example, Bergson's The Two Sources of Morality and Religion.” The account given of the mystic there, as a person who opens himself to the influence of love, isn't the account of a man who is constructing his own world out of himself or spinning his own web of theory out of his imagination. The mystic as Bergson interprets him thinks that he has discovered a source of power for the life of love, and I don't see how one can say categorically that he hasn't, especially when the results are as they are.” Professor Stace's statement, that we have certain objectivities that are naturalistic in the field of morals, such as love and hate, and that the laws of love and hate can be found empirically just as you can find the law of growth in plants, is an interesting and important truth but it seems to me it doesn't go quite far enough. If we say that we live by love and hate just as the plants live by natural law, I think we hardly do justice to the quality of freedom in life. The interesting fact about the world we live in, to me, is the fact that it has developed men 66 William James, “Is Life Worth Living?” from The Will to Believe (New York, Longmans, Green, and Company, 1921), page 32. 87 Henri Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (New York, Henry Holt and Company, 1935). 68 Maritain will also say in the discussion (page 247) that Bridgman’s inter- pretation of the mystic is inaccurate. 238 Science and Faith and women who have the experience of freedom with all that it im- plies.” May I have just one second for Professor Maritain? His statement of ontology has been well worked out in many of his books and it rep- resents, of course, a very honorable historical position. I think I am in general agreement with his distinction between empirical and onto- logical approaches although I am not absolutely sure about all of the ramifications of his particular ontological position. That moral values can be objects of intrinsically true judgments I certainly believe. But to me a basic question is whether we reach these judgments as sensi- tive, conscientious inquirers, applying such tests of internal consistency and external conformity to fact as we have learned to use, or whether they must be divulged through a supernatural and, as I should feel, arbitrary revelation.” STACE: I am not the kind of person who tries to agree with every- body. I agree in very general terms with both President Bixler's gen- eral attitude and Professor Bridgman, although I very much doubt whether they agree with me. But I find a great cleavage between my position and Professor Maritain's; " I suppose one might say the 69 This does not seem to be as clear a denial of Stace's theory as Maritain will provide (page 247) when he says, “If I only think that coöperation and goodness are improving the general state of affairs, this is not sufficient. . . .” 70 This is really the essence of the difference between three of the speakers and the fourth. Maritain's comment: “If I am the fourth speaker alluded to, I should like to observe that moral values (1) are discovered by human reason—that is the job of moral philosophy—and (2) are also made known by revelation (which on the one hand helps human reason to discover without error what pertains to its own field of knowledge—in this sense Thomas Aquinas states that the content of the Decalogue is natural law—on the other hand provides us with higher truths and standards which pertain to the supra-rational order). Now it is precisely with the first point (natural or rational knowledge of moral values), not with the second, that I have dealt in my paper and my discussion. It is on the claims of reason to establish moral values as objects of intrinsically true judgment that I have con- stantly insisted.” 71. It is true that Maritain and Stace were at intellectual swords' points. Con- cerning this, Baker has made the following comment: “The attitude of two of my panel members, Professor Maritain and Professor Stace, toward each other is worthy of special comment. The subject matter of my panel could have produced more heat than light as the basis for discussion by men of such divergent views as these two and the others. Professor Maritain and Professor Stace are colleagues of the same faculty at Princeton. They demon- strated here before a large audience the great value of educated minds and con- trolled emotions. Even in the realm of knowledge and opinion, frequently rooted in prejudice and colored by bigotry, these two men discussed their extreme dif- ferences with a calm graciousness of manner and a generosity of understanding Discussion 239 cleavage between naturalism and supernaturalism. I think that we are so far apart that a battle between us might be like a battle between a whale and a bear. I really don't know how to get at him. I rather hope, too, that he won't know how to get back at me. Well, there are two things. First, Professor Maritain wants to have two entirely radically different kinds of knowledge, scientific knowl- edge and philosophical or theological knowledge, which can't get at one another. That seems to me ominous. I very much distrust that kind of philosophy which tries to exist in some other world where the or- dinary methods of scientific inquiry can't get at it. I don't believe in that. I believe that the method of philosophy is fundamentally the same as the method of science. I don't mean to say that philosophical questions are going to be settled by test tubes or even pointer readings. That's absurd. But I very much like Professor Bridgman's phrase “the method of intelligence.” I think that the method of philosophy and the method of science are the same, insofar as they are both identically the method of applying intelligence to everything. What is the method of intelligence? Professor Bridgman didn't say and perhaps he will disagree with me about what I am just going to say, but I would say this, that the method of intelligence consists first of all in observing facts. Those don’t have to be sensuous facts necessarily; I believe in introspective facts, too, possibly mystic facts. It starts with the observa- tion of facts; it then builds up a theoretical construction on that basis by means of inductive logic, deductive logic and possibly postulation. That I would say is the method of intelligence. It applies both to philosophy and to science. I don't know whether Professor Maritain will admit that. If he doesn't admit it, then he is putting philosophy off in some realm not subject to the criteria, ordinary criteria, of in- telligence. No doubt he would want to say that philosophy is an in- telligent activity, but it must be a different kind of intelligence. I don't think there are two kinds of intelligence. If on the other hand, he ad- mits that account, then I would have to say, “What are the facts that you observed in the first instance, and what are the inferences, et cetera, that you want to make?” ” of the other's point of view which gave the audience a rare example of a quality greatly to be desired in our world today. “If the solution to our contemporary economic, political and international problems could be sought by men of similar quality the answers would be nearer truth and quicken our progress toward an understanding of man by man and people by people.” 7* The rest of Stace's statement and much of Maritain's reply involves a dis- cussion as to the meaning of “being,” a discussion which is informative to phi- losophers, perhaps, but perhaps also confusing to the general reader. This argu- 240 Science and Faith Then again, what is the subject of this ontology that Professor Mari- tain talks about? He says the subject of it is “being.” “Being,” itself. “Being,” inner being. My opinion is that “being,” talked of like that, is a totally meaningless phrase. I think that there are beings or existen- cies—this pencil—that table—perhaps my soul. All these things are be- ings or existencies. There are beings or existencies but there is no such thing as “being” itself, as distinct from the particular beings. Possibly he means that this being is a Platonic form; and he uses the phrase “intelligible object” which is a Platonic phrase. To that, I would say first of all, I don't happen to believe in Platonic essences, but that is a very difficult question that I don't want to discuss. So for the mo- ment let's just agree that there are Platonic essences. If so, I say that being is not one of them. I have a very good reason for saying that—it's slightly technical, but I can state it in a minute. A Platonic essence is what is common to various observed things. For example, there is the essence or form, as Plato would say, “the form of white,” that is, what is common to this white thing and that white thing. There is the form of man, what is common to individual men, et cetera. Now I say that there is no such thing even on Platonic grounds, as the form of being, because there is nothing in common between different beings which you can call being or existence itself. If you will take, for example, two—say the simplest things I can think of—two patches of white color, two round patches of white color, they have in common two things: whiteness and roundness. There is no such thing as being which they have in common at all. What I am saying is what Kant said, “Being is not a predicate.” That is to say, whatever you say regarding your white patch or anything else, what are you saying about it? “It is white.” That is a predicate. That says something. Then you say, “It is round.” All right. You are adding some knowledge. Now if you add, “It has being,” you are not adding anything at all. Not adding anything at all, ment weaves in and out of Maritain's statement, which also includes matters relating to metaphysics and mysticism important to the argument which follows. We, therefore, report the dialogue as it occurred and suggest that the reader not pass over it. Some background materials and explanations of terms relevant to this debate have been sketched in footnotes 43, 45. In connection with this sort of difficulty it is interesting to note the reactions of M.I.T. students. In general, they understood and enjoyed Stace, while Maritain left them impressed, stimulated and profoundly puzzled. At the end of the week they read in Time that all the other speakers had been a bit muddleheaded and that only Maritain had been perfectly clear. “I only wish that I could meet the fellow who wrote the piece for Time,” one of them said wistfully, and, reverting to Gilbert and Sullivan, added, “What a singularly deep young man this deep young man must be.” Discussion 241 simply saying that it is round and it is white. Therefore, I say that even if you do understand Maritain’s “being” as a Platonic form, there isn't such a form. There might be a form of whiteness, and a form of green- ness, and a form of justice, but no form of being. So I don't know what Professor Maritain is talking about. BAKER: Professor Maritain, will you please tell Professor Stace what you are talking about? MARITAIN: I would like first to make a general observation con- cerning the present discussion. There is a point that seems to me par- ticularly striking, namely, the absence of any reference to metaphysics or even to philosophy as a specific order of knowledge. Everyone ad- mits that, in the realm of the sciences, mathematical knowledge and method are different from the biological, the sociological or the histori- cal ones. Why be surprised at the fact that philosophical knowledge and method are different from the scientific ones, so that they, the scientific and the philosophical, constitute two typically distinot ap- proaches to reality, two typically distinct categories of knowledge (made, of course, to be complementary to one another, so that a philosopher cannot do his own job if he is not genuinely instructed in science, and a scientist cannot get an idea of the meaning and bear- ing of his own job if he is not genuinely instructed in philosophy). “Science,” in the classical sense of the word meant not only, as today, the sciences of phenomena, but demonstrative rational knowledge in the most general way. In this sense metaphysics is a science, a scien- tific knowledge. Metaphysics and philosophy have something in common with sci- ence (in the modern sense), namely the property of being a demon- strative rational knowledge which starts from experience, and “the method of intelligence,” of which non-empiricist philosophy can in- deed also boast. But the ways are different, though rational in both cases. There are many mansions in the universe of being, and the in- tellect is as ample as being is—being which is suspicious to Professor Stace. Yet I am afraid that without that equation between being and intellect, there would be no human mind, no human dignity. For to deny that equation is simply to deny the intellect. There is another general point which I have no time to develop but which I would at least like to mention. It deals with the requirements of the scientific spirit with respect to our judgments about meta- physics, religion and mystics. It seems to me that it is contrary to the scientific spirit to judge—and exclude from the field of knowledge— metaphysics, without first inquiring and, secondly, discussing what 242 Science and Faith metaphysicians think of metaphysics. If you asked metaphysicians they would answer you that metaphysics is by no means supernatural or mystic or irrational. It is, on the contrary, the peak of natural reason, natural knowledge, rational knowledge. And genuine metaphysics, genuine philosophy, has no less humility before fact than science. But a fact is something known: and there are as many categories of facts as there are categories of means of knowing, or of noetic perspectives. Scientific facts are data of experience which are verified by specific methods of observation and measurement, and which are conceptual- ized with regard to their use in a coherent explanation of observable and measurable phenomena. Philosophical facts are data of experience which are ascertained by sense awareness or reflective consciousness duly criticized, and which are conceptualized with regard to the in- telligible content—or the “essence”—that they convey to the intellect. There are things which are individually diverse and which nevertheless come under one and the same common notion; there is change; there is knowledge; there is evil; there is existence and there is death. All these are philosophical facts. I should like to reassure Professor Stace: I did not use the term “being” in a Platonic sense, but in an Aristotelian sense. And I think that even for a naturalistic philosopher existence has a meaning. The act of existing—I know what that is. I should hope so. And if I say with Descartes: “I think, therefore I am,” ” the second member of the sentence has meaning as well as the first. This meaning is full of queries—that's why there are philosophers. Existence is not an empty form as Kant believed. Existence is the act par excellence. Everything of which I can think is being, and everything differs from every other thing by a characteristic which is also being: this simple observation makes a philosopher able to establish the transcendental value of being, which imbues everything and which is intrinsically various. All things have being in common, sure! since they are. But this is not a univocal, this is an analogical community. Not only does being have a meaning, but the notion of the analogical value of being enables us to construct a theory, a metaphysical theory of being. ** Descartes, Discours De La Méthode (Paris, Michel Bobin and Nicolas Le Gras, 1668), page 86 in the 4th part: “Mais aussi tost aprés ie pris garde, que pendant que voulois ainsi penser que tout estoit faux, il faloit necessairement que moy qui le pensois fusse quelque chose: Et remarquant que cette vérité, ie pense, donc ie suis, estoit si ferme & si assurée, que toutes les plus extrauagantes suppositions des Sceptiques n'estoient pas capables de l'ébranler, ie iugeay que ie pouwois la receuoir sans scrupule pour le premier principe de la Philosophie que ie cherchois.” Discussion 243 Now I think also that it is contrary to the scientific spirit to judge– and to exclude from the field of knowledge—religious faith, without first inquiring and, secondly, discussing, what men of faith think of faith. They would tell us that if God, who is subsisting Truth, has decided to let us know, through appropriate channels, certain things hidden from us, the act of believing the subsisting Truth itself is a supreme degree of devotion to truth. It is contrary also to the scientific spirit to judge—and to exclude from the fields of knowledge—mystical experience, without first in- quiring and, secondly, discussing, what spiritual men think of mystics. They would tell us that to live in a world of our own free construction is just what they hold in disgust and abhorrence. Perhaps they would add that such a definition of mystical experience is probably a free construction expressing what a mind resisting mystical attractiveness— I would not say a prejudiced mind—would wish that mystics should be. If you ask their testimony, if you ask spiritual men to tell what they think of themselves, they would tell you that mystical experience is a complete self-giving of the human soul to the most exacting Reality, which becomes known to us “as unknown"—not by the instrumentality of concepts, but by the instrumentality of love that makes man one single spirit with God. In conclusion, I should like to say that the inspiring words of Mr. Bixler about the intrinsic dignity of truth are of a nature, it seems to me, to guide us in the right direction. Truth is an end in itself. It has final authority irrespective of our own interest; and science's total sub- mission to and reverence for truth bear witness to its own spirituality. But the affinity thus stressed by Dr. Bixler between science and re- ligion can be understood only if we understand that truth, which is conformity of the intellect with being, is as ample, as infinite as being itself and cannot be restricted to a particular area of knowledge. The notion of truth is both transcendental and analogical. Its definition is realized in typically various manners at the various degrees of human knowledge. The truth peculiar to the science of phenomena does not exhaust the infinity of truth. Philosophical truth, metaphysical truth, moral truth, religious truth, all are genuine manifestations of truth at other levels, at diverse levels, of human knowledge. If we deny any authentic value of knowledge to whatever is not experimental science we disarm and disable science itself, which, if it came to forget its absolute dignity as an activity of the spirit measured only by truth, would become ready to surrender to the claims of class, race or national interests, and be- 244 Science and Faith come ready to enslave itself to the dictation of the new god of the atheists, I mean the totalitarian State.” Justice and freedom are now at stake. The question faced by the world is quite simple. Will man be able to submit the use of science and the power of technique to the light of wisdom? The first condition, in any case, is to believe that there is a wisdom whose truth deals with the very destiny of man— and whose requirements are absolute. BRIDGMAN: I knew I would be sorry when I accepted the invitation to appear at this panel. I can't speak the language. I think the most striking thing which has come out of this discus- sion is the cleavage between Professor Maritain on one side and the three others on the other. Professor Stace and I are obviously more or less in agreement. Dr. Bixler, also, although he is a theologian, says he thinks all human knowledge ought to have certain qualifications in common; it ought to be subject to certain checks, and these checks are intellectual checks. But Professor Maritain holds the point of view that there are different orders of experience which are separated from each other by a gulf. This is certainly a most disconcerting idea, and it is important for us to realize the implications. He says that he thinks it is unscientific for the scientist to refuse to recognize, let us say, the existence of the facts of metaphysics. Now that is the question that I would like to concentrate on. What is implied in the statement that the scientist neglects the facts of metaphysics? In the first place it is to be emphasized that the scien- tist has not neglected concern with these things. I am personally ac- quainted with many scientists who have seriously spent a great deal of time thinking about them—for instance, such things as extra-sensory perception. I also personally know that earlier a number of eminent physicists spent much time analyzing the evidence for telepathy. Whether or not Professor Maritain would think these things in the realm of metaphysics, I think it is not quite fair to say baldly that the scientist would not accept the facts of metaphysics, for he does accept them, in the same sense that he accepts other subjective facts or facts of introspection. But apparently Professor Maritain does not mean quite this. I think the fundamental reason the scientist does not ac- cept the facts of metaphysics in what I imagine is the sense of Pro- * A fair argument could be put up that science has developed no convictions on this point as yet. Science served Nazi Germany; it serves the U.S.S.R.; it serves Great Britain and the U.S.A. Individual scientists may or may not be amoral; science as a corpus has never up to now been anything else save as it defends the integrity of Science itself. See Sherwood and others, pages 802 and 207. Discussion 245 fessor Maritain is that he has not been able to find in the realm of metaphysics anything to which he can apply the term “fact” in the sense he is accustomed to use it. The scientist simply does not under- stand what is going on in Professor Maritain's head when he speaks of the “facts” of metaphysics, any more than does Professor Stace. What I mean by truth or fact, or anything like that, is something which is subject to a certain kind of check. Let us not ask what the methods are by which we arrive at these metaphysical facts or truths. For the sake of the argument I am willing to grant that there are meth- ods for discovering metaphysical facts, and that these methods are different from those for discovering physical facts. But when you have got the two kinds of fact, what is there that justifies you in using the same word? There must be some common element in the two situations to give the justification. Now, when any scientist talks about scientific or physical facts, or truth, he has in mind one essential thing without which he would not use the word fact or truth. This is the possibility of some check by which it may be determined whether a purported fact or truth is indeed fact or truth. The same requirement must be made with respect to metaphysical fact. And my difficulty with under- standing Professor Maritain's position with regard to metaphysical fact is that I do not know, and I have never found anyone who could tell me, what the nature of the checks is to which you may subject these metaphysical facts or truths after you have got them, to find whether you have got what you think you have. That is my funda- mental difficulty. BAKER: This has been a wonderful and heavy assignment we have had this morning. I know that you are all extremely grateful, as I am, to our guests. Now may I ask them to sum up? BIXLER: I shall sum up what I am trying to say by asking if we can apply the principle of coherence throughout our entire experience. We have pretty well established what coherence means in the in- tellectual realm and particularly in the fact-finding processes that go by the name of science. But are we so clear that what we really want in our emotional ex- perience, such as our response to art, is coherence also? In art we see balance, proportion and harmony, which express the claim of coher- ence on our aesthetic feeling. Now in the social field are we not trying for the same thing? A bal- ance of desires, worked out in a coherent way, taking into account the desires of all and establishing which desires are good and which are bad, would seem to be the aim of a democratic society. Thus it seems 246 Science and Faith to me that in the three great areas of experience—intellectual, aesthetic and moral—the same principles apply. In each area we are trying to be consistent, which means we are trying to apply the principle of coherence. What, then, is this principle whose influence on us is so great? It comes down to the rule which we see more clearly in our intellectual life than elsewhere, that, as Socrates indicated, there are certain positions that cannot be denied without at the same time being reaffirmed. As rational minds we must try to avoid contradiction. This is the first claim that is made on us. When we explore its implications I think we find that each of us lives under the claim that he be con- sistent—intellectually, emotionally and morally. The presence of this claim is to me the first great religious truth. It is the basis for what we call the authority of God and as we study it we see that it is the real foundation for our knowledge of good and evil, beautiful and ugly. BAKER: Professor Bridgman, do you have a word to add on that one? BRIDGMAN: It would help me to understand what Professor Bixler means by this claim if he would analyze what he would do to prove that the claim is there. BIxLER: I see it at work in Professor Bridgman's life. BAKER: Professor Stace, would you say something on that? STACE: Is this the question that Professor Bridgman asked on the checking of religious claims? Is that the question? BRIDGMAN: Well, what does it mean when you say that something outside you has a claim on you? STACE: Well, I would like to say a word to that. I am a little in sym- pathy with Professor Maritain here. I claim that it is unscientific to ex- clude the possibility of experiences other than purely physical sense experiences. I think there are certainly introspective experiences and possibly mystical experiences. I think it is quite unscientific to refuse to admit such experience; I don't believe Professor Bridgman would want to do that.” I’m not quite sure. But now the question he asked is a very pertinent question. He asked, “How do you check on this?” Bergson tried to answer that. I mean, the way you check on sense ex- perience is by finding an agreement. I mean to say, two scientists would agree on an observation, say a pointer-reading. Now how do you check on mystical experiences? Bergson did try to answer that by saying that there is certain similarity between all mystical experi- ences. This is true. You will find that mystics in different countries, cultures and creeds express themselves with striking similarity. Berg- 75 In commenting on the manuscript Bridgman notes that he would accept mys- tical experience on the same footing as any other sort of “subjective” experience. Discussion 247 son says, for example, that you always have the statement from the mystic that his experience, which the mystic believes to be God, is love. I must say, however, that this analogy, which is sought to be drawn between the religious structure based upon mystical experience and the scientific structure based upon sense experience, is hopelessly weak. There isn't the real agreement, the real checking, that can be done in science. I think, therefore, that even if you do admit the mystic experience, as I do, it can be interpreted as not signifying an objective anything—objective character of the world, or God. I think it can be simply interpreted as certain internal emotional feelings which certain abnormal people have, which are extremely noble and fine but imply no objective fact outside themselves. MARITAIN: I would say that we have here to distinguish the specula- tive field from the practical field, metaphysics and speculative philoso- phy from practical or moral philosophy. I would affirm that meta- physics has its own criterion of truth, which is intelligible necessity brought out from experiential data. Metaphysics does not depend on any practical confirmation; our conduct can judge our moral philoso- phy to a certain extent, it cannot judge our metaphysics. Truth in this sense is above human behavior. Now if it is a question of application to action, moral philosophy comes into play. I agree with the state- ments of Professor Stace about the unfortunate results of treachery and murder and perfidy for human society. That's a factual observa- tion. Now if this observation is to become an obligation, binding me in conscience, I think that the mere scientific or experimental observa- tion is not sufficient and this fact must be related to more profound things, that is, the law of human nature—to act in conformity with reason—which man has to implement freely, the necessary desire for happiness, the necessity for man to choose himself the ultimate end of his own life, and thus we cross the threshold of philosophy. If I only think that coöperation and goodness are improving the general state of affairs, this is not sufficient to make me bound in conscience. Something more is necessary. I mean an absolute, unconditional value which cannot be taken from merely empirical facts.” 76 From a letter of Maritain: “I regret that the brevity of available time prevented me from commenting longer on certain points of particular significance in Professor Bridgman's and Professor Stace's statements. I shall be grateful if you would be so kind as to insert in a footnote some of the notes I jotted down during the session; I con- sider it useful to the clarity of the discussion. “I wanted, for instance, to point out that such things as extra-sensory percep- tion, to which Professor Bridgman alluded as ‘facts of metaphysics' (see page 248 Science and Faith BAKER: My colleagues and I have held a caucus here and we have decided to rescind my action of a moment ago and decided that we can have one question spoken from the floor if it is a question in one sentence, and with that we are going to conclude the morning. Has someone a question that he would like to put to one or all of our speak- ers? It looks like Mr. Gottlieb. I think the question is, “What happens when what we understand as our scientific truth violates what we un- derstand is our religious truth?” Professor Maritain. MARITAIN: I think that the question involves an impossibility be- cause truth cannot struggle against itself. BAKER: Professor Bridgman. BRIDGMAN: Well, I should make exactly the same answer. Logically, that question is like asking, “What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?” How is this discussion to be summarized? Scarcely at all, for the statements of position were closely reasoned, almost summaries them- selves. Almost every sentence introduces speculation which could take one far afield. Agreement was reached that there might be a good chance for this century to find common aspirations at the highest 244) do in no way pertain to what I call ‘philosophical facts.” They are rather, it seems to me, spurious or non-verified scientific facts, let us say pseudo-scientific facts. “I was greatly interested in the views put forward by Professor Bridgman with regard to the very small and the very large. I think that he made his point bril- liantly as concerns the fact that basic human concepts like existence, identity, causality, can lose any possible application for science when we cross the thresh- old of the very small or the very large: because in using those concepts in its own noetic vocabulary science has recast them according to the requirements of empiriological or empirio-mathematical knowledge, by defining them only with respect to verification by sense observation and methods of measurement. “Yet I would stress that the philosophical meaning of those concepts, which comes into play in “ontological knowledge, is not affected by that: because in the noetic vocabulary of philosophy, the concepts in question are defined with re- spect to the intelligible being which is perceived by the mind through experi- ential data, and which does not depend on our methods of sense verification. For instance, ‘existence is philosophically defined, or rather described, as the act by which something ‘stands outside nothingness.’ And the meaning of this concept subsists even there where the nature of things makes it impossible to verify its application, that is, to know whether these things exist or not; whereas a scientific concept loses its meaning in a field which excludes by nature any pos- sibility of verifying its application. “As a result, our (philosophical) 'absolutes are not made meaningless by the fact that the corresponding concepts, recast by science, lose meaning when sci- ence crosses the threshold of the very small or the very large. Because our philo- sophical absolutes have not entered and never will enter the field of empiriologi- cal or empirio-mathematical science and the scientific explanation of phenomena. Summary 249 levels of the human spirit but rather complete disagreement as to how this would come about. All joined in finding nobility in the search of science for truth, but the speakers parted company when it came to defining how far the scientific method could expect to go in all the af. fairs of man. Professor Bridgman adopted the essentially naturalistic position that it would be possible for man to find, if he sought de- monstrable truth hard enough, within himself and without any outside authority, a full basis for behavior, and in fact that it was essential that he find such an internal authority. Professor Stace, starting from the premise that the world was not a moral order, agreed with this but seemed to extend the area over which demonstrable truth might be found. President Bixler argued for much the same thing but simply suggested that there should be some commonly applicable criteria for assessing truth. Professor Maritain took an exactly opposite position, asserted higher certitude, and truth which was quite as real or even more real than experimentally checked truth despite the fact that its proofs depended on philosophical reasoning, and not on scientific verification. All of the speakers save Bridgman, on the other hand, expressed some acceptance of principles of faith. Bridgman denied faith to the It is in and by ontological or philosophical knowledge that they make sense and are attained. “It is even philosophical knowledge which has, in its critical function, to in- quire about the actual meaning or non-meaning of physical indeterminism with respect to the problem of free will for instance, and about the final significance of the estrangement of the usual means of scientific knowledge from the realm of the very small or the very large. “If we were to admit the essential limitation and isolation of the human mind such as Professor Bridgman describes it, we would have to give up both the co- extensitivity of the intellect with being, and the analogical variety of the degrees of knowledge; we would have to assert that knowledge is a completely univocal notion, only realized in sciences of phenomena; finally we would have to con- ceive the human mind as a single-track mind, just as a bee's or an ant's mind is. “On the other hand, if man were isolated on an island of phenomena, how could he discover his springs of action within himself? A self is not a phenomenon. My isolation on an island of phenomena includes the same condition for my own knowledge of myself, and makes it impossible for me to go out from my island to enter myself. As concerns Professor Stace's statement, I would observe that the expression the world is a moral order,’ used to define the metaphysical tenet upon which moral convictions rested for centuries, seems ambiguous to me. The world is not moral; but the world is created by a supreme Intelligence which manifests itself in it, and which is the primary principle of an ideal order that is required by the nature of man, and is to be freely applied by him. “When it is a question of the ends of human existence or the meaning of human life, or of such things as justice, freedom, personality, human rights, love, we are in a sphere of knowledge which is not science, but philosophy. Even the notion of human nature, on which moralists lay such stress, does not pertain to science, 250 Science and Faith scientist but his own explanations of why the scientist behaved as he did seemed rather to support the notion that the scientist had faith, although not the faith which the speaker had demolished. In the final analysis, however, it seems wisest to leave the conclu- sions of this discussion to the reader; these he will draw from what the speakers said, from what he has been taught and what he has read, from his own experience, and, no doubt, from his prejudices as well. One man's summary is worth quoting in closing. It was recorded by Henry Suydam writing for the Newark News (New Jersey) for April 3. Said Mr. Suydam: “. . . These summaries do far less than justice, of course, to what was said here, on the placid banks of the Charles River, on this subject. Whether traditional Western religion and morals have deteriorated and, if so, whether science is to blame, was not here demonstrated, but to philosophy. If Bertrand Russell questions it, and insists that there is no such thing as a human nature common to you and me, it is up to metaphysics, not to psychology or sociology, to state the truth of the matter. “Who would disapprove of Mr. John Dewey for affirming that human morality rests on human nature? What is wrong is to consider human nature in the sole perspective of the sciences of phenomena, and to disregard its metaphysical im- plications. “I wonder, moreover, what a naturalistic, non-metaphysical foundation of mo- rality could be, if not science? Now we all agree that science as such ‘is not con- cerned with values.” But morality is essentially concerned with values. “Moral values have only to do with human life. Yet they ask to govern human life unconditionally, and therefore have their ultimate foundation in the abso- lute Intelligence which is the author both of human nature and the world. “Morality lives on absolute values; that is why it is finally appendant to the Absolute. A man is bound to die for justice. That means that he stakes his all on the moral value of justice. To stake my all, to give my life, I need to know that the intrinsic value of justice and the obligation to justice are unconditional or absolute—a thing which no statement of fact, such as all statements in sciences of phenomena, or in a ‘naturalistic' philosophy, can ever establish.” To this Bridgman replied also by letter: “I am afraid that in his added discussion Professor Maritain has not removed what for me is the fundamental difficulty, namely to see that there is any essen- tial gulf between the intellectual activities which are fruitful in science and those of any valid philosophy. It seems to me that our intellectual activities are all of a piece, and that any intellectual activity that claims to have validity is subject to the necessity that there be some method by which the validity may be checked. Any such method of checking validity must be a method that can be applied by me and cannot be accepted from an outside source on authority. Neither is it clear to me how the meaning of a term can be divorced from the question of its application. I cannot sense what it means to say, for example, as does Professor Maritain, that the concept of existence continues to have meaning even when there is no method by which it may be determined whether things exist or not. I cannot see what one would do to remove a concept of existence like this from the verbal level.” Summary 251 in your correspondent's opinion. Yet I came from these discussions with one dominating thought: “Science, as even Dr. Einstein would be the first to admit, will stand forever on the threshold of the unknown. When it stands there, it stands on the threshold of the spirit, on the threshold of God.” CHAPTER VI The Role of the Individual in a World of Institutions FTER lunch, the discussion of spiritual problems continued in A Huntington Hall. The afternoon topic was elusive yet it had been of increasing concern to thoughtful persons as the century had developed. It was symbolized in Mr. Churchill's words of the eve- ning before, “Science bestowed immense new powers on man and at the same time created conditions which were largely beyond his com- prehension and still more beyond his control. While he nursed the illu- sion of growing mastery and exulted in his new trappings, he became the sport and presently the victim of tides and currents, of whirlpools and tornadoes amid which he was far more helpless than he had been for a long time.” For “this vast expansion was unhappily not accom- panied by any noticeable advance in the stature of man, either in his mental faculties, or his moral character. . . . The scale of events around him assumed gigantic proportions while he remained about the same size. By comparison therefore he actually became much smaller. We no longer had great men directing manageable affairs.” + The afternoon question was formally stated as follows in the printed program: “The conflict between the individual and the mass has been waged through all history. Currently the progress of the conflict frightens many; yet others see for the years to come the highest rec- ognition of the dignity of the individual. They find affirmative answers to such questions as these: Is the active participation of individuals now compatible with the effective conduct of human affairs? Can the individual act any more save through an institution? Can he be ade- quately informed of the problems confronting his institutions? Can he effectively influence their activities?” For its discussion, M.I.T. had called upon five men of vastly differ- ent backgrounds and temperaments: a planner of great Mexican cities who had always, nonetheless, retained interest in the individual citi- 1 Chapter II, pages 55, 56. 252 Douglass Brown 253 zen; a lifetime journalist now in charge of one of the great news enter- prises of the world; a New England manufacturer who had started with a very small business and caused it to grow large of its kind, and had later become a leading United States Senator; a distinguished labor leader who had often publicly voiced his concern as to the future of democracy within big unions or other big organizations; and a director of important groups of scientists, who was known among scientists for his unusual individuality.” The moderator, Douglass V. Brown,” was a professor at M.I.T. whose chosen field was the im- provement of human relations, specifically those between employers and employed. After identifying his speakers, he began as follows: “Let me raise very briefly some of the broad questions to which, I suspect, the speakers will direct themselves this afternoon. In one sense, the title of our session is not specific. The title is, ‘The Role of the Individual in a World of Institutions.’ Institutions’ may mean many things. I think it will be clear from the discussion this afternoon that we are thinking primarily in terms of that type of institutions which might better be called organizations—organized institutions. We are not talking primarily about broader types of institutions such as, for example, the feudal society. I think there can be no question that the world in which we now live is a world of organized institu- tions. Many questions arise thereby. If we assume, as I assume most of us do, that the individual is important, we then must raise the question whether in this world of institutions the individual can act in any way except through his organized institutions. Can he effec- tively influence the activities of these institutions? Can he really be adequately informed of the problems which confront these institutions of his? “Perhaps there are two problems here. Perhaps one problem is the problem aſ wrk, ałk, or +/-, a individual gets o non-vo Fa in ſo ation about 1- ºr *-*.*.*.*.L.J.J. W. W.R. W. W. L.L*-* W.J.M.W. Z.E. W.J.JLV-2. Ji U-l V, Uij Cº.V.,.\, ULL CU, U.V. Llïl V.L.Lll Cl. U.J.V.V.H.L. C. JV Ul U. llll) problems. Perhaps the other problem may be posed in some such fashion as this. Suppose that he does get accurate information about these problems; does he still have a problem of understanding, a prob- lem of understanding ideas, of understanding ideals? “Again perhaps this last question of understanding breaks down into two parts. There is the question of background knowledge— knowledge in the purely factual sense, if there be such a thing. In a * Respectively, Carlos Contreras, Erwin Dain Canham, Ralph Edward Flan- ders, Clinton Strong Golden, and Merle Antony Tuve. * For a brief biography of Brown, see Biographical Notes, page 515. 254 Individual and Institution scientific world can those of us, and I hasten to put myself at the head of this list, can those of us who are woefully ignorant about scientific matters really expect to play any part in this world in which we live? But perhaps there is also more than a problem of understanding in this narrower sense. There may be a broader problem of understand- ing ideas and ideals, which is connected with the question of com- munication. How do we communicate—can we communicate one with the other so that our ideas and ideals either are understood or perhaps are shared by others? “I suppose the central question, in which we are all interested and to which these other questions may add up, is the question (again if we believe the individual to be important)—are we to be optimistic or pessimistic about the future? One of the virtues of being a modera- tor is that he doesn't have to answer these questions, but I am sure that our speakers this afternoon will contribute a great deal of ma- terial which will help us to formulate our own answers. “I should now like to introduce our first speaker. He is a distin- guished newspaperman whose duties have carried him into many parts of the world. He has had great opportunity to observe individuals and institutions of many sorts. He is the Editor of The Christian Science Monitor, a paper which we are proud to say is published in Boston, and is currently the President of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. It gives me real pleasure to introduce to you Mr. Erwin D. Canham.” “ ERWIN DAIN CANHAM Since we are starting an afternoon of assumptions, I’ll add to it by assuming that we who have come together on this panel are agreed on the central importance in our civilization of man, of individual man, of God's individual man. It seems to me this is the essential verity for which, and armed with which, we recently fought a grievous war. We now strive in the field of world political action to protect individ- ual man against other forms of external totalitarianism. We can only succeed, of course, by giving man new and positive opportunities to prove that a society based on the significance of the individual mani- fests higher spiritual values and produces greater tangible achieve- ments than does a society centered on the State." * For a brief biography of Canham, see Biographical Notes, page 516. * This is a very clear philosophical statement of what seems to have emerged as a central theme in the collective mind of the Convocation, whether evidenced in Canham's generalization or by frequent comment adverse to the U.S.S.R. or by the attitude towards Federal control of education. Erwin Canham 255 Our problem here this afternoon, as I see it, is to consider whether or not there is an internal kind of totalitarianism which may be stifling man and his capacity for achievement under the very weight of his organized institutions. In the field of communication of information, and specifically in the field of the newspaper press, there is definitely such a problem, and I shall try to examine it concretely, perhaps too concretely. What has happened in the last half-century to individual man's capacity to communicate information and ideas to his fellow men? First, as we all know, the machinery of communication has improved enormously. Whether we have anything to say or to show with our fine new television tubes and our loudspeakers, may sometimes be open to considerable doubt.” I don’t think it is open to much doubt this weekend. (I'll exclude this panel.) But what we must communi- cate, if we are to survive, I believe to be an inner experience, a spir- itual experience, and I do not think we have yet begun to put into words what we must say if we are to be saved. However, this problem of what we are to say isn't the question that concerns the panel. This immense improvement in the machinery of communication in our time itself illustrates the potentially topheavy nature of our insti- tutions. And so let me consider the problem very narrowly, and spe- cifically, and concretely in the terms of the daily newspaper. A cen- tury ago, almost any individual with a very few dollars and a shirt- tail full of type could start a newspaper. (Why individuals are said to have carried type in shirttails, if they ever did, is unknown to me. That's just the way we have always spoken about it in the business.) Whether this fellow could make a go of it, and preserve his inde- pendence from political or economic subsidy, as a newspaper editor or publisher, depended on his own skill and his ability to interest people in what he had to say." If he interested enough people, he could * For an expression of doubt, see Burchard, page 10. * “In the end, the quality of newspapers and motion pictures and radio must depend on the sense of responsibility of two groups of private citizens—the owners and managers who operate these instrumentalities of communication and the public who consume the output and who have hitherto rarely expressed the desire for something better than what they are now getting.” A report by the Commission on Freedom of the Press, entitled Government and Mass Communi- cations, Zechariah Chafee, Jr., Ed. (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1947), Volume I, page ix. But a little later Professor Chafee reminds us that there were times when the newspaper readers were more unified and possibly had a better average education (op. cit., page 17): “While many new groups have grown in power, one element in the community which possessed a great deal of influence at the time of the First Amendment has 256 Individual and Institution retain his independence from outside financial control, and he could keep on having his say. [Canham's original text, like those of many of the other speakers, was somewhat curtailed in the reading. There was an important additional note on this point in the original draft: - Even if he failed, somebody else could start another newspaper tomor- row. And our man with an idea could try over and over again. It was not too difficult to succeed. Plenty of people did, for a while, anyway.] Today it is not possible to start a metropolitan newspaper without millions of dollars, and to get and to keep the paper on a self-support- ing basis is a major feat. The institution of the press has thus become very costly and very complicated. The result is that there are today only 12 daily newspapers in the United States per million population. In 1920 there were 23 per million, and in 1900 there were 29 per mil- lion. During the entire nineteenth century, the number of newspapers per million of population had been steadily growing. This historic trend was reversed in 1900. Today there are only 117 American cities with daily newspaper competition, against 1,277 which have only one newspaper apiece. Today, therefore, you might think, and you might assume that the individual's opportunity to express himself—to communicate with others through the medium of the press—had been greatly diminished. You might conclude that there is danger of the individual being stifled by the magnified and unwieldy weight of his institution, and perhaps therefore unaware of hazards which might threaten all his institutions. But this is only a quantitative examination. When we make a quali- tative study, the results are far different. The services rendered to individuals and their communities today by their newspapers, and their other media of communication, with all of their faults which I would never attempt to conceal, far surpass any services that have ceased to have any political importance—the intellectual élite of clergymen, schol- ars, lawyers, and plantation owners, which comprised not only Federalists but also Jefferson and numerous associates of his. The prolonged retention of pre- ponderating political power by any aristocracy is objectionable, even by the aristocracy of the mind which Jefferson envisaged; but the absence of a recog- nized intellectual élite in America today does create dangers, which are the price we pay for free education and the largest electorate in the world. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, most writers wrote for a comparatively small group of well-educated men who formed a coherent body of opinion. The rulers and higher officials were members of this group and so followed its standards of literary freedom unless governmental interests were very seriously threatened. The rest of the community did not read much and did not care what was written. Now nearly everybody does read and care, but the standards are variegated.” Erwin Canham 257 been rendered by such media in the past. I am not saying that news- papers are what they should be; I am saying that they have made great improvement. Diversity of the old days, the good old days, did not produce quality, it did not produce objectivity, it did not produce Service. The history of the American press is usually ignored by its critics. It is worth a minute of our study today. The dark age of the American press, as far as an adequate information service to readers is con- cerned, began in the middle of the American Revolution. The American Revolution made objectivity so unpopular that a great many newspapers suspended. For example, the week after the battles of Lexington and Concord, the Boston Evening Post announced “the unhappy Transactions of the last Week are so variously related that we shall not at present undertake to give any particular Account thereof.” In revolutionary Boston, it is easy to see why that paper suspended.” Sam Adams, Tom Paine and many others turned American journal- ism from objectivity toward polemics. The change lasted for at least a century. In no one newspaper could you find a complete statement of the facts. Diversity was imperative. Diversity we had. But it was, on the whole, a multiplicity of error rather than a variety of merely incomplete truth. I’m using these terms, Gentlemen of this morning's panel, in the journalistic sense.” From the time of the formation of our first national political parties, in 1795, American journalism sank to depths of bias and spleen which are hard to imagine today. The news-slanting and the sensationalism of the worst American news- papers of today, and their diatribes against those they do not like, are mild and genteel compared to the regular fulminations of the en- tire American newspaper press in the early nineteenth century. We get awfully worked up about one particular newspaper today which is merely a case of the survival into the twentieth century of a typical nineteenth-century newspaper. Nothing more—nothing less. But something new was already coming by mid-nineteenth century. 8 Boston was the first American city to have a newspaper, but the two attempts in the seventeenth century were both suppressed by the government of Massa- chusetts. The Boston Evening Post, founded in 1735, was for a time the most popular paper in Boston; it apparently tried to be neutral but this did not work; the Massachusetts Spy, which supported the Revolution, had had to move to Worcester in 1770. The only papers which appeared in Boston during the siege were the Massachusetts Gazette and the Boston News Letter; both supported the crown. 9 A reference to the more rigorous definitions which might have been demanded, by the professional philosophers of the morning panel. 258 Individual and Institution It was a journalism that depended on readers and advertisers, rather than on political parties, for its economic survival. A twenty-three- year-old job printer in New York, named Benjamin Day, established in 1833 a four-page tabloid, the New York Sun. He sold it for a penny. And he turned his back on the political or mercantile news upon which other newspapers had always depended. He turned to the trivia of human interest: to the police courts and the fire stations and wherever else stories could be found which would interest the working people and the masses. The other newspapers rarely had more than 3,000 circulation. Ben Day's paper rose within four months to 5,000, and in two years to 15,000—the largest in the world. Day was not trying to reform journalism. He was only trying to make money. The best people said his kind of journalism was vulgar and it certainly was. But the first step had been taken to free newspapers from the control of the political bosses. And the people liked it. Soon Day had many imitators, and American newspapers began to assume their modern form. ſººn elaborated this development somewhat in his original text, as follows: James Gordon Bennett was the greatest of the new figures. He was hated, despised and occasionally beaten up by his contemporaries, but his circula- tion kept on growing. And along with his excesses, there were many ex- posures and revelations in dark places which very much needed the light. Most important of all, he attained economic security and revenues which made it possible for him to pioneer in new methods of gathering and trans- mitting news.] They attained economic security and revenues which made it pos- sible to pioneer in new methods of gathering and transmitting news. The pony express, the telegraph line, the steamboat, the cable—these were all successive stages in swifter news coverage, thus greatly serv- ing the people; but they began to run newspaper costs upward and they began to produce the conditions which have so gravely reduced the numbers of American newspapers. These changes, however, did something else. They produced news- papers which were independent of external financial controls; 19 papers which were able to stand on their own feet, even if those feet took number twelve shoes. Most important of all, these changes * The power of the purchaser of advertising (a possible form of external finan- cial control) is not, perhaps, always disregarded. However, see a lecture given by Arthur Hays Sulzberger on April 25, 1945, “The Newspaper's Role in the Com- munity,” Chapter VIII in The Newspaper, Its Making and Its Meaning, by Mem- bers of the Staff of The New York Times (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1945), pages 172–188. Erwin Canham 259 brought about a practice of at least relative news objectivity in Amer- ican newspapers. It is perfectly true that American newspapers are big business and that most of them think editorially as big business. The critics have pointed out that in 1936, 1940, 1944 and 1948 a con- siderable majority of American newspapers supported editorially the losing presidential candidate. The important point is not what Ameri- can newspapers say on their editorial pages, but what they say on their front pages.” A very good case can be made to support the thesis that the front pages of American newspapers—and the even more centrally controlled radio—elected Franklin Roosevelt four times, and elected Harry Truman once. The dynamic, fighting, diversified, newsworthy campaigns which these Presidents waged demanded and obtained the headlines in most American newspapers. The result was that the inherent appeal in these candidates, their personalities, their campaign tactics, were conveyed to the readers by the media of mass Communication. This increasing news objectivity of the mass media must be deep- ened and enlarged. News objectivity must be the indispensable char- ter of liberties of newspapers and of radio and of films. It is the obli- gation which they bear in return for the guarantees of the Bill of Rights. Originally, the Bill of Rights was a guarantee in the interest of diversity. It was assumed that the truth could come only from a multiplicity of sources. That doctrine has its limitations. Truth is not derived from the piling up of conflicting lies. Truth can much more fully be approximated by an honest effort to try to find it, remember- ing, of course, that truth in human affairs is not absolute, but relative. Today, the guarantees of the Bill of Rights require the beneficiary to try to discover and to tell the truth. It is a doctrine of objectivity. * Questions arise here. It has long been a fetish of American newspapermen that news stories are not to have editorial slants, and American journalists are ap- propriately critical of such papers as Forward or Pravda on this as well as on other counts. But does not the newspaper treatment of the Convocation itself (see pages 6, 67, 452, etc.) demonstrate that there is another and more insidious form of editorial writing which does appear on the front page and consists quite as much of what is not reported as what is reported, and quite as much of what is emphasized in what is reported as of what is actually said? What implications the headlines offer certainly have a bearing on the reader's behavior. And does abdica- tion of editorial policy to the columnists of America lead to any less poisonous sit- uations than was the case in the Revolutionary period? At least the individual backbiter in those days seldom reached a national audience. The effect of the venom of some of these splenetic people (e.g. in the recent Spellman-Roosevelt controversy) is almost incalculable; even when venom is absent, the effect of, for example, an unauthorized interpretation of a Churchillian speech may be much more far-reaching than it ought to be. 260 Individual and Institution Every day, American newspapers to an increasing degree are filled with news that is based upon this effort to be fair and objective. Much of this news will not satisfy the partisans of either side. Hence it is frequently under attack. And there survive vestigial remnants. More- over, newspapers are fallible instruments, and they have many techno- logical hurdles, one of the greatest of which is speed.” They need much greater expertness, much greater training of specialized writers and editors. They are on their way. Now, I believe what has happened to the individual in relation to the media of mass communication has happened to him in connection with many of his other institutions. The institutions are today serving him well. They are far from perfect. They must constantly feel the healthy thrust of his criticism. They are subject to great and steady improvement. But on the qualitative test, I think, they pass. [Canham had the following additional remark in his original manuscript: Quantitatively, it will be very difficult to turn back the hands of the clock. I know no recipe by which the little city of Troy, New York, for example, 12 Demand for speed is not only technological; it is also intellectual. The fact that the presses are waiting for the copy may affect the quality of the copy. This is no very new development. Almost one hundred years ago John Henry, Cardinal Newman, worried about this in The Idea of a University (New York, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1901), pages 20–21, when he said: “An intellectual man, as the world now conceives of him, is one who is full of ‘views’ on all subjects of philosophy, on all matters of the day. It is almost thought a disgrace not to have a view at a moment's notice on any question from the Per- sonal Advent to the Cholera or Mesmerism. This is owing in great measure to the necessities of periodical literature, now so much in request. Every quarter of a year, every month, every day, there must be a supply, for the gratification of the public, of new and luminous theories on the subjects of religion, foreign politics, home politics, civil economy, finance, trade, agriculture, emigration, and the colonies. Slavery, the gold fields, German philosophy, the French Empire, Welling- ton, Peel, Ireland, must all be practised on, day after day, by what are called or- iginal thinkers. As the great man's guest must produce his good stories or songs at the evening banquet, as the platform orator exhibits his telling facts at mid-day, so the journalist lies under the stern obligation of extemporizing his lucid views, leading ideas, and nutshell truths for the breakfast table. The very nature of periodical literature, broken into small wholes, and demanded punctually to an hour, involves the habit of this extempore philosophy. Almost all the Ramblers,” says Boswell of Johnson, ‘were written just as they were wanted for the press; he sent a certain portion of the copy of an essay, and wrote the remainder while the former part of it was printing.” Few men have the gifts of Johnson, who to great vigour and resource of intellect, when it was fairly roused, united a rare common- sense and a conscientious regard for veracity, which preserved him from flippancy or extravagance in writing. Few men are Johnsons; yet how many men at this day are assailed by incessant demands on their mental powers, which only a pro- ductiveness like his could suitably supply! There is a demand for a reckless orig- inality of thought, and a sparkling plausibility of argument, which he would have Erwin Canham 261 can recapture the seven regular newspapers it had within present memory. I do not know how the automobile industry can be broken up into Small units, or how this great Institute of Technology can be split into the size of half a century ago.”] It is not necessary to Balkanize our institutions. The counterbalance to the curse of bigness is responsibility. In some areas, as in business competition and monopoly, some responsibility can be enforced by law. In the field of ideas—in the field of communication of information —responsibility can be enforced by the lash of public criticism. Any intervention of government into the field of control of ideas—and I am not speaking about child-labor laws covering newsboys—becomes a threat to freedom of expression.* But now that the instruments of expression have become big, and in some instances monopolistic, there is only one way they can avoid governmental regulation or control of some kind, only one way to avoid the fate of public utilities and/or common carriers: that is to show spontaneous and adequate responsibility. Freedom of the press is not a right of the press. It is a right of the people. It is an obliga- tion owed by the press to the people, and responsibility to the effort to tell the truth is the essence of the debt. I make no apology for talking so long about one concrete example only, the newspaper press, because it is a major source of general in- formation for the individual; the main channel, perhaps, between him and the problems of his operative world. But it is not the only channel, and, as diversity shrinks, the importance of the other channels in- Crea.SeS. There are many other agencies of communication in society today besides press and radio and films. Innumerable special-interest groups have sprung up, and to some extent they have taken the place of the diverse information media of a century ago. Many of the labor unions despised, even if he could have displayed; a demand for crude theory and un- sound philosophy, rather than none at all.” 18 There is a difference, of course, and the analogy is not perfect for the Insti- tute. The growth of the Institute was not accompanied by the disappearance of other competing institutions but rather quite the contrary. 14 There would be general agreement on this score; but governmental operations, though tempting to governmental control, do not necessarily result in it. The operations of the British Broadcasting Corporation are, for example, an excellent example of non-political interference in a great matter of communication. How- ever, British and American methods of government are so different that trans- atlantic experience is almost irrelevant; and there is little in American political experience to justify confidence that governmental intervention beyond its present degree (i.e., libel laws, use of mails, etc.) would be at all desirable. 262 Individual and Institution have become large educational and communications networks. Men's luncheon clubs, which we poke so much fun at, have become an im- mense arena of communication and/or service. Churches and their many social activities and services are doing their part. Is there a small town or residential suburb that does not have its men's clubs and its women's clubs where the communication of ideas at the individual level is a major function, and professional organizations everywhere grow stronger each day? With such organizations, standards are sharp- ened, and professional stature is enforced and grows apace. In all these organizations, the individual finds his opportunity of expression, of criticism, of social action. They have given individual man the stilts on which to stand in order to look his institutions in the eye.” But the fundamental key to man's relationship to his institutions lies in an understanding of man. Nothing can dwarf man when he realizes his birthright. The need of this age is to awaken to man's dominion as the son of God. No human institution can compare with the validity and the dynamic power of awakened individual man. No institution can enslave man, for man is freeborn.” But he must recognize that birthright, and he must utilize it. Man is sovereign. But he remains sovereign only so long as he lives in keeping with the laws which have guaranteed his sovereignty. Those are the spiritual laws which hold the universe in their grip. They are simple. The Founder of Christian- ity summarized them in two commandments. Living an awakened life in keeping with those commandments, the individual can always have dominion over his institutions. His institutions were put under his feet, and they will stay there as long as man, individual man, remem- bers his heritage. >k >k >k >k >k After thanking Mr. Canham, Professor Brown then introduced the next speaker, as follows: “We are particularly happy to welcome our next speaker, who comes from our sister country of Mexico. He is not only an architect of note, but also a planner of note. Mr. Contreras remarked to me this morning that planning was a word which meant all things to all men, and be- fore you let your emotional reaction to the word planning become set, perhaps we had better hear from Mr. Contreras; at any rate he * And, as Flanders remarks (page 282), they offer an outlet for energies pre- viously directed to individualistic work. 16 Compare with Churchill, page 60 et f. Carlos Contreras 263 not only has to his credit planning of large plans, but he has been ex- tremely active in the field of architecture and planning for the little fellow. With great pleasure then, let me present to you Mr. Carlos Contreras.” " CARLOS CONTRERAS Since this is a spiritual panel, I think I would like to take a minute off to make a confession. I want to say a few words about my con- nections with M.I.T., which go as far back as a hot summer in 1907, 42 years ago, when I was not admitted to M.I.T. I flunked (that was a very good collegiate term) three of my en- trance examinations in the geometries and in algebra, and I want to tell you how much I appreciate and how grateful I am for the honor that has been bestowed upon me and upon Mexico in inviting me to this memorable Mid-Century Convocation of M.I.T. The conflict between man and the masses has been waged through- out history. The outcome of this conflict does not frighten me provided we free men do all we can to strengthen the position of man in the world so that in the years to come, we may have the highest recogni- tion of the dignity of the individual. In order that this may happen we must establish firmly the basis for the material and spiritual betterment of mankind. The very first things to give mankind on the material side are water, food, clothing and housing, for we must remember Saint Thomas' words in the thirteenth century: “The practice of virtue is not possible without a minimum of material well-being.” ” We shall have an easier job on the spiritual side if we have previ- ously satisfied those terrific yearnings and needs that are so grave and so urgent for so many millions of people throughout the world. If we have well-fed, well-clothed and properly housed individuals and fam- ilies, of course, we shall be in a better position to teach, to preach and to practice what we preach. With schools, playgrounds, recreation and leisure properly used, we shall then find that the active, keen and interested participation of individuals is undoubtedly compatible with the proper conduct of human affairs. The capacity and preparation of men, their strength, their human qualities as leaders of men, influ- ence effectively the activities of the institutions of which they are a part. As an integral part of an institution, man must face the problems which confront the institution and which likewise confront him, realiz- 17 For a brief biography of Contreras, see Biographical Notes, page 518. * See Notestein, page 118; Mudaliar, page 163; Compton, page 31. 264 Individual and Institution ing in this process the relationship and the part that is his in the insti- tution. The stronger the individual, the stronger the institution of which he is a part. The individual will, naturally, continue to act as an individual, and we most emphatically wish to foster this characteristic throughout the world. We want men to be men. Would it not be well to discard or explain the misstatement or understatement that “all men are born equal” and change it to a truer one that all men and all women are born different? In the selection of people, the fact that not all people are equal constitutes the basis to select the best fitted. The essence of individual freedom is undoubt- edly based in our very differences. People are not all equal. All possess in greater or smaller degree the influence of their personalities; they have their own tastes and in- clinations; they wish to make their own decisions and live their own lives. People differ in height and in the shape of their heads, hands and feet. This difference exists in our fingerprints and in the size, shape and composition of our glands and in the reactions of our minds. There is not only harmony between the different organs of the body, but also between the body which is known and the intelligence which knows it.” [In Contreras' original text this paragraph began: We need to apply science to the study of human nature so that we may know ourselves better and thus eliminate the ignorance of the elements which constitute human individualism. In the study of human nature we still find many “blind” points in human knowledge; the problem of sickness and death; the nature of the universe; the nature of life; . . . of mind and human emotions. In the presence and action of the soul we find har- monious relations which bind it to physical man: an intelligence which knows the work of God and understands its beauty, for there is not only harmony between the different organs of the body but also between the body which is known and the intelligence which knows it.] In life, whether we like it or not, there is always a hierarchy: a spiritual, and an intellectual, and a social hierarchy. Since certain beings are destined to direct the collective life of others subordinated to them, it is logical to suppose that those who fulfill such missions should be integrally superior to those others for whom they are going to legislate and who will be governed by them. 19 Compare with Maritain and Bridgman in Chapter v. Carlos Contreras 265 In nations, the majorities are unprepared people with simple notions of duty, of good and bad. In many places the thoughts and the feel- ings of the governed exist in a maze of internal confusion.” Their means of livelihood and the environment in which they live hinder a full development of their actions. For many years an innate conviction has held their hearts contracted in a gesture of bitterness and skepti- cism as to social betterment. In the study of these human differences and human relationships, the matter of scales is appalling. In dealing with his family and the fellow beings of his community, man finds different standards of re- lationships, and he applies the human scale to his various needs. The differences in men and in groupings of men are expressed in the differences of their houses, and, as a natural consequence, of their cities. When we are faced with the problem of architectural design, we find the individual element multiplied again and again, and yet the ruling scale is the human scale. But when we come to the problem of city design and planning and building, the scale is not only the human scale in its various aspects, but the automobile, the bus and the railroad and the airplane enter into the picture, and thereupon these means of transportation, which have so affected human, city, country and world relations, bring into play several different and important scales. The ways in which people have lived through different periods of history have given us the varying scales of city design and building; the dignity and refinement of the Greeks, the vigor and power of the Romans, the seclusion and roaming spirit of the Arabs, the home life and the guilds of the Middle Ages, the exuberance and splendor of the Renaissance and the Baroque, the scientific and industrial develop- ment of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Speed madness and restlessness of the jet planes give us a picture of the various scales man has used and will have to use in the design and construction of our cities of the future. Yet should we keep on flying as fast as we can go?” Or should we also find time to stay at home to do some paint- ing, or carving, or bookbinding, or write and read poetry, or waste some time wisely, or go out cross-country on horseback like Don Quixote? * See the statement by Contreras' fellow-countryman Jaime Torres Bodet in Appendix G. 21 See Churchill, page 55. 266 Individual and Institution In planning, I have maintained for almost 25 years the essential principles of overall national, regional and city planning. The programs for the redesigning, replanning and rebuilding of our cities should be the result of independent, free, uncompromising in- dividual thinking; the realization should come by the active coöpera- tion of the citizens of our community. I believe also that we have been decidedly too conservative in our planning. Afraid of planning big, we have preserved many existing conditions which have hindered the proper development of our cities. We have not failed in foreseeing, but we have failed in our arguments to convince the politicians in power who could only see what could be done while they lasted in office. It is not possible to expect from them a generous vision of the future in city growth. Most cities in the world must be studied, replanned and rebuilt. Cancerous growths and physical and financial decay are threatening to kill them. We must design and create new cities that shall be clean and beautiful and that will grow and develop in order, efficiency and harmony. We have been weak enough to surrender to political expediency and have not given sufficient consideration to economic and social facts in city building, which should be put together by technicians and made to work with the coöperation of the citizens in each community in the form of long-term planning and financial programs. We have failed also, failed miserably, in the architectural control of our cities. We must educate our city masses visually, artistically and architectur- ally until they can see and feel form, and order, and beauty,” and until they, the people, with the artists, architects and planners co- operate and produce a new architecture that will be simple, well- designed and well-built, with good, true and lasting building mate- ** Clearly a formidable task and one which has, on historical evidence, almost never been carried through. The problem of creating standards of taste is in itself difficult enough. To establish the notion that taste matters may be even more diffi- cult. People do in a way sense the qualities which make a superbly beautiful city and do understand that Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Lisbon, Zurich, Bruges, Stockholm, Florence, Boston or San Francisco have characters beyond the ordinary. Yet the moment any personal sacrifice is required to achieve such an end, difficulties arise. The man who cannot park his automobile may try to remove the green grass on which he might have parked. As Livingstone has remarked in another place, our culture badly needs a sense of the first-rate. The problem Contreras poses here is difficult in another way. It is unnecessary to name some American cities or British cities which are specifically ugly, but they do exist. Yet the populations of these cities, through habit no doubt, have become blind to their ugliness; and many can even be found to carry the torch of urban patriotism to the point of believing that beautiful cities have in them some spirit of laziness, of decadence. Carlos Contreras 267 rials: a living, livable, beautiful architecture that will have pleasant and harmonious proportions and that will be the natural result of solv- ing intelligently with inspiration, imagination, ability and courage in the various countries of the world the various complex problems of the proper satisfaction of one of the most important of human needs: the construction of the proper shelter and lodging for the multiple functions that man must satisfy in his normal every-day life with his family and in his community. Its beneficent effect upon the individual is incalculable. In this large undertaking of improving the living conditions in the world, man must realize that he cannot exist without spiritual values; that material wealth and knowledge, science and production, are nothing if they are not directed by wisdom toward social ends. In the educational field our universities represent the outstanding and highest type of world institutions. Luis Garrido, President of the Na- tional University of Mexico, in his message to Mexican youth, states that in no period of humanity as in the present one do we find youth on the threshold of an opportunity laden with such marvelous promises or with such messages of ruin and desolation. It is up to youth to succeed in having humanity take the right road in accordance with Christian tradition. [Contreras' original text had a statement of great interest at this point: Physically, the youth of today excel the people of the past generation and their minds are filled with new knowledge about the things and beings which surround them. The most important thing is that they be true men in the integral sense of the word. Genius and strength are worth nothing if we do not put them to the serv- ice of our fellow beings. The most sacred duty of youth lies in the relation to the community in which it lives. If each youth had the desire to work for the development and betterment of humanity, life in the second half of the present century would be better and happier. The mechanized existence, the lust for money, as means of power, the decadent philosophies and in general the increase of material appetites leads us to the decline of the noblest principles of life. The first responsibility of youth is to work for the development of cultural values. The struggle for power is carried on frequently not to improve the community but only to satisfy personal appetites. Under these conditions it is not possible to build up fairly a social and economic organization. If the new generation con- tinues to be controlled by its eagerness to triumph hurriedly and to occupy a place of preference in the banquet of life, the world will not find a moral equilibrium. Every young man is called to a high destiny if he knows how to concen- trate his life to undertakings of exceptional scope. In the same way that an educated person preserves the ideals of his family, the good citizen of to- 268 Individual and Institution morrow must have a profound national feeling. He must love his mother tongue, his religion and traditions to beautify them with new values, since the secret of great individualities lies in the fact that they knew how to be the leaders of a noble cause. If youth dreams and wishes to enjoy real independence and sovereignty it must strengthen its love of liberty, the moral roots of a pure idealism. Human intelligence has been brilliant in the discovery of new forces but has shown itself unable to control them in favor of man. These problems re- quire for their solution the continuous and generous efforts of youth in favor of spiritual freedom.] General Eisenhower, President of Columbia University, reports a greater interest than ever in the humanities at Columbia, a 60 per cent increase in philosophy and one of the largest gains in the fields of re- ligion, political science and the creative arts; and he encourages his students, saying that to try to understand better the personal rela- tionship to the country and to the world and to understand that the human individual is still the center of the universe and the only reason for the existence of all the institutions founded by man, it is necessary to strengthen individual effort, increasing every collective strength, and I add, the salvation of the world lies in the free, not the compul- sory, solidarity of individuals and of institutions. My message, then, must be in accordance with my personal feelings and thoughts, and in accordance with what has been the guiding principles in a half-century of personal and varied experience in life. It hopes to be a spiritual message of optimism. The grave problems which face us all, young and old alike, in the world today, require a good share of faith and optimism. But we must be willing also to sacrifice much of our personal well-being, for in life when considering your own condition you must both look up with faith and optimism and also look downward to see the immensity of human misery and poverty below us. So far the thoughts that I have expressed might give you the im- pression that you have before you only an idealist and a dreamer of dreams that cannot be. This would be a wrong impression for some of my dreams have come true. I have done things, too. I have planned public works in many cities in Mexico, and I have had the satisfaction, rare in dreamers, of seeing many of these paper plans come to life. And so I can say to you, as a happy individual in a world of institu- tions, to you, the young men of M.I.T. and of the world, to those who want to do things, to those who are willing to do something for others, to give of yourselves freely for you shall receive a hundred to one of Clinton Golden 269 what you give. I will say that of the material side of realizations you must know what you want to do and do it gladly. Work to strengthen your character and your personality and get a sense of humor so as not to take yourselves too seriously; keep your feet firmly set on the ground, but look up to the stars, aim high, don’t be afraid, and like the bird that never crashes, fly with the wings of the spirit that God has given you. >k >k >k >k :: Professor Brown then introduced the next speaker as follows: “Our next speaker has had a notable career in the labor movement of this country and in government. He not only has the complete con- fidence of his associates in the labor movement, but what is more rare, the confidence of many factions within the labor movement. He has served in many governmental posts, and is currently the Labor Ad- viser to the Economic Coöperation Administration. Mr. Clinton S. Golden.” 28 CLINTON STRONG GOLDEN I wish to follow the example of Mr. Contreras by making a con- fession. The confession is to the effect that I have never had any formal education and I am quite overawed and terrified when I come into great institutions like M.I.T. to face audiences of this kind, and unlike the distinguished speaker who addressed the great gathering last night, I have not “picked up so much along the road.” “I seek reassurance from something that Mark Twain is reported to have said to the effect that he never let his schooling interfere with his education. Democracy exposes the age-old struggle between the individual and institutions because democracy is more fluid than the authoritarian types of social organization and because it lays bare the principals in the struggle. In this sense democracy may be called a laboratory in which students may study the behavior of human beings, the on- going struggle between the individual and the State, and the resultant consequences of anti-social acts by leaders of men. By its very nature, democracy becomes fruitful soil for the rearing of anti-social types, and this propensity is democracy's salient fault. When Henry David Thoreau went to jail because he refused to pay taxes and when he asserted that he went to jail on principle inasmuch as taxes marked the invasion of the sanctity of the individual by an 23 For a brief biography of Golden, see Biographical Notes, page 519. 24. A reference to Churchill, page 52. 270 Individual and Institution overweening State, we had the spectacle of individualism brought to an extreme, almost ludicrous. And yet individualistic tradition in New England produced a significant literature, brought about a moral re- birth that ended in the abolition of human slavery and laid the founda- tion of a modern educational system.” When the South seceded in 1860, principally because it was not going to be coerced or dictated to by any other section of the coun- try, we beheld the same principle of individualism at work and yet that individualism which brought about secession was the basis that brought about the defeat of the Confederacy. States' rights, when ap- plied to the business of gathering war material, raising of arms, selec- tion of generals, simply would not win against the section that was founded on unionism and federalism. Robert E. Lee was fighting for Virginia, Jefferson Davis was fighting for Mississippi, Grant and Lin- coln were fighting for a union. The Confederacy was what the name implied, a loosely knit organization of regions. It was very easy to pass from the theory of states' rights to the theory of private business 25 See Van Wyck Brooks, The Flowering of New England (New York, E. P. Dutton and Co., Inc., 1936), and in particular Chapter 28, “Conclusion,” pages 526 and 529: “The Civil War brought to a head, however inconclusively, a phase of American culture that later times described as the New England ‘renaissance.’ This move- ment of mind continued in the generation that followed, and many of the writers who embodied it long outlived the war. Some of them produced their best work, or work, at least, equal to their best, during this later period. But all had given their measure before the war, and several had disappeared before it. That they stood for some collective impulse, exceptional in the history of the national mind, no one questioned later or has ever questioned. Whether this impulse was a renais- sance or only an ‘Indian summer,’ as Mr. Santayana has called it, a ‘golden age or a ‘golden day, the impulse existed and the movement was real. The question is only one of its general meaning and what it signified in itself. . . . “What was the cause of this transfiguration? The breadth of their conscious horizon, the healthy objectivity of their minds, their absorption in large preoccupa- tions, historical, political, religious, together with a literary feeling, a blend of the traditional and the local, that gave the local wider currency while it brought the traditional home to men's business and bosoms. They filled the New England scene with associations and set it, as it were, in three dimensions, creating the visible foreground it had never possessed. They helped to make their countrypeople con- scious of the great world-movements of thought and feeling in which they played parts side by side with the intellectual leaders of the older countries. In their scholarship, their social thought, their moral passion, their artistic feeling, they spoke for the universal republic of letters, giving their own province a form and body in the consciousness of the world. Moreover, there was something in their temper that made them seem friends of the human spirit. They stood for good faith and fair play and all that was generous and hopeful in the life of their time. The hold they gained and kept over the nation possessed an extra-literary sanction, as if they were voices of the national ethos.” Clinton Golden 271 as usual. Profiteering, privateering, human carpetbagging became, if not a virtue, at least a permissive activity of powerful individuals.” These contrasting examples suggest that individualism has a role to play in human society, but they also suggest that society must have a discipline, a cohesiveness which may not with impunity be broken. To resort to the vernacular, the world is getting a dose of authori- tarianism on an unprecedented scale. The individual frequently ap- pears to be but a pawn in a cosmic chess game played by powerful oligarchies. Human life may be regarded as the least-prized com- modity in this shrinking world. The intolerable crimes perpetrated upon the individual in the name of the State are too horrible for man's memory to bear. The trend unfortunately continues. The intent of this panel, then, is to discuss frankly the most important subject of our generation. We live in an organized world. Even democratic countries, with their protective interest in the individual citizen, are highly organized. The business world revolves around the corporation. The workers of the world take refuge in their unions. Leagues, associations, societies, lobbies, bureaus, granges, coöperatives and parties distinguish modern life. The individual sought refuge in organization in order to protect his own integrity, to win a place in the fluctuating environment for him- self and for his family, in short to secure freedom. In this formative period, few individuals appeared to question the wisdom of entrusting their destiny to the organization of which the individual willingly became a part. The organization appeared to be a refuge, an ongoing instrumentality of good. After a time, the organiza- tion took on a life of its own, with ethics of its own, a code of be- havior quite apart from that of the individuals which made up its almost metaphysical selfhood. This life of its own appeared to be a willing tool of tyranny. The whole meaning of Hitlerism was just this: individuals could be induced or forced to espouse the amoral objectives of the “party” out of sound social motives. Communism is without doubt following the same for- mula. The dilemma between the amoral objectives of an amoral party and the moral purposes of the individual creates a “trap” for the rest * This example may not stand up under historical analysis. There was often more unity in the Confederate command than in the Union; there was certainly no more graft south of the Mason-Dixon Line than north of it. Those who hold the spirit high would blame the defeat on the nature of the causes; Douglass Southall Freeman, on the untimely and wasteful death of too many brilliant military com- manders; others on the overwhelming industrial power of the north. 272 Individual and Institution of the world. Unless this dilemma can be resolved in terms of ancient values, order, the good of the individual and the community, the whole fiber, not merely of human institutions, but of human society is en- dangered. Having been an organization man all my life, I am aware of the significant services performed by labor organizations for their in- dividual members. These services are representative and social, in- cluding insurance services, better standards of living, education, so- cial and humanitarian legislation; moreover, the responsible labor or- ganization performs and can perform the principal functions of democ- racy, contribute to the sense of individual dignity, without which the individual citizen becomes little more than a number or a pawn. On the other hand, unless there is genuine democracy within the organiza- tion, the organization can readily manifest institutional hypocrisy, and while hiding behind idealistic goals engage in certain tyrannical prac- tices, harsh materialism and dehumanizing policies which are entirely deplorable. Unless the organization—the totality of the individuals of which it is composed—stands constantly on guard against these anti- democratic tendencies within itself, the organization may become an anti-social force. In America, the phrase “rugged individualism” has become a term of opprobrium. This phrase describes an act of strange transformation when individualism (which I understand to be a philosophy of human- istic self-reliance) takes on the aspect of dehumanized institutionaliza- tion, making “rugged individualism” itself become the lifeless philos- ophy of a party or a group which in truth cares little about the in- dividual. Real individualism is the basis of democracy. It involves the right of the individual to reach independent decisions; it involves making accessible to the individual the facts for such a decision; it involves equipping the individual with the education to make such decisions; and above all else it creates machinery through which the individual can speak out against wrongs without fear of losing his livelihood or his status. In a world of organizations, this machinery is the very es- sential of democracy. The essence of democracy is, of course, voluntarism as opposed to coercion. Democracy is founded upon faith in men. When democracy first appeared upon the world scene it was likened to unrestrained mob rule. It is now taking its rightful place among forms of social organization that represent the very pinnacle of man's achievements. It depends upon the self-discipline of every individual citizen for its Merle Tuve 273 disciplines. It must do with widespread education and by voluntary methods what many totalitarian states seek to do with tyranny and force. Finally, as a kind of summary of what I have undertaken to say, I ask you to contrast two assertions: The first, “the end justifies the means”; the second, “the end is im- plicit in the means.” :k >k :k >k :k Professor Brown then introduced the next speaker as follows: “Our next speaker has asked me to point out to you an error in his biographical sketch.” If you read it carefully you will find it is stated in that sketch that he was born in South Carolina; actually, he was born in South Dakota. He also wants me to explain to you that the reason for calling this to your attention is not that he is ashamed of South Carolina but that he is afraid that South Carolina might be ashamed of him. “He is not only a distinguished physicist, but, as I am sure that you will agree shortly, a very careful thinker on other matters as well. “It gives me real pleasure to introduce to you the Director of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution of Washington–Dr. Merle A. Tuve.” MERLE ANTONY TUVE I am going to suggest that you each carry this program home and try for yourself to make a panel statement. We had a terrible assign- ment. I first started about six weeks ago and, well, I have a pretty good speech here, but this is the last of five of them, and I am going to cut most of this. I am reminded, in fact, of a remark that Mr. Contreras made as we were walking back from lunch. In Yucatan they sleep in hammocks, and when a young man from Yucatan arrived in Mexico City he was greeted at the station, queried as to his health and asked how well he slept last night. He came in on a Pullman, and he said, “Well, the fact is I had an awful time getting into that small hammock.” Well, that's the way I feel about the statement that I have in front of me, that considering the problems that were addressed to us this is a pretty small hammock! I haven't noticed that the previous speakers have conspicuously answered the questions, either. So I will make the first statement of my position to begin with. * As supplied in booklet form to those attending the Convocation. * For a brief biography of Tuve, see Biographical Notes, page 529. 274 Individual and Institution The broad problem we are examining is whether our society is now so intensively organized that the individual is becoming helpless and in- effective and his life progressively less satisfying. I think this is true for many individuals as it always was. But for the thoughtful person, for individuals of cultivated awareness, I regard the opportunity for a richly satisfying individual life, and indeed, for a great many more such individuals than ever before, as immeasurably greater today than in any earlier epoch. Now, I have stated my position on the questions. I have two points to contribute to this discussion. I will give them first and repeat them with such extension as time permits. My first point is the importance of communication in the area of values, and the limitations and the mysteries encountered here. Value judgments are not part of a rational framework of logical concepts. They do not relate to what a thing is or how to do it, but why it's considered worth- while. Values are goals or ends and they lie in the aesthetic or spiritual area of the human intelligence, while logical concepts and processes are means, and lie in the rational area. A personal decision to like or dislike something is not an act of logic, although it may be illuminated by reason.” I am speaking really more simply than you think. Com- munication means the transfer of ideas between individuals, and these ideas must be apprehended and then formulated in some way before they can be transferred. Now in the course of a hundred thousand years or so, we have evolved a fairly workable system for communica- tion in the rational area,” but our aesthetic perceptions and exchanges are still dim and hazy and inadequate. Yet the primary area for satis- faction in life and for mutually satisfactory relationships among us is this aesthetic area which the rational area serves as a tool.” The chief problem for both leaders and followers at any level of organization is adequate communication and agreement in the area of values. This is the thing which is essential to free institutions. How well is this recog- nized and how much is it stressed by our Western civilization today? Do Our young men know that here lies the difference between educa- tion and training? And do our organizations reflect this importance of value communication? My second point relates directly to the first. Do our various selection procedures, by which we choose younger men for increased opportu- * Compare this section on the intelligence with Bridgman, page 235. * Bridgman insists that serious semantic problems still exist even in this area, page 233. * This statement would have added interest to the morning discussion between Maritain and Stace. Merle Tuve 275 nity and influence, more and more distort the social situation by an ex- cessive bias in favor of individuals who show great prowess in the rational area?” Perhaps we are even selecting against those who have special gifts or capacities for communications in the area of values. Is there a real trend in our modern society to bias our selection of leadership more and more in the direction only of rational effective- ness, and is this a road towards sterility and destruction? If so, I am sure that we have not gone so far that the progression is irrevocable. But how clearly do we recognize the bias of selection which seems so emphatic in all of our organized procedures for picking out young men and giving them opportunity and influence and distinction? Now that's the speech! We will see how far we get. We are examining the role of the individual in a world of institutions. Our attention is focused on the status of the individual in the middle and lower levels of organizations. We want to identify the elements of organizational policy which are restrictive and those which con- tribute to more satisfactory lives for the human beings in highly or- ganized communities. If we do a good job in this analysis, the indi- vidual, multiplied into a large community, may be able to exercise in- telligent choice and do things which will influence present trends in the direction of a more satisfactory life. What, then, are the character- istics needed in organizational relationships if they are to contribute to these, notice “subjective purposes,” of individual freedom and satis- faction? Well, I have noted down two simple criteria that I think will serve to identify organization policies which foster individual freedom: a. The individual is expected to communicate his honest convictions regarding actions or goals of the organized group of which he is a participant. Note the words “expected to communicate”! b. These communications are received with respect and given due weight after correspondingly honest and critical evaluation. An organization which meets these criteria engenders self-respect and mutual respect. It requires honesty and punishes deception. It does not require or give equality except in two respects; namely, equality of opportunity and equal weight in the selection of goals or ends, the discrimination of purpose, the old choice between good and evil. This qualification that an individual's opinion must be received and given due weight calls for some attention. The “due weight” of an in- * This section would have added an interesting question to the discussion on Specialization in Education which took place in the morning. 276 Individual and Institution dividual opinion regarding rational procedures, methods, means, must depend on the adequacy of his knowledge and past experience. In other words, it must be weighted by an “information factor.” But the “due weight” of his convictions regarding goals or ends, his value judg- ments about the means even employed to reach those ends, must be accepted as the equal of every other individual opinion.* The subject could be analyzed in detail, but I think this is the essence of it. I would like to enlarge on these simple criteria, but it is at least clear that they are directed toward evaluating the extent to which organiza- tional relationships foster the critical self-respect and satisfactions of the individual. These are internal to a man, subjective and directly ap- prehended. I have no hesitation in making the matter of primary im- portance, as all primary reality is subjective, and all primary experi- ence is subjective. I do not minimize the importance of rational con- templation of experience and the necessity for “informed” value judg- ments. Intelligence is, of course, one unified system. I simply point out the validity of the inner decisions or choices of an individual, and the fact that these are not made by processes of logic, but that aesthetic factors, extraneous to logic, are paramount here. Organization of a group requires consent of those organized. This can be obtained either freely or by duress. Free consent by the individual is based on value judgments, on his decisions as to what is worthwhile, not just on his logical agreement as to what is effective. Hence for a society to operate on the give-and- ** A great deal depends here on how one interprets “rational procedure” and “value judgment.” For example, Tuve would surely not argue that a group of trained artists might not be able to express a wiser opinion as to the probable value of a contemporary painting than any amateur, but it could be inferred from the statement he makes here that both the artist and the random layman have an equal vote as to whether or not he as an individual likes the painting since many of the trained artists' judgments are intuitive, not rational. A problem arises when the question comes up as to who is to decide whether or not a painting, for in- stance, shall be placed in a public place. Does Tuve's statement here mean that an uninformed majority disliking a picture should prevent the informed directors of a public museum from acquiring it? This relates closely to the problem of pub- lic taste posed by Contreras and discussed in footnote 22. The semantic prob- lem thus persists. Obviously, there is no difficulty if the example problem is taken to be a “rational” one, but if it is there are not many areas which are purely value areas and the chances are that very few choices are all rational or all value, 100 per cent the black or 100 per cent the white; which is why this semantic difficulty exists. Tuve has commented on this observation as follows: “The footnote appears to stray from the question in hand. We are examining criteria by which organizations or institutional relationships are to be judged. This has little to do with public dis- agreements about paintings, unless the paintings are political (organizational).” Merle Tuve 277 take basis of the two simple criteria I have noted, it is essential to have a reasonable area of agreement in the value systems among the in- dividuals organized into the society. This necessity for reasonable agreement as to ends, not just means, agreement as to what is worth doing, not simply how to do it, is the factor which gives such large im- portance to communication in the area of values. I have spoken of the rational side of mind; these categories are necessary simply for clarity and discussion. “Rational” is concerned with concepts, logic, reason. The aesthetic side is concerned with motivation, curiosity, de- sire, discrimination, in other words, the “spirit” of man. Mind, of course, is a unified system, but it is necessary to be clear in our speaking. We have evolved a very comprehensive system for communication in the rational area and our logical systems are constant criteria for the efficacy of interchange here. We know how to recognize at once the fact that another individual is using the denotative value of words in a sense which differs from our own. But how well are our capacities de- veloped for aesthetic communication?” This is the area of connotative properties of words and phrases, the area of poetic communication. My observation is that we have excessively de-emphasized “aes- thetic” communication in the world of today, and we have greatly overemphasized the rational component. Whether in business or edu- cation or politics,” we are tremendously aware of how we are moving along at a great pace, but almost at a loss as to why we are going there. There is so little discussion and awareness of evaluation of ends or purposes—values—that we are all under the casual impression that the overwhelming emphasis in modern life is “materialistic,” but this is only a superficial thing. We have just finished one phase of a crusade, the crusade of men of free speech, men of good will, men with a pre- cious right to know and to choose in the light of knowledge, and we are still carrying it forward. The false charge of materialism, “mate- rialistic America,” will yet undo those who make it. In a sense it is one of the manners of our age that we speak very little about values, but there is a deep undercurrent of agreement and acceptance of their importance. * Probably not so badly among the specialists, and the laymen communicate badly about other and more objective things such as the laws of motion, but Tuve really means here that there has been a loss of general public interest in these areas—a loss, for example, of the sense of beauty (see Burchard, pages 9, 10; Con- treras, page 266)—and this develops in his next sentences. * Or Science, unless “science for science's sake” is accepted at a time when the progenitor phrase about art is largely rejected. 278 Individual and Institution My second question was—do our methods for the selection of young men for advancement and opportunity distort the social situation by a strong bias favoring individuals who show prowess in the rational area, and perhaps even selecting against individuals with great capac- ity in the aesthetic area of mind? It is clear that a “hard-headed realist” or a man “with a keen analytical mind” is a highly regarded candidate, and it would be an unusual position for which the officials in charge would seek out and push forward a man because “he is a sensitive per- son.” In fact, is this not a mildly damning qualification in our organiza- tional procedures? I am not saying that we should select only sensitive persons without adequate rational equipment and training, but aren't all the pressures such that we reduce the sensitive awareness of these individuals in the course of their training, and even then finally select the ones who show the least evidence of “softness”? What about our educational system? We certainly select strongly here in favor of prowess in the rational area. The environmental pres- sures tend largely to reduce “sensitivity.” The standards for excellence and distinction during this impressionable period certainly emphasize rational prowess, and are not conspicuous in athletics or other extra- curricular activities for their approbation of sensitivity. What about our college faculties? Who are the men most prized and most glamorous? I think they are not selected especially for their sensitivity, though some of the best ones show that they have not lost this characteristic. I shall dare ask one more question which, incidentally, reaches well be- yond my competence. The comment has been made that peaks of great technical elaboration in this society are often followed by periods of internal disintegration—even by disintegration so profound as to lead to the destruction of the society and its creativeness. Is there a possible connection with a tendency to bias social selection very strongly to- ward this “rational prowess” in a period of technical achievement? Per- haps we see here the result of a limitation on the effectiveness of social communication and dynamic agreement in the “aesthetic” area of mind; communication and agreement relating to motivation, choice, discrimination of the good, and agreement of the value systems of the individuals who make up the society. And one final question—what actions might be appropriate in the direction of increasing opportunity and influence for individuals pos- sessing high capacity for apprehension and communication in the area of values? You must remember that organizational procedures are ra- tional procedures. What are the limits of rational procedures in deal- ing with values, which are matters lying in the aesthetic area? Ralph Flanders 279 Lest I be accused of only asking questions and answering none, let me just say that my remarks are all directed towards stressing the im- portance and the undeveloped nature of communication in the area of values. Yet this is the prime factor which I see as essential to the preservation of free institutions and the enhancement of the satis- factions of life for the individual in a world of institutions.” :k >k :k: >k >k Professor Brown then introduced the last speaker, in the following words: “Our next speaker I seldom, if ever, think of without thinking of a designation which at one point in his career he gave himself. He comes from Vermont, and as you know, Vermont is not noted for its failure to go along with the Republican Party. At one point, he had received the Republican nomination for Senator. His friends came to him and congratulated him, calling him Senator; some of them called him Senator-Elect, but he said, ‘No, no, I am not Senator, I am not Senator-Elect, I am Senator Tantamount.’ You all know who he is, a man who is a progressive, successful businessman, a Life Member of the Corporation of M.I.T., and now no longer Senator Tantamount, but Senator the Honorable Ralph E. Flanders.” " RALPH EDwARD FLANDERs I'll tell you a little something, Ladies and Gentlemen, about the in- structions given me; they were to prepare a manuscript of decent length—4,500 to 5,000 words or something of the sort, and then to con- fine the verbal presentation to 15 minutes. The first instructions were not difficult of accomplishment; they were in the ordinary run of the duties of a United States Senator, and were easily accomplished. I & tº gº e found some difficulty in the second, and I only succeeded by deciding to leave out the best part of the manuscript.* The development of science and the use made of its findings by engineering and business management have brought important changes into our economic, social and political life. These changes I find to be clearly indicated when I compare the world of my boyhood in the * This has certainly been an eloquent statement for the “humanities” by a dis- tinguished scientist. 87 For a brief biography of Flanders, see Biographical Notes, page 518. * Much of it is now reinstated in the text; see the matter to follow in smaller type size. 280 Individual and Institution late eighties with that in which we are all living now. I go on and expand these differences very nicely in my manuscript. [The original text to which Flanders refers, and which certainly does give a very clear description of the old days, reads as follows: For example, in the Vermont town of Barnet, in which I was born, we had among other local craftsmen a tinsmith who supplied the needs of the village and of all the country around within driving distance. In his shop, most of the time single-handed, he made pails, coffee pots, teakettles and anything else required to be made of tin, as well as stove piping out of “Rus- sian iron” as it used to be called. He was a leading citizen of the town. The fact that he was a capable craftsman lent dignity to his position. The tin plate and sheet iron he purchased from distributors in Boston. All the rest of the work was done by his own hands in his own bright, clean, orderly shop. In my town of Barnet, the womenfolk did not buy their clothes ready- made. Many of them cut and sewed their own gowns. Others engaged the services of the local dressmaker who came to the house, cut the cloth to the pattern selected and supplied by the lady of the house and finished and fitted the dress to the human form. The day of the local or traveling tailor and shoemaker was not far past, and these craftsmen still were remembered not merely by the ancients but by those in active middle life. I, myself, can remember my New Hampshire grandmother and her sis- ter, the one spinning and the other weaving the wool from the family flock. I do not remember how the cloth was cut and sewed, but I assume it was done by a tailor in a neighboring town. As to socks and mittens, nobody thought of buying them. Knitting was the winter vocation and avocation of the women folk. Every village had its gristmill. Nobody bought cattle feed from the Middle West. Even the local flour mills were still running, and much of our wheat flour was made from locally grown grain. None of these things that I have mentioned as being the normal indus- tries of a country village now exist, except as casual nostalgic reminders. Everything is now mass-produced, with an economy in labor costs and an efficiency in transportation that make us dependent for these common ne- cessities on factories and merchandising houses far away from the towns in which we live.] I'll just say that they related to the village tinsmith, the village dressmakers, the village gristmill, the shovel, hoe and rake factory near by, home spinning and home weaving. You could see the whole process without more than an afternoon’s buggy ride from your home. You knew how people lived, you knew how people worked, you knew how your food, clothing and shelter were put together, where it came from, and you knew everything—you were a part of it. It is not in consumer goods alone that the shift to impersonal pro- duction has taken place. Until my election to the United States Senate Ralph Flanders 281 I had been for many years connected with a machine-tool building firm in another Vermont town. Fifty years ago it was leading the ad- vance of machine-tool production toward limited and specialized lines on a production basis. In spite, however, of this advance toward mod- ernity the shop was still small by present-day standards, and in spite of the fact that each workman specialized in his small range of opera- tions, the physical size of the plant was such that he saw the parts he had helped to make being assembled into the finished machine and shipped out the door to destinations which were matters of perpetual interest and gossip. The contribution of each to the making of that machine was known and appreciated by each. There was a feeling of . personal responsibility for the successful operation of the machine in the customer's plant. That responsibility could be directly and im- mediately visualized. The very size of the successful modern machine-tool plants tends to blur this feeling of individual pride and achievement. If this change is true in these comparatively small establishments, how much more is it true in the enormous mass-production industries which are the dominant element in the present-day production. All day long a worker performs a single operation on, let us say, the rear axle bevel pinion of the automobile. Minute by minute, hour by hour, week by week, month by month, the same identical part goes past him and he per- forms on it the same identical operation. He knows what this part is— he has an automobile of his own. He may judge, in general, as to whether the pinion and the gear with which it meshes are noisy or quiet. He may have had some experience with their wearing out or with breaking in an old car. But the bringing of this part up to an ap- propriate pitch of perfection for its work is no responsibility of his. Remote metallurgists whom he has never seen, specialists in surface finishes, engineers trained in the kinematics of gear-tooth design— these men and many others set the pattern for his work. His sole duty is to follow instructions on his blueprint, produce thereby a part which will pass inspection and perform his work on a satisfactory number of pieces per hour and per day. When tens or hundreds or thousands or millions of men have their place in the economic structure of the nation thus precisely defined for them, with individual responsibility narrowed down to the smallest point, and individual connection with the finished result similarly at- tenuated, we have reached a situation as different from the village life I described as can well be imagined. 282 Individual and Institution [At this point in his original text Flanders had the following additional COmmentS: What are some of the results of this radical shift in the relations between society and the individual? One of the results is that the worker in the great automobile plant can and does own an automobile himself. Were it not for this de-individualizing process which has resulted from the application of science and engineering to mass production, he could not hope to possess that automobile. Another result is that the efficiency of this elaborate process, as com- pared with the efficiency of our primitive agricultural economy, permits tens of millions of people to live in a given area where only tens or hun- dreds of thousands could have lived in earlier days. Question may of course be raised as to whether the mere multiplication of population represents a social advance. It at least represents a social fact. A third significant result (and there are many more) is that we now live in a totally integrated society. Anyone, I suppose, may cut himself off from it as Thoreau did for a time in an earlier and simpler day. But even he was not entirely cut off. Someone else made the tools with which he built his cabin and the spade and the hoe with which he cultivated his beans. Some- one else grew, spun and wove the wool from which his clothes were made. Integration has existed from times before recorded history, but not to that present totality in which we find ourselves a part not merely of our region or our country, or even of our continent, but of the whole world. (A thing emphasized by John Donne; see page 86) ED.] The human soul hungers for some personal expression, longs for a place somewhere in which personal significance can be realized. With the loss of former personal possibilities in the economic sphere has come a tremendous growth of human activity in various social lines. One of them is directly connected with production and distribution. The rapid growth of unions can be accounted for in many different ways, but we have to come back in part at least to the opportunity it offers to men to become important, to realize their capacities, and in their own view to render public service in a society which, in their daily work, reduces them to the status of insignificant units in a ma- chine. [Flanders's text elaborated as follows: Similarly, scope for personal expression in making a livelihood has been a large factor, I believe, in shifting the emphasis of the church from purely religious to broadly social activities. Here again is a field in which the in- dividual can count. The same thing can be said for the expanding influence and importance of the innumerable fraternal orders, not to mention the corresponding proliferation of useful organizations devoted to public pur- poses, such as the Parent-Teachers’ Associations and the Red Cross. Politically, the cramping of individual responsibility has not extended anywhere nearly so far as in economic life, nor has it required the cor- Ralph Flanders 283 responding expansion of activity in the social sphere. We here in this north- east corner of our country still have the New England town meeting, which comes nearer to pure democracy than any other similar institution on earth. It is true that we have had to modify it somewhat in the case of the larger towns, of which neighboring Brookline is the typical example, and that we have had to fortify the executive side of town government by the town- manager system. But democracy in town government survives here with full strength and vigor.] But in state and national government, personal responsibility has grown rather than diminished. Gradually the aristocratic or property control of the upper houses of state legislatures has been or is being eliminated. That last stronghold of indirect republican action (using the small “r”), the election of United States Senators by the legisla- tures, has given way to the election of these state representatives to the national Congress by popular vote. On the whole, the movement in political life is toward strengthening personal responsibility rather than limiting it, and this reverses the trend found in the economic sphere. [Flanders expanded this as follows, in his original text: Of course, the practical effect is not all this way. There are two factors which must not be overlooked. One is the simple increase in population which makes the arithmetical effect of the citizen on the election of Sen- ators or the President smaller and smaller as the years go by. There is also the effect that the continuously growing complexity of the problems which the government has to solve, in a complexly integrated economic com- munity, presents problems so difficult of solution as to leave the individual voter in almost as much of a daze as that in which the individual legislator is liable to find himself. Taking all these things into account as to the role of the individual in political institutions, it becomes clear that his effectiveness has not been greatly reduced and that his responsibilities are enormously greater.] If we apportion the average number of voters per member of Con- gress, we see that it is only slowly that his influence, that is, the influ- ence of the voter in politics, has been decreased in the terms of the fraction: 1 . In the case of average number of constituent population Senators, on the other hand, since there always have been and will continue to be but two Senators per state, the dilution of individual responsibility for the upper house of the Congress is very much greater, ranging from around 55,000 per Senator in Nevada up to 6,740,000 in the case of New York. And, of course, the ratio is rising as the popu- lation of the country continues to increase. 284 Individual and Institution With this slow growth in arithmetical responsibility, or rather slow decrease in personal arithmetical responsibility, we have already pointed out that there is an enormous growth in the number and com- plexity of the problems with which the voter is concerned and with regard to which he must exert his influence. I said we had already pointed it out; we pointed it out in part of the manuscript which I omitted.” One needs only to observe the definite dependence of a given density of population on a given progress in technical equip- ment and business management to see how deep and serious this re- sponsibility is. Were we to go back to the equipment and business practices current at the time of the Civil War, particularly in agri- culture, it is safe to say that this country would not be able to sup- port more than a half of the population which it now does support. If it could maintain life at that level, it would be by virtue of the fact that the greater part of those now engaged in industry would have to return to the soil, and we would have to forego the present- day necessities of automobiles, electric refrigerators and all that sort of thing. The responsibility for keeping our economic and social organization going is therefore enormous. It cannot, however, be visualized any- where nearly so easily in our complicated organization as it could in the days of village industry. There and then each family knew almost completely where its food, clothing and shelter came from, how it was produced and distributed, and what part its own members had played in the process. Obtaining the products of the work of others was on a basis near enough to barter so that the interdependence of various groups was clearly seen and comprehended. In the face of these diffi- culties, voters go astray. The National Association of Manufacturers went astray in 1946 when its members promised that prices would go down if controls were removed. They forgot that production is not easily increased under full employment. Union leaders go astray when they contend that the general standard of living can be raised by raising wages, without concerning themselves with increased produc- tion. [These last three or four sentences were very materially expanded by Flanders in his original text and began immediately following the sentence in the printed text reading . . . the interdependence of various groups was clearly seen and comprehended. Senator Flanders then went on as follows: That is no longer the case. So complicated are our social and economic institutions that it is perfectly easy and natural for serious fallacies to gain 89 And which has now been restored. Ralph Flanders 285 wide acceptance. Among these fallacies perhaps the worst is that by simple raising of money incomes it is possible for society as a whole to have more and better food, clothing and shelter, even though more food, clothing and shelter are not produced. The basic mistake is, of course, that we can in some way eat, wear and enjoy that which has not been produced. The des- perate effort to get more without producing more, by the simple expedient of raising money wages, leads, of course, to inflation and to that result alone. Another and related mistake is the assumption that we can indefinitely increase production with the equipment available at present and with the 40-hour work week. This conception is not at all confined to the rank and file of the workers. It found its most fruitful lodgment in the minds of the members of the National Association of Manufacturers. These gentlemen went in heavily for advertising, on billboards and in newspapers, their con- viction that if price controls were removed, prices would move downward. Price controls were removed, and prices went upward. Both the National Association of Manufacturers and labor—that is to say, both employers and employees—are prone to forget that we set limits on production when we retain existing machinery without replacement by better, and when we limit our hours of work to 40, or 45, or 35, or to any other figure. The real trouble was that we had full employment; and under full employment without other changes in hours, equipment or business management, you have no way of quickly raising the output. Doing away with rationing multiplied demand. Demand flourished, but production was held in the strait jacket of full employment, and languished. Nothing but inflation could have resulted. We can hope that both the N.A.M. and organized labor will eventually be convinced that it is impossible to expand production easily under conditions of full employment, and that in consequence any improvement in the real standard of living or any expansion of production resulting from increased demand are highly dubious when full production already exists. Here, then, are perfectly obvious things in the consideration of which both organized labor and organized industry tend to fall into the same trap. Must we conclude that the brains of the average voter, whether manufac- turer or union member, are not adequate to comprehend and act effectively on the great problems which we face today? Such a conclusion would by no means satisfy me. Yet it has to be rec- vě1114-v-1 taxº~~ *-*** tº ****** **i. 85- -i-ii is tii~ ii~~~ssai comprehension of this matter into the mind of the voter really is a difficult one. But it is by no means the most difficult problem which the voter is called upon to consider. As an example of further complexity, let us take the question as to how the scale of living of the country as a whole can best be raised. The answer to this query would seem to be that it can best be raised in the future as it has been in the past. In the past, a long succession of im- provements in products, in operations, in management techniques, and in other lines cut down the cost of the goods and services produced. Notably this has been true with the automobile, in spite of the fact that wages are in many cases four times what they were in the period before World War I when the automobile was getting its most rapid development. The actual means which have produced the low-cost, mass-produced car of today, as - - º ~~~~~~ +} a + +k, a proceSS of getting the nenessarv annonrehension 286 Individual and Institution compared with the expensive custom-built cars of the early 1900's, are to be found in the development and application of improved machinery, engineer- ing and management techniques. It is by the application of these, and par- ticularly of improved machinery, that there has been produced the whole great rise in the standard of living in the years since the Civil War. That process is still going on, or at least capable of going on. Yet it is seriously retarded by the drying up of capital markets for new ventures, and by a growing unwillingness at the present time to invest corporate funds in radically new equipment and methods. There is, in fact, great difficulty in obtaining the necessary funds. Our tax laws make it much more profitable for the well-to-do to invest in tax-free, government-owned or government- guaranteed securities at low interest rates than to run the risk of new in- vestment and new undertakings for which the tax laws would leave them a lesser return than for the safely protected and insured securities. Now all of this is sufficiently simple, but it is not easy to get these things understood by the electorate as a whole. Even though they should be under- stood, it cannot be expected that the voters would in any overwhelming majority of the cases vote completely on the basis of their understanding as against the immediate emotional appeal of some other candidate or some other issue.] There is, in fact, a fundamental difficulty in explaining to the voter the facts of life which he needs to know for his own protection and opportunity. The fundamental difficulty is this—that, for the most part, those who have the requisite knowledge and seek to transmit it to the voter belong to a different class than does the voter himself. He is naturally suspicious of their motives and dubious of the validity of the more or less complicated chain of reasoning to which his approval is requested. [Indeed, this is one of the most troublesome points of modern communi- cation, that almost no source of information succeeds in being regarded as dispassionate or free from the compulsion to serve the interest of some group. Canham might have enlarged upon this point of his discussion of the press. Flanders had a little more to say about it in his original text: It thus becomes difficult to persuade him that certain tax proposals which ease off to some extent the tax burden on the rich can, in the long run, raise his own standard of living. Yet that standard cannot be raised without fol- lowing the old-time process of investment of capital in new equipment and new enterprise, to replace the slow and uneconomical practices of the past. Technical knowledge and technical progress are both far ahead of their applications, and a considerable spurt in the material well-being of the population of this country is already possible. Yet it cannot be made ef- fectual until the voter of the country understands what is involved and is willing to make such changes in our fiscal and monetary policy as will make it financially attractive to those having funds to put into new developments.] Ralph Flanders 287 Let me say, while I speak of a different class, the three great groups, manufacturing, agriculture, organized labor, each one of them con- stitutes a class which, finally in the case of agriculture, has joined the rest of them in asking for special privileges on what is to my mind a more or less specious basis so far as the good of the whole is con- cerned. Looking at it as special interests and with the final coming of agriculture into that group, we have the country completely organized under the basis of special interests with the good of the whole of which each is a part rather neglected and failing of proper examination and contention. Processes of education in the economic field are slow because the subjects discussed are not obvious. They meet with great resistance because the emotions are normally set against the path of reasoning and experience, and to top all this the voters are now appealed to very largely on specious economic grounds. They think that logic is on their side, and it is very difficult for them to see the underlying fal- lacies. Perhaps there is need in here at some point for a spiritual baptism of some sort. Do we not need a giving up on the part of individuals of the rewards of our material civilization, particularly for those who seek to inculcate the truth about it in the minds of the general run of the people, so that the latter shall be prepared to serve even their own material interests in these matters?” Summing up, we may say that the world of institutions is con- stantly growing. In the economic field, they have become so great and so complicated as to pose serious problems as to the survival of our society on its present high-production, high-consumption basis. In the social field, numerous substitutes for the lost personal responsibility in economics have been provided by innumerable societies and other or- ganizations in which the individual finds an opportunity for self-re- alization. In politics, the actual realization of the individual's part in political institutions is very little more difficult than it has been for generations past. What does present the difficulty is that the problems which political organizations face are so much more complex to comprehend and to solve wisely than has ever before been the case in human history. We can perhaps tie some of the threads of this loose discourse to- gether by taking a brief look at the ideally adapted wage earner, for example, of the near future. 40 See Contreras, page 268. 288 Individual and Institution He will work in a mass-production industry, will try to understand for his own interest and satisfaction everything he can discover about the work he is doing, where it comes from to him, what it is and where it goes. He will give a full day's work for a full day's pay, not merely on moral grounds, which are valid, but also because he knows that if he and others so situated do not do so, his standard of living will be cut down. With reference to the standard of living, he will be interested in the extent to which profits are directly plowed back into labor-saving ma- chinery or, beyond that, he will be interested in the means by which savings of the people as a whole find ready channeling into the im- provement of productive machinery on which his hope of a future in- crease in his standard of living lies. [Flanders had this additional paragraph in his original manuscript: While he will find some measure of personal satisfaction in his daily work, he will look for a considerable part of it in the large measure of leisure which our modern social standards allow to the worker. He will take active and intelligent part in the management of his union, in his political responsibilities as a citizen, and in such other activities as he is attracted to by duty or by personal interest.] He will feel a responsibility for his family and his children which will not be completely shuffled off onto the church, the school and the neighbors. He will have endeavored to increase the satisfaction of liv- ing by courses in adult education which will have given him broader and deeper satisfactions than would ever have been within his reach if he had depended entirely on a daily round of the juke-box dance halls and the baseball scores, though there need be no harm in them.” Such a man, even though he does not desire the responsibilities of management at any level, can extract a measure of personal satisfac- tion from his work and discharge a personal responsibility therein. [Flanders had the following additional material in his original text: He can make contributions to the society of which he is a part through the various social, fraternal and philanthropic organizations of which he is a member. He can sharpen and deepen his own sensibilities and those of his family until the satisfactions to which he was blind become the regular appetite and food of his individual soul. Meanwhile other men, as opportunities open and as their native abilities permit, will be moving on to higher and higher steps in the material man- agement of our complicated society and in the complicated controls which go along with the material organization.] * For a more extended discussion of adult education, see Chapter v11, pages 309, 331. Discussion 289 But for the man of our time, and I am speaking seriously here, the greatest opportunity for responsibility and growth will come in the political field. The duties of comprehension and decision he cannot es- cape under our form of government, and we will accept no other form. Here modern man, as a man, retains his ancient stature; nay, he does more—he makes and takes his place, if he performs his responsibilities, among the kings, philosophers and statesmen of history. :k :k >k >k >k The discussion which followed, and which is reported here in dia- logue form, was probably the liveliest one at the Convocation. BROwn: We now come to the time when I hope these people will begin politely but firmly to tell each other what they really think, and Mr. Canham has tipped me off that he has a whole battery of questions. Mr. Canham. CANHAM: I first say that it appears to me that we are all very much in the same boat but I am not sure whether or not the boat has left the pier. Perhaps my questions won't even cast off the first of the lines, but here are three questions—one to Dr. Tuve, one to Senator Flanders, one to Mr. Contreras. To Dr. Tuve, what can we do to weight our methods of selection more heavily on the side of aesthetic values; to Senator Flanders, how does he propose to condition this ideally adapted working man which we must have; and to Mr. Con- treras, where can we go to find the bridle paths down which Don Quixote can ride? TUVE: I suppose that 51 per cent of any problem is adequate formu- lation of the problem * and if we recognize that there is a bias which is deflecting the social picture in this direction, the resolution of the problem will largely take care of itself. This is the reason I endeav- ored to bring the question out, and so what shall we do? I should be rather disturbed if we found ourselves in the hands of the organizers with respect to such a thing as choosing men of aesthetic sensitivity, men with some capacity for spiritual communication and formulation of their own ideas. BRowN.: May I interrupt there, Dr. Tuve? Why are these men so important? Does it make an organization, for example, more efficient to have such men and, if so, are organizations just stupid if they don't have enough of them now? 42 A gentler than conventional statement of the scientific view which has some- times said that when a problem can be fully formulated, it is sure to be solved. See Bush, page 95. 290 Individual and Institution TUVE: I’m not worried about our organizations. I’m trying to look at the fundamentals of this democracy we talk about. You see, the two things which we consider as primary aims from a sense of individual freedom, from a sense of satisfaction in life, these are internal to a man. I don’t think anyone in this room is terribly worried as to whether the organizations are good or bad. They are only a means to an end, not an end in itself. I bring this out because the thing that we are aim- ing at is internal and, therefore, soluble if each of us can formulate the objective adequately. I gave criteria for the kind of organizations that are worth supporting. They, I feel, lead in a direction which makes possible these individual internal results. Recognition, formu- lation, and the problem will solve itself. BROwn: Does that answer your question, Mr. Canham? CANHAM: Well, it helps. I happen not to be a determinist in the Calvinistic sense; I believe that the illusion of freedom of choice is more than an illusion. On my second question, perhaps Mr. Golden and Senator Flanders both could tell us what could be done to help condition this ideal man which the Senator has pictured. GOLDEN: I defer to you, Senator. FLANDERs: Well, Clinton, I think that's the easy way out. It inter- ested me in listening to Dr. Tuve that he was laying such emphasis on aesthetic and spiritual ends while I had been concerned with the difficulties of rational analysis of existing problems. I think that brings two aspects of the thing—it did in my own mind at least—into fairly sharp focus. I spoke about the life of an ideal working man; well, say— the same things could be said of the ideal farmer or the ideal manufacturer. Aside from all these ways of organizing his life for the maximum of satisfaction comes that question of his satisfactorily per- forming his duties as a citizen, in view of the complexity of the deci- sions he has to make. The intellectual or the rational processes are not simple, direct, immediately apprehended; they are in fact compli- cated enough so that before the rational analysis has done its perfect work, emotion has gotten there long before and arrived at a conclu- sion which may not be at all in line with the rational analysis; and that is true whether it is a manufacturer thinking about reciprocal trade treaties, or a farmer thinking about 90 per cent parity price sup- port, or a worker thinking about higher returns in wages which will have of necessity to be taken away from someone else working some- where else in some other plant or some other factory. It's all the same sort of thing. The problem is both an intellectual one and a moral one; Discussion 291 an intellectual one to see the actual connections between his imag- ined interests and his real interests which are tied in with those of the country as a whole, and then a sufficient moral urge to lead him to action in the direction of his long-range interests as a citizen rather than in the short-range interests of the immediate economic group to which he belongs. I don't think I’ve started to answer your question yet. You asked me, if I remember, what I was going to do about it, wasn't that it? CANHAM: Yes, or what somebody can do about it. FLANDERs: What somebody can do about it? I don't know, except this. My own experience in speaking before audiences has been very largely confined to college groups and I have been tremendously cheered by the seriousness and both the moral earnestness and the in- tellectual keenness of those groups. They are far beyond—in those re- spects, they are far beyond those of ten years ago, of a generation ago. I wish I had the same experience with other groups; in other words, I wish I felt I were as familiar with them as I am with college groups. I can only hope that the approach of any of us who have our responsibil- ities as citizens deeply in our mind, to any of these groups of which I have been speaking, can be such as to meet with a response which will lead to better action of the mind and better control by the heart; so I can only express a hope for which I think I have found some reason to be hopeful in one particular field and that's, Mr. Canham, about as far as I can go. BRowN: Mr. Golden, you deferred to Senator Flanders, but “defer” doesn't mean necessarily that you get out of it entirely. What would you like to say on this? GOLDEN: I did not desire to get out of it entirely, Dr. Brown. I just thought I might benefit from a little wisdom if I deferred, but I think each one of the speakers has made reference in his presentation here * e © ** * Ara are l---~~~! ~~~ *-- ~ 1- - ** *- - - _ ſº today to something which I like to define as bi Uaue11111g the area Oi individual participation. Senator Flanders talks about the world of the 1880’s that he was familiar with and a little bit later I was, too; there were a lot of values in that world, among which he has described the elements of personal responsibility, that he thought grew out of inti- mate association or recognition of the contribution of the individual to the perfection of the end effort or end product. Well, while I agree that our society and its institutions are much more complex, that there has been a great multiplicity or multiplication of institutions, I think we have learned enough about the behavior of human beings to be capable of recapturing something of that spirit 292 Individual and Institution of personal identification that's so important in the kind of a world we are living in and I think this poses a very real problem for our educators. I think it's one they've got to primarily struggle with but I think each one of us has a responsibility to recognize that it's not impossible and that if we can succeed in doing that in the light of the possession of modern media and techniques of communication, in- formation and education, then I think we will have done something to enhance the position and place of the individual in an institutionalized society or in the work-place community. BRowN: Thank you, Mr. Golden. That reminds me of a question I would like to put to Mr. Contreras. You brought up the matter of par- ticipation. Mr. Contreras talked to us a little bit about planning. Is it possible for the individual to participate in the planning, or must things be planned for him? And I’m now using “planning” in the city or regional planning sense. CoNTRERAs: If I may, I will answer your question first and then Mr. Canham's. BRowN: Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot Mr. Canham's question. May I put that off, Mr. Canham? CANHAM: By all means. CoNTRERAs: May I answer yours first? BROWN: Please do. CONTRERAs. I feel that planning has to be done by people who have had training in planning. The masses are not ready to coöperate very much in the work of the technician. They should participate, once there has been a certain amount of educational work done along those lines. The personal reactions of the citizens of the community can be had, but the real work and participation and realization in planning must be the work of individuals properly trained to do that work.” BROwn: Now do you want to answer Mr. Canham's question? CONTRERAs: I’m glad he left me in third place. With the blending of our cultures, the tradition, the interesting features of population, in spite of touristic invasions, in spite of ef- forts to industrialize too much our country, I think that I would sug- gest that you might fly to Mexico and when you came down on solid ground you would find many undeveloped areas, many interesting people and customs, many places to do missionary work, and many places where you would find bridle paths like those that Don Quixote * This places planning in the “rational” part of Tuve's divisions. Discussion 293 found, and for young people I would also add that they might also find lovely and alluring “bridal” paths. BRowN: There is one area which has been consistently avoided by all of our speakers today. I don't know whether I am being nasty in raising it in that they may have avoided it deliberately, but I would like to put the finger on two or three members of this panel to discuss the question of what, if anything, or how much, can the civilian do with respect to military affairs.” Dr. Tuve, you've had a considerable bit of experience in dealing with the military.” Are the civilians licked before they start or can we have effective civilian understanding and participation? TUVE: The military are under the control of the civilians. Of course they aren't licked. GOLDEN: But they don't like it very well, do they, to be under the control of the civilians? TUVE: Yes, uniformly I would say that the men with power in the military—I’m speaking now of senior American and British military men that I have encountered—actually require that for confidence in going forward. I regard it as rather small danger that the military themselves will build up a great hierarchy. The most hysterical people about military problems are the civilians. BROwn: If I must put my real question in somewhat more academic terms, I think what I had in mind is this. In view of the close connec- tion between military activities and scientific endeavors nowadays, which may automatically at that stage rule out ignorant laymen like myself, and in view of what you conceive to be the nature of the military organization and its relations with the civilians, can civilians expect to participate intelligently and effectively in broad or more specific control of military policy? TUVE: I still feel the military policy is very much in the hands of civilians. It's a question of which civilians we let run the country. Not all of us can be worried all the time about specialized problems of government; so if there is a group that's actively interested in one area, for the most part we'll let ’em run it until it gets too bad and some of us have to worry. Not a bad democratic principle. BRowN. Senator Flanders is itching to speak on this point. Go ahead, Senator. * Brown here opened up an extensive and interesting point, the relevance of which to the main question is real, if not obvious. * Especially in his work for the Office of Scientific Research and Development and in producing the proximity fuse. 294 Individual and Institution FLANDERS: I've been inclined, Mr. Chairman, to be critical of both the Defense and State Departments. From where I sit, it has at times seemed that the three divisions into which the military is now sepa- rated, the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, have each of them sought for the largest available amount of appropriation and development and expansion. It would seem to me that it is proper for our military arm to be considered as the tool or implement of our foreign policy, and I’m not at all sure that our State Department has ever formulated, in terms appropriate to use by the military, a foreign policy to which they can conform themselves and on which they can organize them- selves. Definitely, the civilian should rule the military. The place where that rule should take place to my mind is in the State Depart- ment, in formulating a foreign policy for which the military will rec- ommend the necessary strategy and military equipment needed.” BRowN: But, Senator, even accepting all that, may there not be an- other stage there? I have a certain economics background, and some- times I ask questions about appropriations for various purposes. Sup- pose we had a firm foreign policy, can we as civilians tell whether the military is spending its money wisely, just to take such a simple, shall we say, issue as that? FLANDERs: I believe it would be easier than under present condi- tions in which no standard has been set, no purpose has been re- vealed for which military expenditure is required; but even then it will perhaps be difficult; but there are a great many judgments passed on our military arms by civilians which will need recognition. For in- stance, it is a more or less universal experience of businessmen in deal- ing with the Services of Supply of the armed services that the process is very wasteful, that there is great duplication still among the three services, that there are minute differences in specifications apparently of no particular worth except to be different, and all these things lead to waste, and that does lie in a different area from the area in which I answered my first question. Those things are properly brought to the attention of the civilian heads of our military establishment and prop- erly brought to the attention of the Appropriations Committees of the two Houses. BROWN: Mr. Canham, would you like to comment on that? *When the extreme expedient of war is reached, this is hard to arrange; for example, a military decision not to attack the “soft underbelly,” and General Eisen- hower's military decision to meet the Russians northward on the Elbe instead of thrusting deep into Austria, seem now both to have turned out to have been im- portant political as well as military decisions. Discussion 295 CANHAM: Yes, I would like to express my great gratification with what Senator Flanders has said and also to share what Dr. Tuve has said. As to Senator Flanders, it does seem to me he has struck a very important note when he says critically that the State Department has not adequately laid down a clear-cut statement of American foreign policy. I think there are a good many reasons for this and he, as a United States Senator, can do a good deal to help remedy some of these reasons. One of them, I think, is to provide us with a State Department with sufficient financial basis so that it will attract ade- quately competent Americans who will be willing to make careers and find proper rewards in making their careers in that work. FLANDERs: You may be aware, Sir, that I have been devoting myself to that problem for a year and a half against increasing resistance in the form of a top pay bill. CANHAM: Yes, I'm singing your praises, Senator, in my observations. FLANDERs: You didn't get there quite quick enough, and I had to sing my own. CANHAM: Well, I'll apologize to everybody. Mr. Moderator, I wanted also to say, about your question and your fear of excessive military control, I feel that Dr. Tuve is quite right that we have had civilian control, but I would add that obviously we have to keep eternal vigilance burning in order to retain this adequate civilian control, but that, on the other hand, the technical areas must not be too grievously invaded. There were times when we had much greater civilian control over military affairs than exists today. I recall all the political generals of the Civil War, most of whom became presidents of the United States in due course. I don't think that's the kind of civilian operation of military affairs that you want, but surely, we can strike a happy medium, and, to my way of thinking, such men as Dwight Eisenhower and Omar Bradley and many others that could be mentioned, embody an adequate realization of this essential civilian control. BROwn: Do you think the press—I’m now getting back to the link with science here—do you think the press will be able adequately to tell, not Dr. Tuve who knows already, but to tell people like me, enough so that I can be an intelligent voter on these matters? CANHAM: Whenever I say anything about the press, I sound as if I’m specially pleading, but I will say, to extend this special pleading one phrase further, that I happen to know that during the last year groups of newspapermen in all parts of the United States have been sitting at the feet of the natural scientists trying very hard to under- 296 Individual and Institution stand the significance of atomic energy and many other things. In the last three weeks, a group of the ablest Washington correspondents have been spending five nights a week in the hands of the Atomic Energy Commission. This may or may not be an altogether good thing, but I am hopeful for the best. BRowN: Mr. Golden, you have been silent on this question. Is it be- cause you agree or because you are being polite? GoLDEN: Maybe it's because I’ve tried to be polite, but I wanted to ask you some questions. BRowN: Oh, I’m not here to answer any questions. GOLDEN: At this phase of the discussion, I'd like to narrow this civilian-military thing right down to a specific situation. I think there has been a remarkable demonstration of unity of thought and of spir- itual affinity on the part of the participants in this panel. We have all indicated our great concern about the preservation of individual rights and liberties, et cetera. Now then, I'd like to know what you, Mr. Chairman, and perhaps some of the other members of the board, feel about the military in time of war, undertaking to control and mobilize manpower for non-, strictly non-military purposes. I wonder if that's consistent with the democracy that we profess to believe is so closely associated with the rights of individuals, the dignity of individuals. BRowN: The question may have been directed at me but it's going off my back awfully fast. Senator—well, Mr. Canham. CANHAM: Well, I’m very brash. I’m reminded in what Mr. Golden has said of Winston Churchill's recollections of the debates in the Admiralty along about 1910 when they couldn't conceive how anybody could be so inhuman as to use the submarine arm against merchant ships.” I would like to share in the great crusade of everyone to pre- vent another war, but if there should be another war, I do not see how it can be kept from being a total war, and surely the loss of one more or many more of the stages of defense of the independence of the in- dividual would be part of the terrible price of that war. I don’t see how it can be prevented. GOLDEN: Do you think, Mr. Canham, that the remark that's at- tributed, I believe, to Clemenceau during World War I, that war was too serious a business to entrust to the military, is outmoded? CANHAM: No, far from it, and I don't think we have applied that. Perhaps we are talking about different things. Let's get back to Dr. Tuve's original answer. I believe that in the application of military 47 See page 54. Discussion 297 policy, often by men wearing uniforms, in the second World War, that the best of civilian thinking was channeled and utilized, and I know that you yourself made a distinguished contribution at that time, and I hope that you never have to again, or anybody else, but, at the same time, I should think that's what we would do. It would be a case of mobilization of the total capacities of the nation.* GoLDEN: By whom? CANHAM: By the civilian government. BROwn: Senator Flanders? FLANDERs: I would feel that the real dangers lay just in that, in the doubling and trebling and quadrupling of these crippling institutions and civilian institutions at that, as necessary for the conduct of a third war and a total war. We would be even more completely de-personal- ized than we were in the last war. We would be regimented, our every act, what we wore, where we went, what we did, what we said, every- thing except what we thought, and the most earnest endeavors to con- trol that would be made, as they have been in the past. We haven't seen anything yet, but it would not be the military that would do it; it would be the civilian government under what it felt to be the abso- lute necessities of the terrific situation in which we found ourselves, and it is serious enough in all conscience, but I think the tyranny will come from civilian rather than from military sources. TUVE: May I make just one quick remark? BRowN: Go right ahead, Dr. Tuve. TUVE: Really, the answer to this is already known. The biggest dis- covery in World War II was the efficiency of the democratic prin- ciple. It’s a rediscovery, it's a couple of hundred years old; we’d pretty well forgotten it, but there are limits to propaganda. I tried to give the outline of the important things here, namely, that it's this question of to what extent an individual counts. In matters of means there is an information factor, and his contribution will depend on how much he knows about it; that's kind of automatic in the system. But in the matter of joint action towards ends, effectiveness was really 48 Golden surely has in mind the problems of war manpower and education in war, both very political, both nominally managed by civilians but at least during the past war with some quite heavy-handed military advice and even interference. Flanders answered this in his next remark. In other words, it is not the military who are to be avoided but the war itself, provided one wishes for freedom of the individual; and the perennial advantage of the totalitarian State is that when war comes it can remain with its principles while the democratic State has to abandon its principles more with each ensuing war, with the ever-present risk that the principles may not be recaptured after the conflict is over. 298 Individual and Institution determined, even in Germany, by the degree of individual contribu- tion. The propaganda of the Germans failed completely. It lasted a while, but finally it was canceled out simply by the people not believ- ing it. FLANDERs: I think perhaps the position I'm taking is stronger on such institutions as price control, wage control, rationing, the assignment of jobs here and there, the complete physical organization of our life by means which are in a large measure undemocratic. Now, it is not democratic to say that you shall buy only so much of a thing and at such and such a price; the democracy, the element in democracy which won the last war, was, to my mind, that is on the civilian side, the bringing into positions of responsibility both formal and informal and all down the line the best technical brains, the best management brains, so far as brains are concerned, and the total volume of goodwill in- herent in the whole population. Those were the invaluable, incalcul- able assets of democracy, yet we surrendered our democracy com- pletely in the details of living and we're going to have to surrender them still more in any future conflict, and we found it exceedingly diffi- cult to backtrack on them; in fact, we haven’t entirely done so yet. BROwn: I know that the discussion could go on much longer and very profitably. Unfortunately, many of us are working to a fairly tight time schedule and I'm afraid we shall have to adjourn. Before we do, I should like to express, and I know I’m speaking for all of you out there, our sincere appreciation to all five members of our panel for their splendid contribution. Despite the great diversity of their backgrounds and experience, the members of this panel had revealed remarkable unanimity about the main points of the discussion. They were optimistic about the future of the individual, despite the growth of institutions, and they were optimistic about the process of democracy as well. They all pointed out in one way or another that modern society demanded more of a man than that he be merely personally selfish. They agreed in effect that the struggle for democracy against totalitarianism for the life of the individual was in progress, that de- mocracy was doing very well; indeed, that we live in a time of great opportunity for the individual although some of the earlier outlets for this type of individuality had, in fact, disappeared, to be replaced by other outlets. Mr. Canham epitomized the views of all when he said, “. . . the fundamental key to man's relationship to his institutions lies in an un- Summary 299 derstanding of man. Nothing can dwarf man when he realizes his birthright. . . . No human institution can compare with the validity and the dynamic power of awakened individual man. No institution can enslave man, for man is freeborn. . . . Living an awakened life in keeping with those commandments,” the individual can always have dominion over his institutions. His institutions were put under his feet, and they will stay there as long as man, individual man, remembers his heritage.” * A reference to two of Christ's commandments, which Canham spoke of in his full text, page 262. CHAPTER VII The Problem of Specialization in Twentieth Century Education HE THIRD of the morning panels was to deal with the “in- Tº question, had twentieth century education become overspecialized? It was held in the second largest of M.I.T.’s auditoria, Morss Hall, a room in the Walker Memorial ordinarily used for dining but embellished with permanent paintings and temporary banners. The group of savants lined up on a platform before an enor- mous Blashfield mural." For this discussion the panel had summoned a famous writer on education, an ardent classicist from Great Britain; the dean of Engineering Deans in America; a young German-born pro- fessor of education from the West Coast who had written a penetrating book analyzing the growth and decay of the German university sys- tem; a forthright professor of education from Harvard University who had been a co-author of the Harvard report, General Education in a * The murals on the north and south walls of this room were the gift of the late Everett Morss, ’85, and were painted by the late Edwin Howland Blashfield, '69. They are sometimes facetiously described as representing the Faculty beseeching the Corporation for more money, but they have a deeper significance. The central panel on the north wall, which was the one facing the audience, is called Alma Mater. It shows a large seated figure of Alma Mater holding Victory in her right hand with the Institute seal to her left. The world is at her feet; Learning through the Printed Page stands at her right; Knowledge through Experi- ment at her left. Other figures on either side facing Alma Mater represent various branches of knowledge. On the south wall facing these murals are two panels. The one on the left shows the scientist standing between two jars “containing beneficent and maleficent gases or constructive and destructive possibilities.” Beside the jar of Evil Gases are animals symbolizing the Dogs of War and in the background is Famine. In the shadows of the Tree of Knowledge is a large figure representing Nature, at whose feet is the inscription: “Ye Shall Be as Gods knowing Good and Evil.” Below is a group of figures representing diplomats at the Council Table of the World. The right-hand panel symbolizes Humanity, represented by a mother and her children being led forward by Knowledge and Imagination from Chaos to Light. The children in the foreground carry the Scales of Justice. 300 Thomas Sherwood 301 Free Society; * an enlightened employer of specialists; and a professor of philosophy who had written many discriminating articles on the subject of philosophy and modern education.” At the opening of the Convocation, Dean Burchard had stated the question thus: “. . . what shall we say of the education needed to bring about a wiser, a healthier, a safer and a happier world? Is this to be found in specialization? Is there risk that in the process of creat- ing brilliant specialists, we shall have created a race of learned ig- noramuses, as Ortega y Gasset likes to call us; a race in which the most important decisions made by man will ultimately have to be left to the meaner intellects because the stronger ones have all been distilled into one or another concentrated essence, each of which is incompatible with the other?” + In the printed program the question was stated as follows: “Concern is often expressed over the notion that contemporary specialists of all kinds (not alone scientists, but also physicians, barristers, musicians, philologists) have suffered such a concentrated education that they are now ill-equipped to cope with general problems. Thus, according to this idea, the all-important integration must be achieved by the least- informed. Is this thesis valid? There are two parts to the question—the one of specialization per se and its effect upon the individual; the other of the effect on society of the possible incompetence of its most highly trained people to act wisely in fields outside their specialization.” The moderator of the panel, M.I.T.’s Dean of Engineering, chose to define it in a somewhat different way. Said Dean Sherwood: * “The subject of this morning's panel discussion has been phrased as a ques- tion—'Is twentieth century higher education overspecialized? “The last fifty years have seen the great development of specialized vocational and professional education in schools and colleges, both here and abroad. Whereas the typical college program of the nine- teenth century was directed towards a general education covering the seven liberal arts, we find colleges today offering hundreds of special- ized curricula. More than half the college students in the United States are studying medicine, law, engineering, agriculture, physical educa- tion, or preparing to be teachers, veterinarians, scientists, secretaries, * General Education in a Free Society, Committee on the Objectives of a Gen- eral Education in a Free Society (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1945). * Respectively, Sir Richard (Winn) Livingstone, Andrey Abraham Potter, Fred- eric Lilge, Phillip Justin Rulon, Charles Allen Thomas and Sidney Hook. 4 See page 8. * For a brief biography of Sherwood, see Biographical Notes, page 527. 302 Specialization in Education air-line stewardesses, commercial artists or other specialists. One col- lege is reported as offering a course in horseshoeing! “Students of literature or the arts are sometimes the narrowest of specialists, but in public discussion it is the scientist who is typified as the half-educated menace, who learns more and more about less and less. It is charged that he is not educated, since he is usually ignorant of things not pertaining to his speciality, and does not have a sense of values based on broad knowledge and understanding. He is at once ignorant and learned; Ortega y Gasset calls him a learned ignoramus,” incapable of contributing to the synthesis of knowledge essential to the progress of civilization. The atom bomb has emphasized the neutral character of the contributions of the scientist, which must be integrated into society, for good or evil, by those whose wider perspective en- dows them with wisdom and judgment." Dr. E. W. Sinnott of Yale expresses a popular idea when he suggests that the prevention of over- specialization is a major task of education today. “Yet the modern world demands specialists. Clocks and boots, kettles and clothes, are no longer made by the artisans who once tended to all phases of their small businesses. The watchmaker is a company of specialists, where the salesmen have no contact with those who apply the luminous paint to the numerals. The industrial revolution, requir- ing specialists for its success and encouraging specialization as it de- veloped, has provided the wealth sufficient to support mass educa- tion. Specialized education has made possible the medical develop- ments which have increased the expectancy of life in this country from 48 to 67 years in the first half of this century. Specialized education has produced the engineers who have built our highways, bridges, factories and communication systems. Specialized education has pro- duced the lawyers, doctors and engineers who are so commonly found in positions of community and industrial leadership.” “The problem of educating the specialist is relatively clear-cut; we know how to go about it and we do a good job of it. The problem of providing a general education as a basis for wisdom and judgment is 6 In The Revolt of the Masses, Jose Ortega y Gasset (authorized translation, New York, W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1932), page 124. Ortega does indeed use the scientist as his whipping boy but, it will be noticed, includes other kinds of specialists, too. The inquiry of the panel was not conceived in the notion that technological education might be the only kind which was possibly overspecialized. 7 Sherwood here says almost what Maritain and Bridgman are saying simul- taneously in another hall about the amorality of science (see page 223 and page 244). 8 As emphasized by Flanders (see page 291). Sir Richard Livingstone 303 not solved, and we don't know whether we do a good job or not. Many have opinions on the subject, but there appear to be no ob- jective data as to whether the products of specialized education or the graduates in liberal arts are the wiser, or have the better sense of responsibility for democratic citizenship, or contribute more, in pro- portion to their numbers, for the moral and intellectual development of civilization. “The subject to be discussed by the panel may be described in the form of questions. Is the trained specialist, as Ortega suggests, a ‘learned ignoramus'? Does his concentration upon his own field deprive the specialist of the opportunity to understand his social environment, of the will and ability to participate in molding it? Has he acquired information without wisdom or conscience? Should he be expected to assume responsibility for the effects of his work on civilization, or should others provide the syntheses which will give the ultimate pur- pose to his efforts? Why should the scientists who discovered nuclear fission be expected to assume more responsibility than other educated groups for the control of atomic energy and its application for the good of mankind? Is it higher education that is overspecialized, or is it that modern industrial society requires too great specialization on the part of the workers? “Our first speaker is Sir Richard Livingstone, President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and formerly Vice-Chancellor of the Univer- sity. Classical scholar and educational philosopher, he has written some of the most stimulating books of this generation on objectives in education—Sir Richard Livingstone.” SIR RICHARD LIVINGSTONE Specialization is anyhow inevitable: but it is also desirable and I should like to begin by saying a few words in favor of it. First, some of the major ends of education can be achieved through specialisms—for instance, the training of the intelligence. A student can learn to argue logically, to arrange his thought, to express him- self, to distinguish the important from the unimportant, without ever going outside a single field of study, and that is the element of truth contained in the saying that it doesn't matter what a boy is taught pro- vided he is taught it well. Then, specialization has an educational value of its own, not to be got in any other way. It gives an insight into the meaning of knowl- * For a brief biography of Livingstone, see Biographical Notes, page 521. 304 Specialization in Education edge and into the spirit in which it must be sought. A non-specialized education scratches the surface of the soil and scatters seeds there which, if they spring up at all, have no deep roots. Specialization is deep digging; it enables knowledge to get a firm hold in the soil of the mind and grow into a strong plant. [In his first text Livingstone called it a medicine against Superficiality, which is at least as dangerous as narrowness.] If I had to choose between a broad education which skims over the surface of a variety of subjects without going thoroughly into at least one; and a narrow education which went deep into something, I would choose the latter in spite of its defects, remembering the saying about a charming woman. “The first time you spoke to her, you thought she knew everything about everything; the second time, you thought she knew everything about everything except the subject on which she was speaking; the third time, that she knew nothing about any- thing.” That is a type of which one must not have too many specimens at large. Then another point: Specialization is characteristic of the English system far more so than here and our methods have many weaknesses and dangers, but they are not necessarily or always narrowing.” One can't say that politicians like Asquith and Bryce, or thinkers like Graham Wallas, and L. T. Hobhouse, Gilbert Murray, Sir Alfred Zimmern, or one of the participants in this congress whose life has been spent in administration in India and who, after retiring from India, has written the classical book about Colonial Administration, Lord Hailey; one can’t say that any of them are badly educated, and yet their education at school and college was predominantly classical. That rather surprising result is, I think, instructive for our problem, 10 Writings of some British educators, however, by no means suggest that they are complacent about this. Broadly speaking, the student in the British University may take either an “Honours degree” which involves a specialized course pursued to a high and exacting standard, or a “Pass degree” in a more general and dif- fused course, more nearly resembling one of our Liberal Arts curricula. Writing in 1946, Sir Ernest Barker, Honorary Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, and Peter- house, Cambridge, and sometime Principal of King's College, London, quoted statistics for the academic year 1934–5 showing that over 4,600 students in Eng- land in that year were taking a first degree with Honours and only about 2,100 taking a Pass degree; on the other hand, in Scotland about 560 were taking an Honours degree and as many as 1,560 taking a Pass degree. The Scottish universities which date back to the fifteenth century (Oxford and Cambridge were founded in the thirteenth century) have fostered general educa- tion, while the British universities have stood for specialized courses. See also Ap- pendix F. Sir Richard Livingstone 305 and needs explaining; and the explanation, I think, is this: The English method is not concerned directly with breadths of range. We hold that wide knowledge is less important than quality and direction of in- telligence, and that the real danger lies not in specialization but in a specialized habit of mind, which may sometimes result from it but need not do so. So we aim at producing a mind which is interested and alive and which knows how to learn; and we think that the latter capacity— the power to learn—can only be developed by specialization. A man educated this way will, we think, go out into the world receptive and alive in mind, with an appetite for knowledge and with the power of acquiring it, so that when he has to master a subject he will know how to do it. [Livingstone clearly believes that some forms of specialization, e.g., in the classics, are less narrowing than others, e.g., the sciences. For example, he said in his first draft: At its best the English specialized education seems to produce men who are interested and therefore receptive and who have learned how to learn. Classical education especially, at its best, brings the student face to face with great issues, great principles, great thinkers; and that is an essential element in education. But not all specialisms (e.g., science and technology) have these effects.] Well, you may say, what then is the objection to specialization? The greatest danger, I think, arises when specialization is in a subject which does not bring the student in touch with human nature, human values. That is why specialization in science and technology (and I mean con- centration, exclusive concentration on those subjects), and, in a lesser degree, in economics, is insidious. Specializing in those subjects you may forget the importance of man, because you don't meet him in them, and specialization in science is a particular danger, because if you pass your life in the company of elements, cells and atoms (or whatever takes the place of atoms), you may be unconsciously in- clined to treat men as if they were cells, atoms and elements, and not human beings. It is noticeable that Communism recruits some of its more intelligent adherents from among scientists.” The remedy is to 11 See also Hook, page 311, who makes a less strong statement of the same sort. Stephen Spender in discussing some of his friends among the British scientists who have recently taken positions either pro-Communist or pro-Soviet, has this to say: “I do not say all this to demigrate scientists . . . but simply to indicate that it is wrong to think that scientists show the same qualities of detachment and considerateness in their social attitudes as they do in the laboratory. They are as liable as anyone else to be carried away by their emotions; and planned societies offer them special temptations. . . . “In our society we give scientists credit for superhuman wisdom. In fact, it 306 Specialization in Education correct any unbalance, any lack of vitamins in the student's diet. But it is not only scientists who need attention. The humanist, without necessarily becoming an expert in any branch of science, must have learned the nature of science and its significance in modern civiliza- tion. The masterly chapter in Mr. Conant's latest book” says all that needs to be said on that point. Well, you may ask, “What is your practical prescription for the patient?” I would suggest one with five main ingredients. [Just before the next passage, Livingstone had the following in his orig- inal text: In America, education is far less specialized before the postgraduate stage, yet there seems to be much more sense of the dangers of specializa- tion. Hence the interesting plans for “general education.” Some questions about “general education”: would perhaps be truer to say that, like other specialists and virtuosi, they are slightly inhuman. On the one hand, they show enthusiasm for schemes which tend to turn society into a vast field for scientific experiment. On the other hand, they have done little or nothing to protect society from the misuse of their discoveries. For the most part, when there is mention of their being responsible for destructive inventions, they take refuge in their position as pure scientists. They show ex- tremely little sense of what a contemporary society owes to the cultural tradition of the past, or of what we would lose if, for example, most past architecture were destroyed and replaced by perfect machines for living.” After discussing the attitude of German scientists during the last war, Spender goes on to discuss the amorality of science (see also pages 223, 244 of this book) in the following terms: “But it is necessary to point out that scientists can derive from science qua science no objections to such experiments as exterminating the mentally unfit. If they do object, they are acting upon non-scientific values. Modern science has produced no reason to prevent science from being directed by governments toward purposes of enormous destruction in every country. Science is simply an instrument, for good or for bad. For it to be directed toward good, whoever directs it must have some conception of humanity wider than that of a planned scientific society. There must be a purpose in society beyond good plan- ning. Without such a purpose, to submit society to a dictatorship for the purpose of planned science is simply to lay down the lines for another misuse of science. For in Russia it is the politicians who plan the science.” Spender then cites the action of some scientists in having become Communists and says: “I am sceptical of their having any motive except a blind faith in the instrument of science. But this instrument has no moral purpose, and when scien- tists are in favor of its being put into the hands of politicians who imprison their political opponents, and who even go so far as to persecute scientists whose re- searches show a tendency to produce results inconsistent with the political views of the State, then we may say that these Communist scientists are victims of a kind of moral blindness which has long characterized science.” The God that Failed, Richard Crossman, Ed. (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1950), pages 259, 260. However, artists and literary people have also furnished “intelligent adherents” to Communism. 12 James Bryant Conant, Education in a Divided World (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1948). Sir Richard Livingstone 307 a. Is it easier to introduce the student to natural science than to the human- ities, which for a full comprehension need knowledge of life? b. Can enough teachers be found with the power to “treat knowledge im- aginatively” without which general education tends to go dead?] * First, and I put this deliberately first, everyone should specialize in something, for the good of his mind even if it is not necessarily for his life's work. [In his original text Livingstone gave another and compelling reason—so that he learns the difference between knowledge of a subject and mere in- terest in it.] Second, everyone needs a strong dose of humanism, and by that I mean that he must meet Man, in literature and history, as an individual and as a social being; and—which is not quite the same—he must meet him at his best and become penetrated with a sense of the great human values. That raises the question—In what form is humanism best ad- ministered to the patient? Of course, there are many forms. Personally, I believe the best is to be found in the study of Graeco-Roman civiliza- tion as developed and enlarged by Christianity. [In his earlier draft, Livingstone talked about the humanist who, at a minimum, must become fully aware of the power and importance of science and technology in modern civilization. “That need not mean knowledge of particular sciences; as we can profit by medicine and accounting without detailed knowledge of either, so too we can profit by science and technology without being experts in them. But, of course, the more science a man knows, the richer will be his life. I am talking only of minimum require- ments.”] Third, every student should in one way or another become generally aware of the main social and political problems of the day and of the significance of science; I speak of awareness rather than of knowledge. My next two ingredients are designed to remedy a different kind of specialization. We do not always realize that the age in which we live specializes us and molds us to its characteristics. Against that special- ization, unconscious and therefore the more dangerous, we need to be on our guard; to be protected against the besetting sins of our time, 18 Livingstone's a should offer some food for thought to the followers of String- fellow Barr, who seem to feel that boys of fourteen can do very well with Plato; it is mentioned again in the subsequent discussion. His b is directly relevant to Potter's suggestion (see page 327) that the subject is unimportant if the teach- ers are good enough. (Here see also footnote 48.) The questions Livingstone asks could doubtless be applied to all forms of knowledge and not alone to general education. 308 Specialization in Education which are often the excesses of its virtues—the excesses of an age of mechanism, of acquisitiveness, of feverish energy, of analysis. And so I should add to my medicine two further ingredients. First, it is essential to see one's own times from outside. To know one's own age, is not enough.” We must be able to criticize it; and for criticism a standard of comparison is needed. It is no good beginning history with the nineteenth century. One ought to be able to set our times by the side of some other great civilization, which had a clear view of life, like Ancient Greece or the Middle Ages. Otherwise, we risk being captives of our own day and slaves to its attendant delu- Sions. My next ingredient is intended to help us to form values of our own. It comes from Plato.” “It is not,” he says, “the life of knowledge, not even if it includes all the sciences, that creates happiness and well- being, but a single branch of knowledge—the knowledge of good and evil. If you exclude this from the other branches, medicine will be equally able to give us health, shoemaking, shoes, and weaving, clothes. Seamanship will still save life at sea and strategy win battles. But with- out the knowledge of good and evil, the use and excellence of these sciences will be found to have failed us.” Those words were written about fourth century Athens; but they describe our own age. We may know everything else that is to be known; we may be—and are—masters of science and technology; we may understand the laws of economics; psychology may have initiated us into human relations; we may have surveyed contemporary civilization and be familiar with the forms of government in every country and the races of men in all stages of their development. But without the science of good and evil, how shall we begin to rule our own lives or see in what direction the world should move? And does education always give us that science?” 14 Said Cicero: Nescire autem quid ante quam sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum (Orator xxxiv, 120). But Montaigne [Les Essais de Montaigne (Paris, Ernest Flammarion, publiés dáprès l'édition de 1588 avec les variantes de 1595)], Livre Second, Chap. xII, Apologie de Raimond Sebond, page 167, said: C'est une mesme nature qui roule son cours. Qui en auroit suffisamment jugé le present estat en pourroit seurement concluºre et tout l'advenir et tout le passé. This famous as- sertion was one of the variations supplied in the text of 1595 and missing from the earlier text, which simply said that humans live beneath the same roof and breathe the same air as animals and that there was more or less a perpetual re- semblance between them. Here Livingstone is taking the classical position and is contradicting Montaigne. 15 Plato, “Charmides,” 174, b and c. 16 These phrases again recall that the panels adhered to no arbitrary designation. Livingstone here talks of “spiritual,” quite as much as of “intellectual,” things. Sir Richard Livingstone 309 It is less important to survey civilization than to see it as an effort to achieve excellence, not only in the specialized activities of the mind, but in human character and conduct, the vital element which conditions them all, so that we may go into life knowing at least the rudiments of the science of good and evil. That is the light in which the greatest writers in their greatest moments have always seen the world— as a scene of moral and spiritual struggle. The Old Testament is the history of a people, but it is also an essay in moral philosophy. We call Plato's greatest work “The Republic”; the title he gave to it was “On Goodness.” When Shakespeare wrote “King Lear,” he ransacked a variety of sources to compose a play for an Elizabethan theater; but once embarked on it, he became absorbed not only in a tragedy but also in a clash of good and evil. Here surely, in this sense of spiritual and moral issues, is the coupling-rod which should connect all our specialism. I do not expect much result from a single bottle of my medicine. The treatment must be repeated at intervals, and I expect the later bottles to be more effective than the first. In other words, I believe in adult education.” All of us need a renewal of education, after we have lived in the world and learned something about life; so that we get a chance of thinking afresh about religion, philosophy, history, politics, economics, literature and art, when we have seen at first hand the raw material with which they deal, so that we can for a moment with- draw from the turmoil, and consider our age and ourselves in the light of eternal principles and issues. In adult education—not merely of a technical and vocational, but of a liberal type—I see the greatest hope for the future. But we have not yet taken it seriously.” :}; >k >k :k :k Dean Sherwood then said, “Our next speaker is Professor Sidney Hook, Chairman of the Department of Philosophy at New York University. Graduate of the City College of New York and of Colum- 17 A note which was sung by others (e.g., Potter, see page 831). And espe- cially see footnote 71, and Appendix G. 18 An important comment. Much of adult education in America is a form of low-level extension work. Educational programs on the radio here have not re- ceived much enthusiastic sponsorship or extended public acceptance. Documentary motion pictures are few and far between. Great-books clubs have some vogue but the whole effort is disorganized and none too effective. Note also Livingstone's later explanation of what the adult education movement really amounts to at the present time in the United Kingdom (see page 843—and particularly see foot- note 71 and Appendix G containing Jaime Torres Bodet's eloquent plea for a quite different kind of adult education). 310 Specialization in Education bia University, he has written important books on philosophy and edu- cation. His Education for Modern Man” is particularly relevant to our questions today—Professor Sidney Hook.” SIDNEY HoOK Before we can intelligently answer the question whether any in- stitution or person is overspecialized, we must first inquire, “With re- spect to what?” If it is with respect to the discovery of new and sig- nificant truths about nature and man, which seems to me to define the function of the university, I make bold to answer the question set for us with an unqualified negative. We owe the revolutionary develop- ments in almost every field of knowledge during the twentieth century primarily to the work done in institutions of higher learning. If the question is raised with respect to adequate professional education, the answer is once more in the negative. In every discipline, with the exception of teaching, professional achievement today is at its peak. This achievement is a consequence of specialization and coördination of interests and talents. Not even the harshest critic of alleged over- specialization gainsays that fact when he himself faces a knotty prob- lem of construction, of health, law, business or education. If we ask whether our higher education is overspecialized with re- spect to giving students and teachers perspective on the basic problems of their culture, and the critical power to deal with them, then the question is difficult to answer. For it does not so much involve excess of specialization but a deficiency of interrelation. And it seems to me that properly combined there is nothing incompatible in interrelation and specialization. This suggests the necessity of distinguishing the different problems which are confused in many discussions of the question of overspecial- ization. I take it that we are all agreed that a general education should precede specialized or vocational education; * and further, that such 19 Dial Press (New York) 1946. The Appendix to the volume contains a com- prehensive criticism of the curriculum of St. John's College. The text of the book includes a defence of modernism in education and a strongly critical analysis of the educational philosophy of Hutchins. 20 For a brief biography of Hook, see Biographical Notes, page 520. * In point of fact, if Hook is talking of university and not of secondary school education, there would not be agreement. As we shall see, Potter will express the established policy of American engineering schools, that the general and the pro- fessional education should proceed hand in hand, be fused, not laid down in strata. However, Hook later speaks for a continuation of social and political studies throughout the curriculum “on every level” as a professional, not a general, educa- tional matter. See page 812. Sidney Hook 3II general education should consist of the study of certain essential areas of knowledge together with the acquisition of certain basic skills which should be required of all students. The justification of such a require- ment is that it meets the needs of all human beings both as participat- ing members of the community and as individuals who must undergo the basic life experiences, irrespective of their future vocation. Is the charge being made that general education is overspecialized in the sense that the curricular materials are adapted only to the needs of those who are expected to make professional careers in the subjects and skills studied?” Even if the charge is warranted, the situation can be easily remedied, and many colleges are now showing how to do it. But certainly not all education can be general. Since the age of the professional gentleman is over, general education must be followed by technical or professional education. Is professional education overspe- cialized? With respect to what—professional competence? I see no reason to make such an assertion. At any rate the professional prac- titioners are the best judges of that, and the curriculums of profes- sional schools exhibit changes which reflect the impact of discoveries made in related fields. Is professional education overspecialized with respect to developing professional men equipped to face the problems of their own time and culture with intellectual and emotional maturity? I have seen no empirical evidence that, by and large, professional men are less civic-minded, less aware of social trends and forces than non- professionals. Whatever differences exist can be more significantly correlated with differences in social origin and position. Nonetheless I believe that professional men because of their trained faculties, their habits of evaluation, their ability to suspend judgment (which is just as important on occasion as reaching definite con- clusions) are capable under certain conditions of making a distinctive contribution to social and political enlightenment. At present they are neither better nor worse than any other group of citizens. In my ex- perience, I have observed that it is just as easy to ensnare a distin- guished scientist as any ordinary citizen into lending his name for ex- ploitation by totalitarian front organizations.” (And when scientists * The charge could certainly be made. Medical school entrance requirements, for example, sharply confine the choice of the premedical student in a liberal arts college, although medical schools maintain this is not so. Numerous other examples might be cited. Graduate schools of business and law are probably the most liberal in their construction of what pregraduate level training is suitable. *A considerably milder version of Livingstone's comment that distinguished scientists may be taken in by Communism. But the meaning is the same. Hook has written extensively about the psychology of the non-Communist “fellow-trav- 312 Specialization in Education develop a social conscience without the conscientiousness to discover the facts about social matters, including the sponsorship of such or- ganizations, it is easier.) It therefore seems to me appropriate to offer in the curriculum of all professional schools what John Dewey has urged for years, namely, “continuous education in the social, moral, and scientific contexts within which wisely administered callings and professions must func- tion.” Some beginnings have been made but much remains to be done. There is no automatic transference of training from one field to another. The scientific specialist confronted by social and political problems, in which many more variables are involved than in his own chosen field, and in which historical considerations are often highly rel- evant, cannot make the delicate assessment of evidence that is re- quired unless he learns to think disciplinedly in social subject-matter. Without this training, he is tempted, like any other man, to believe that anything goes, or that one position is as good as another. That is why continuing scientific study of social and political problems should be included in all professional training on every level. And that is as far as we can legitimately go. Yet much more than this seems to be implicit in criticisms of the overspecialization of higher education referred to earlier this morning by Dean Sherwood. I refer particularly to the demand, voiced on the basis of different premises, by Ortega y Gasset abroad and Chancellor Hutchins in our own coun- try, for a unified outlook on the world and society to give direction to all higher education, including professional education. Both Ortega y Gasset and Mr. Hutchins deplore the departure from the organized principles of the medieval university, although they differ concerning the system of ideals they would put in its stead. Both recognize that this unified system would have a metaphysical character that would set the appropriate limits to science and scientific inquiry. Neither one in- dicates how, in a world where so many conflicting metaphysical sys- tems exist with conflicting conceptions of man and his place in the universe, we can be brought to agree on the correct one by which to integrate higher education. Both seem to me to be on a calamitously eler” of Communist causes and organizations. See “The Psychology of the Fellow- Traveler” (The New York Times, Magazine Section), April 10, 1949; “Academic Freedom and Academic Integrity” (Commentary) October 1949; “The Literature of Political Disillusion” (Bulletin of the American Association of University Pro- fessors), Vol. 35, No. 3, Autumn 1949. 24 John Dewey, Problems of Men (New York, Philosophical Library, 1946), page 146. Sidney Hook - 313 wrong track. What is desirable in their proposals can be reached in another way. Insofar as a university exists to discover and make known the truth, it needs no overarching synthesis, no unified world-outlook, no meta- physical or theological or political postulate to organize instruction. It needs only the freedom of inquiry into anything or everything that professionally qualified scholars feel moved to investigate. The historical evidence on this point appears overwhelming. Three great attempts have been made to organize higher education in terms of a unified philosophy or world outlook. The first can be found almost at the dawn of university life during the medieval period. Its integrat- ing principle is perhaps best expressed in a text of St. Augustine’s: “Whatever knowledge man has acquired outside of Holy Writ, if it be harmful, is there condemned; if it is wholesome, is there con- tained.” 25 We owe a great deal to the medieval universities. They helped to keep alive a sense of continuity in Western culture at the same time as they trained the European intellect in subtlety. But their history re- veals a persistent struggle against restrictions imposed upon inquiry into all sorts of fields, and a fierce hunt for heresies which were a direct consequence of encompassing theological dogmas. How much greater a heritage they would have bequeathed to us if their curricular study had not been pervaded by the spirit of Bibliolatry, and if the Inquisi- tion had not been, so to speak, a kind of administrative annex to the course of instruction! Another less pervasive but more grotesque reorganization of higher education was undertaken by the National Socialist movement in Ger- many. Its racial and political dogmas not only led to the dismissal of more than fifteen hundred professors during the first three years of the Hitler regime but became directives for the scholarship and scientific inquiry. “It is necessary,” declared Professor Karl Haushofer, official spokesman for the regime “that the whole scholarship of a people . . . serve the leaders of the National Socialist movement in making under- standable their national, political and supernational aims. . . .” ” And * Quoted by G. G. Coulton in his Medieval Panorama (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1988), page 442. *Per Nationalsozialistische Gedanke in der Welt (Munich, 1933), page 48, also J. Stark Philipp Lenard als deutscher Naterforscher (Nationalsozialistische Monatscheffe) No. 71, Feb., 1986, pages 106–112; both quoted by Max Weinreich º . #per, Professors (New York, Yiddish Scientific Institute-Yivo, 1946), pages aIl o See also Lilge, The Abuse of Learning, footnote 28. 314 Specialization in Education in consequence we have the Nobel prize winners in physics, Lenard and Stark, speaking of “German physics” and “Jewish physics” and proclaiming that “Jewish formalism in natural science is to be rejected by all means.” Much more pervasive and no less grotesque in results is the com- plete transformation of higher education in the Soviet Union along the principles of dialectical materialism. Here we have “a system of vital ideas,” which Ortega y Gasset called for, which whatever their validity, certainly represents a synthesis. But it sustains itself by periodic purge and a denial even of the possibility of objective truth valid for all na- tions, classes and individuals. And so we read in the most recent declarations of the pundits of dialectical materialism the following: “Marxism-Leninism shatters into bits the cosmopolitan fictions con- cerning supra-class, non-national, universal science, and definitely proves that science, like all culture in modern society, is national in form and class in content.” As a logical corollary we have such dis- ciplines as “Marxist biology” and “proletarian physics” and similar in- stances of cultural barbarism. There is only one kind of unity which seems to me to be compatible with freedom of scientific, scholarly and technological research. It is not a unity of doctrine or system but a unity which expresses itself in an uncoerced convergence of interest from various disciplines on com- mon problems. This is itself a natural development of tendencies im- manent in scientific inquiry, as the existence of interdepartmental seminars and institutes of human relations on many campuses testify. Whether one chooses to work as a lonely pioneer on the outskirts of the known, or as part of a team or group, must be left to the intellectual interest of the individual investigator and the character of his problem. If one chooses to project a synthesis of known results, to build bridges between fields, to translate technical languages or one technical lan- guage into another, that is his privilege. Here there is much useful work to be done. But we can be confident that tomorrow's findings will spring the system and require a new technique and a new lan- guage. This is indeed the life of science—a life which is threatened * Cf. “Against the Bourgeois Ideology of Cosmopolitanism,” Voprosy Filosofii (Problems of Philosophy) No. 2, 1948. The entire text of this editorial article is translated into English in the Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Feb. 1, 1949), pages 3–13. The Digest is published weekly by the Joint Com- mittee on Slavic Studies, approved by the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council. The sentence quoted will be found on page 9, right-hand column. Frederic Lilge 315 whenever higher education is committed to an official synthesis or an official philosophy. In conclusion: All specialized education is inadequate in preparing its devotees to live and think intelligently in our changing culture, and therefore we must provide for proper political education. But let us never confuse this legitimate demand with the “politicalization” of learning which ultimately makes science, as in the Soviet Union, a matter for the police. >k :k :k >k >k Dean Sherwood continued the introductions, “Our next speaker is Frederic Lilge, Assistant Professor of Education at the University of California, a graduate of the University of Munich and holder of a doctorate from Harvard. He has been in this country for some fifteen years. His recent book, The Abuse of Learning,” created wide interest as a scholarly and provocative study of the rise and fall of the German university—Dr. Lilge.” ” FREDERIC LILGE * Those who wish to warn against the evils of specialization in Ameri- can higher education like to point to Germany as a case in point. The German institutions of higher learning, so their argument goes, were most efficient in producing highly competent specialists in many fields. But this impressive technical intelligence, far from restraining the destructive powers of National Socialism, in fact endowed them with unprecedented efficiency. Now there is no denying the fact that the German scientists, tech- nicians and professional men rendered, in the name of patriotism, odious service to a predatory government.” This singular abuse of !--~~---! ~~! ~~ * ~ *---J - ~~! -------- ~~~~! -----~~ Kuo wieuge lS lil ClCCUl VVUI LII PULiue11118. * The Abuse of Learning (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1948). * For a brief biography of Lilge, see Biographical Notes, page 521. 89 He had entitled his paper “The Dangers of Specialization: The Case of Ger- many and the Case of the United States.” 31 Many maintained afterwards that they really had not. The criticism is prob- ably less that they served their nation when the crisis came than that they did not try to keep their nation from becoming “predatory” when it might have been done. Perhaps this was a general failure of all intellectuals in Germany and not merely of scientists, technicians and professional men. But the later claim that none of them believed in it when things were going well has a hollow ring as Lilge implies here, and as the most recent political developments in Germany would also suggest. 316 Specialization in Education [In his original text, Lilge warned against drawing facile parallels be- tween the catastrophe of German higher learning and a corresponding phe- nomenon in this country. He said: Before we abstract a lesson from the German experience, let us make sure that it will also apply. It is quite possible that an independent diagnosis of the American situation may prove more profitable than a borrowed rem- edy. There is at any rate the warning of the philosopher who said that the only lesson which people learn from history is that they learn nothing from it.] To understand it and the degradation of German scientific and tech- nical genius a brief inquiry into the major elements of the German social tradition is indispensable. When the industrial revolution came to transform the life of the German people, it did so with different impact and results than obtained, for example, in England or in the United States. The reasons for this diverse reception lay in long-stand- ing national diversities of political systems and sentiment, and of eco- nomic conditions and geographical location. The machine age entered the life of the German states after the middle of the nineteenth century with a sudden violence which found the people unprepared to make the necessary adjustments and to achieve mastery over the newly created conditions. [In his original text Lilge elaborated this as follows: Into a few decades were crowded changes which, Veblen pointed out in his study on “Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution,” were dis- tributed over three centuries in the development of modern England. The industrial revolution there had begun in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Even then, the English had been prepared for it ever since the Elizabethan Age when shipbuilding, commerce, handicraft and petty trade had gradually been transforming them into what contemptuous critics have called a nation of shopkeepers.] As Mr. Churchill pointed out, the industrial revolution in England came very early. What was gradually assimilated in the English body politic caused acute indigestion to the Germans. Not only did they swallow too fast, but they carried within them fragments of their past history which could not be absorbed into a modern, rationally functioning society. Though modified by social reforms and constitutional limitations, the tradition of the dynastic state had remained alive in Germany. Citizens had too long thought of themselves as subjects rather than as responsible participants in the life of a community. Bureaucracy had assumed the place of voluntary action, and the state continued to be regarded as an entity with powers and rights superior to its subjects. Frederic Lilge 317 Loyalty, duty and obedience remained prime virtues among large num- bers of the population. In addition to the tradition of the dynastic state, the feudal spirit continued in vigor, notably in the East of Prussia. That territory, colonized in the thirteenth century when feudalism in Western Europe was already declining, retained until the Russian conquest in 1945 an inefficient and archaic system of agricultural estates. Their proprietors still constituted an economic burden and a political threat to the Weimar Republic, while their influence carried much weight in the making of political and military decisions. Thus not alone the general animus but virile fragments of certain archaic institutions themselves extended into the life of modern Ger- many, making her entrance into a peaceful concert of Europe difficult. This whole situation augured ill for the role to be played by German science. Incapable of transforming the old patterns of thought and action by its own spirit of nonexclusiveness and noncoerciveness, mod- ern science was in fact adopted as the instrument of the established and unregenerate powers. This sociological résumé must make at least brief reference to the intellectual climate as it prevailed before the coming of the Industrial Revolution. German philosophy of the early nineteenth century had proved its vitality in the regeneration of the universities. It had en- nobled the professions of teaching and scholarship, creating images of excellence that have inspired generations of university men. Yet at the same time German idealism was ineffectual in articulating or il- luminating qustions with which modern scientific inquiry is concerned. Worse than that: by its high subjectivism, its rebellion against empiri- cism and by its contempt for the material and mechanical aspects of the organization of life, it increased the national resistance to a re- alistic appraisal and a rational understanding of industrial society. German philosophy from Nietzsche to Spengler particularly illustrates the fact that too large a share of the imaginative powers of the mind was spent in heroic posturing and jeremiads over the degradation of modern culture. Thus, the house of German civilization stood divided. In one part of it dwelt the imaginary and even visionary men, justly troubled by the dangers of technology yet condemned to play the role of ineffectual protestants. And in the other part, there were the boisterous promoters of science and technology, filled with blind belief in automatic progress but at bottom irresponsible as to the use made of their intelligence. 3.18 Specialization in Education Neither parties were able to develop that social ethics which the sur- vival of civilized society demands. In America the problems of modern science and technology present themselves under very different aspects. If, on the whole, the fortunes of history have to her been kinder, they have nevertheless left their own marks and biases upon the national character. Some of these biases were further accentuated with the arrival of the technological age and have developed into certain national liabilities. Among them two may deserve the particular attention of humanist educators: a compulsion to preoccupation with externals, and the acceptance of what John Stuart Mill called a century ago “the tyranny of public opinion.” Since its very origin the American temper has responded with gusto and relish to the material challenges of this large country, and what at first was a necessity has gradually turned into what I would call the fond habit of external preoccupation. When the urgency and magni- tude of material tasks diminished, the energy which was once required for their accomplishment was in part freed for other purposes. Yet a large surplus of it continued to flow inertly and ineffectually along the old path. To European observers, among its wasteful outlets would seem to be a compulsion to appear busy all the time, a somewhat in- fantile curiosity about new gadgets, a constant search for novelty and need for artificial stimulation. All of these, however, do not conceal an underlying boredom, or at least a fear of being bored. There is a tacit admission that none of these external preoccupations are humanly satisfying. No detailed description is required to show that these proclivities have been greatly reinforced by the extraordinary productivity of American industry and applied science. The infinite variety of goods which they supply never seems to satiate the public. On the contrary, the skills of marketing and the tricks of advertising succeed in sharpen- ing its appetites. There is, of course, no quarrel here with the improve- ment of the material conditions of our life, for real and primary needs of large numbers of people still remain to be filled. And above these, the conceit of civilized society is flattered by the luxuries of its in- dustry and by the imaginary needs which its technologists are able to discover for us. Yet for all this a price is being paid in the education of American youth. The pressure of getting things done, the impatience for quick and applicable results and more efficient methods of “know-how” are inevitably conveyed to the schools and universities. These, too, be- Frederic Lilge 319 come preoccupied with the same things, and thus it comes about that the formative years of young scientists and professional men and women are dominated by a utilitarian conception of science to the exclusion of its basic, humanistic elements. There is insufficient leisure and interest for the trial and trying movements of the mind in the course of which those precious results are gradually obtained. And yet the dialogue between the mind and nature in which we learn to ask our important questions, and to receive, sometimes, puzzling answers, is the most important source of the scientific imagination, from where it must mount to the highest and most specialized branches of the technological tree. Seen in this light the importance of the humanities in our institutes of technology and professional schools is evident. The value of these disciplines consists not only in keeping the imagination flowing by allowing the mind to range over wide areas from which it may return to its work with fresh perceptions of relevance. Their value rests in the end upon making us realize that a civilized society—even in the absence of war—will not survive if its members depend upon one another merely for the traffic in material goods. Similarly our colleges and universities will not survive if they traffic exclusively in facts and results. Such education reduces both student and teacher to automata. To become human, and to become a mind, it is necessary that we learn to enter into the thought and experience of others by way of the symbols of art, literature and science. For in the discourse of kindred minds, experience may be shared and communion may begin. In many human relationships, however, shared experience still re- mains rare. Between students and teachers, its place is often taken by handouts of mimeographed “materials,” as the expression goes. Be- tween parent and child, there runs sometimes only the electric train, and between man and wife there passes sometimes only the costly ſ---- .* - M- ~ --~~~~~~~~ 3 e e fur as the unconvincing token of affection. The pattern repeats itself many times: the sterility of human relationships in the midst of plenty and busyness is the Midas touch of modern American life. “Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink” is the suppressed cry of many souls thirsting for communion with others and for authentic hu- man experience. The tyranny of public opinion is a standing threat in a democracy. It is an obvious hindrance of the freedom of individuals to form their own tastes and ideas. Today, our great opinion and amusement in- dustries tend to increase this conformity.” 32 However, on this point see Canham, page 259. 320 Specialization in Education [Lilge elaborated this in his original text as follows: Though freedom of enterprise supposedly exists, the requirements of large capital outlays, of expensive production and distribution facilities, and the necessity of profitable operation, limit severely the chances of experiment- ing and independent newcomers. Theoretically speaking, both economic means and technical excellence are at the disposal of those who would serve the true and responsible interests of the people. In practice corporations and individuals are most gainfully employed in the exploitation of those interests which are profitable to themselves.] This problem has of course been stated before.” It is but a particu- lar aspect of the general issue whether modern applied science is to be used constructively or destructively. Something more, however, may be said concerning the relation be- tween the phenomenon of specialization and the powers of a stand- ardized collectivity. Technical or professional specialization, when unmitigated and unbalanced, is apt to leave the members of society with little of importance to say to one another.” For it can be observed that a concomitant of the astonishing perfection of technical intel- ligence in so many lines of employment, is a tired complacency and in- difference to the charms of the life of the spirit.” As a result, the com- mon ground on which we may meet for mutual pleasure and under- standing is narrowed; and it also becomes brittle and barren. Instead of being plowed deeply and continuously by the art of good talk, for example, it is planted with the purchased flowers of jokes and stories from the Reader's Digest, with radio and video, and those hilarious parlor games in which otherwise respectable citizens seek relief from the importance of being earnest.” Just as our education does not help young people sufficiently to dis- cover the discriminatory, reflective and imaginative powers of their own minds, it leaves a vacuum of responsible thought on matters which are of eminently common concern. The school training in demo- cratic procedures and in the techniques of public debating is good 88 As for example by Harold J. Laski in The American Democracy (New York, The Viking Press, 1948), notably Chapters v and XIII. * See Burchard, page 9, though the reason given is not the same. Lilge places it on lack of desire rather than on a lack of common language. 85 See Tuve's theory of pre-disposition to this through our methods of selection (page 274). 86 One always is led to speculate, after comments like this, as to what most people were doing in other cultures and in other times. Petronius, for example, has given us all too graphic an idea of what people like Trimalchio were up to; and countless memoirs and diaries of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth cen- turies, to name only three, show that all or even most amusements of those times were not made up of earnest discussion. Frederic Lilge 321 but it does not go far enough. For these technical political skills need knowledge and substance in which to engage themselves.” Otherwise, they will be expended upon the rationalization of stagnant and selfish prejudice. For example, it has been argued in past years with much persuasion and little reason that Roosevelt was but a Red in the White House, that Hitler was the last bulwark against bolshevism, and that George Washington's warning against foreign entanglements is as relevant now as when it was first made.” Notwithstanding a healthy diversity of opinion, America's position as a world power today needs to be supported by a world-political sense of its citizens derived from a profounder and more comprehensive study of political and social history. This will not only insure democratic guidance and control of national political decisions. It will pull the private citizen out of his isolation and complacency and let him participate in the risk, in the courage and responsibility of those great political actions of his time through which his own future and the future of the community are being disclosed. The educational ideal of exclusively technical com- petence has clearly become archaic. It may be hoped that public dis- cussions on the part of our leading technical and professional schools, such as those held by M.I.T. here, may result in a better realization of the ends to which education in a free but complex civilization is committed. :k >}: >}: :k >k Dean Sherwood continued, “Our next speaker is Dr. Charles Allen Thomas, Executive Vice President of the Monsanto Chemical Com- pany; a graduate of M.I.T., Dr. Thomas has long played an important role in industrial research, particularly in the chemical field. Former President of the American Chemical Society, he had important re- sponsibilities for the production of the principal materials going into the atom bomb, and is one of the co-authors of the report on which T • - ----------'- ~!--- ſ--- +l-, - * e º g this country's plan for the international control of atomic energy is based—Dr. Thomas.” ” CHARLES ALLEN THOMAS The learned men who have gone before me have used several words and terms which for my benefit, if you will pardon me, I would like 87 An important point not always appreciated, either, by teachers of English composition who command a boy who has nothing to say, “Now write a poem!” 88 But only argued; for when the last trump was played in each case the pub- lic had decided otherwise. And comparable assertions have been made in all times. They should be made; and when possible refuted. 89 For a brief biography of Thomas, see Biographical Notes, page 528. 322 Specialization in Education to stop and define. I am reminded of a visit that I made many years ago into our Deep Southland. Together with my host, an old Negro, John, and his dog, we took a walk one day. On this occasion we stopped to view a beautiful lake and while we did so the dog, which was very old and docile, consumed very large quantities of grass. My host looked at the dog and said, “John, that is an herbivorous animal, isn't it?” He said, “Yes, Sir, boss, it'll eat a man in a minute.” And before we start eating each other up in this discussion, if any time is left (though I hope there isn't) I should like to have these words more clearly defined. The term “general education” is often used to designate an education for citizenship or an education for a good life. This is to be contrasted with a “specialized education,” which is directed to the acquiring of certain skills and technical information necessary for a useful vocation. In the curriculum for a general or liberal education the so-called “humanities” play a large part. Now some scholars insist that “human- ism” embraces all the activities of the creative artist, and that all learned men such as historians, scientists, archaeologists, philosophers and the like are in this group of humanists or humanitarians. Others use the term in a much more narrow sense by limiting it to the study of art and of literature.” Then there is the connotation, from the older group of educators, which insists that a general education should immerse a student in the water of the cultural heritage and that it has as its goal the old world ideal of “a learned scholar and a cultured gentleman.” Therefore, if you have had to listen to, or in a moment of weakness have taken part in a discussion on this subject, it would not be sur- prising if you were confused by the meaning given to the word “hu- manities.” Indeed, it is almost necessary to know the author's or speak- er's background before one can comprehend his particular meaning of the word. Some highly skilled specialists, particularly the more successful ones, read too much into the word “humanities”; perhaps this is their natural yearning for an emotional basis for their work. A skilled specialist, for example, feeling the warm sun of accomplishment, may well claim that he is a humanist, and rationalize his position in the verbiage that all successful specialists are creative workers and that the integration of all artists, poets and scientists is the new humanism of our day. 40 Even more narrowly it is limited to the classics and belles-lettres but the term is now so freely and loosely used that it is like Mercutio’s wound. Charles Thomas 323 Now the term “specialization” may have a clearer concept, but even here some educators may have foibles about substituting for it the term “vocational training.” Rather than to continue this dissertation on semantics, I would pro- pose that what is needed is a new orientation. It seems to me that the terms cannot be sharply defined nor can the educational process be sharply defined. Overemphasis and intensification abjure the truth of education itself and the failure of educators to view the problem in the proper perspective may be, in itself, one of the weaknesses of our present educational system in America. If one accepts the premise, as Conant would have us accept it, that education is a social progress, then perhaps we should forget this debate between specialized and liberalized education and consider it to be as futile as the theologians' arguments on how many angels could stand on the point of a needle. There can be little argument with the statement that the educational requirements of American youth of a century ago, in a largely agrarian economy, were very different from those of today, where youth is now attempting to adjust itself to a fluid and democratic society.” I feel that something is definitely lacking in the product of our uni- versities. We have seen over the last fifty years in this country a grad- ual evolution in education. It has gone from training for living to training to make a living. This change the colleges and universities, in my opinion, do not openly acknowledge, and therein to me lies the rub. Now leaving the semantics of the terms to our profound educators, I would nimbly side-step, if I may, this discussion and focus my argu- ments on the products of our educational factories and, true to my background as a specialist, suggest two terms: the analyst and the synthesist. May I be so bold as to suggest that the average graduate, particularly a graduate in natural science, approaches his daily prob- lems too much and too completely as an analyst. An analytical ap- proach is commendable, certainly, because a tearing down and break- ing up of a problem into its component parts is an important process in its solution. But we need something more than the zeal for dissect- ing and the zeal for probing. We cannot hope to alleviate the emo- tional strains of a mechanized civilization with an analytical approach alone. After the tearing down, a synthesis is needed—a building up, or a creating. Along with the microscope and dissectors in the mental **And a complicated one. For a brilliant description of the simpler society, see Flanders, pages 279–281. 324 Specialization in Education tool kit of our graduates, we need the plumb line, the square, the hammer and the nail. Analytical thinking alone is becoming more and more habitual, with the spotlight shifted to the scientist and to the engineer. And there is some evidence that, in his favored position, his lack of ability to syn- thesize may be extremely dangerous. Without the counterbalance of constructive or creative thinking, analytical thinking alone may lead to defeatism. Certainly we see evidences of this today. More particularly, I am concerned with the product of our natural science studies, the scientist himself. So much of his energy is spent in analytical thinking that there is not much energy left for synthesis. In the language of thermodynamics, if you will pardon a loose analogy, a highly specialized man can be said to have achieved a maximum entropy. He is practically in equilibrium with all phases of his environ- ment. There is not enough energy left to carry him out or beyond the condition of this system in which he exists. Is something similar hap- pening to our American scientists today? That is a question I think all of us who are concerned with American science should attempt to answer. Is the specialist in the confines of his narrow discipline failing to accept the challenge of unfamiliar territory, refusing to risk the un- certainties and the tensions of coupling and interconnecting the many aspects of science? Is he being, as I believe Lewis Mumford said, “Trained like a race horse with blinkers—ridden to victory on condi- tion that he follow his lane”?” Now if this be the case, then he is no longer a true scientist. In interviewing hundreds of American graduates from our grand American colleges I am impressed with their desire for security.” If not at the top, it is high among their life goals. There seems to be little fortitude, which is the real security of a truly intellectual person, one who is a synthesist as well as an analyst. Now, not being an educator, perhaps I am oversimplifying this problem. But I do suggest that the stimulus for building up, as well as for tearing down, can and should be given in a specialized curriculum as well as it could be given in a general curriculum. * Lewis Mumford, “The Unified Approach to Knowledge and Life,” Values for Survival (New York, Harcourt Brace and Company, Inc., 1946), page 211. *See Killian, who agrees, page 454, and Potter, page 328, who seems to argue that this desire should be catered to by the universities. It is probable, however, that Thomas and Potter would not be in real disagreement on this point since they are probably talking about different attitudes, different definitions of economic security. Andrey Potter 325 But such stimulus to creative, synthetic thinking, of course, comes best from intimate contact between teacher and pupil. There is no substitute for the catalyzing effect of the empathy which this creates between student and experienced teacher. This is simply impossible today in our overcrowded universities, where the average classes, I am told, are several times as large as they were a decade ago. This is a great concern of all the educators with whom I have had the privilege to talk and I think they are making every effort to remedy it.” Our colleges should freely face the fact that a large portion of their curricula makes them vocational institutions. They should pound home to their students the fact that when they leave they are not educated, that they have a great deal more to learn, so much, in fact, that they will not ever have time to learn it all. So much is to be known in every field of human endeavor! We can- not expect to return to the simple days, when synthesis was a relatively easier task than it is today. We should drive home the fact that analy- sis alone clarifies rather than increases knowledge. That is the ground- breaking before the harvest of wisdom. The young scientist, for ex- ample, must understand that the scientific method has not been uniquely given to him, that it is not the only way of looking at life, and that it is not a panacea for all our social problems. In other words, I would suggest that our places of higher special- ized learning teach humility. :k # Sk :k :k Dean Sherwood continued, “Our next speaker is Dr. Andrey A. Pot- ter, Dean of Engineering at Purdue University, and dean of Deans of Engineering in this country. Born in Russia, he was graduated from M.I.T. in 1903. He has served his adopted country on numerous boards and commissions and holds several honorary degrees. He has been part of the growth of engineering education in this country, and is one of our best-known engineers—Dr. Potter.”” ANDREY ABRAHAM POTTER The discussions thus far lead me to raise two questions. First, are not the terms “general education,” “specialized education,” and “pro- * Even were the economic problem solved, expanded educational offerings as advocated, for example, by John Dale Russell in Chapter vLII, page 890, might well increase this defect due to scarcity of teachers. Teachers cannot be created simply by appropriations (see Ryckmans, page 152). * For a brief biography of Potter, see Biographical Notes, page 524. 326 Specialization in Education fessional education” largely a matter of definition? Secondly, does not the amount of specialization in any type of education depend partly upon the subjects included in a definite curriculum, much more so upon the background and interests of the students pursuing that cur- riculum, and particularly upon the quality of the teacher and the ef- fectiveness of the teaching method? [In his earlier draft, Potter quoted Conant's Education in a Divided World as decrying overemphasis on the distinction between these terms by saying: this results from a failure to think about the educational process in terms of the social structure of the community which the school in question serves.] I was requested to speak to you today on engineering education and its relation to specialization. American engineering education has been developed as a distinctive type of general education, a type of general education which is very useful in a wide range of occupations. You find engineers engaged not only in design, research, development, production, operation, but also in all types of commercial activity. The affairs of men in a civilized and industrial society are many and varied, and no person can be said to have a liberal view of humanity who does not have an appreciation of its vital interests. Engineering education, it is true, stresses inductive reasoning, develops the power of analysis, acquaints the students with the applications of science to transportation, communication, construction, industrial production, and with the tools and machines which reduce human drudgery. The question is, is not this type of education carrying out to a very large extent the objectives of what we usually call general education? People in civilized lands are destined to live and to work in an environment which is bound to be affected more and more by science and engineer- ing. Defense against aggression, the development of better machines and structures, new products, better cities, improved roads, a higher level of employment, improved living standards, all require large numbers of people who are competent as scientists and as engineers. Engineering or scientific education is not necessarily specialized or lacking in values which people ordinarily attribute to general educa- tion. Whether we like it or not, our society is bound to demand more and more people who are skilled in science and technology. I am also of the opinion that such specialization as exists in scientific or engineering education is perfectly justified. Professional curricula are expected to stress disciplines that will produce a competent practitioner. To be prepared for a career in engineering, or in law, or in medicine, or in Andrey Potter 327 science, or in any other profession, a person must be something of an authority in his field. As Sir Richard Livingstone so well said, you cannot have people trained superficially—specialized education avoids training superficially.” Would anyone trust an engineer to design a bridge or a building or an airplane or a power plant, if that particular engineer were liberally educated in the classics, could speak a number of languages, but knew absolutely nothing about mechanics, mecha- nism, structures, metallurgy, fluid mechanics, aerodynamics and de- sign?” Higher education must teach basic skills and specialized knowledge to such people as chemists, physicists, engineers and other professional individuals who are expected to raise the general social and economic level of society. All types of education can contribute to the elevation and preserva- tion of culture, if by culture we mean the aesthetic, intellectual and ethical enlightenment acquired by discipline and living together. I repeat—the aesthetic, intellectual and ethical enlightenment acquired by discipline and living together. Engineering, scientific and general education may achieve nearly the same goals by the use of different types of disciplines, by instruction in different types of courses, pro- vided those courses are taught by great teachers to students with sim- ilar backgrounds and interests. Was it not Sir Richard Livingstone who said in one of his books: “It is more a matter of the teacher's attitude than of the subject taught?” “Any course may be taught narrowly, or may be presented broadly from the standpoint of basic laws and prin- ciples, the historical evolution of the subject and its usefulness through a wide range of human activity. Dr. Thomas mentioned thermodynam- ics. That happens to be my own specialty and I know after forty-four years’ experience as a teacher that thermodynamics may be taught from the standpoint of its specific uses in solving problems in heat cycles and heat transfer, or it may be used as a vehicle for developing in the students an appreciation not only of the applications of physics, but also of the social and economic significance of mechanical power 46 But Livingstone also said that science and technology as fields of concentra- tion were not so well adapted as some other fields (e.g., the classics) to develop the gamut of quality, and especially consideration of human values (see page 305). 47 But how about helping to make the decision whether the bridge should be built at all? And perhaps still more cogent—if the engineer's education were to be cartooned, as Potter has here cartooned the liberal arts, could the engineer prop- erly be entrusted with any social or political power? 48 This is a very common pedagogical sentiment, one which is seldom contra- dicted. It is probably not literally true. In any event, see Sir Ernest Barker's demurrer in Appendix F. 328 Specialization in Education in modern society. To insure well-educated and socially-conscious people who are competent in their callings, we must have more teach- ers in all fields who are not only masters of the subjects they teach, but who also have broad interests, and who understand the social order under which they live and its relationship to the subjects which they teach.” I mentioned that education is a product of social en- vironment. Now since it is a product of social environment, it is essen- tial that schools, colleges and universities give consideration to the character of the student body as well as to the resources of the country served and the occupations of the great mass of its citizens. This great institution, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the result of a desire which developed about a hundred years ago on the part of people in this country to train people for useful pursuits— for useful pursuits in industry, for useful pursuits in agriculture. Prob- ably one of the most interesting contributions to higher education came from the so-called Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 which was signed by Abraham Lincoln and which set up technologic institutions in every state in the United States in order that our agriculture and our industry might have competent people with proper scientific back- grounds. Education in a democracy must not grow away from the needs of the many and toward the desires of the few." Keeping these facts in mind, it must be realized that the American engineering student frequently, or usually, to be more correct, comes from a family where economic and cultural advantages are meager. He, as well as his parents, is interested in a course of study which will bring him more economic security. He is drawn at a relatively early age by the appeal of science, of engineering and invention. He ordinarily enjoys mathematics, physics, chemistry, and exhibits considerable ingenuity 49 To which all educators would say “amen” and then hurry to ask where we may find these teachers in anything approaching adequate numbers. 50 The next few sentences seem to be talking more about the desires of the many than the needs of the many, and certainly not necessarily about the needs of society. A university, it could be argued, should have something to do with creating motivations as well as catering to those which exist. Is, for example, the interest “in a course of study which will bring him more economic security,” natural as it is, something to which the university should cater by leaving out subjects which the student cannot visualize as making any clean-cut contribution to such an end? There are certainly pressures of this sort in technological institu- tions. Finally, no one would suggest that the United Kingdom is undemocratic or its governmental service bad. Yet higher education there is almost the antithe- sis of what Potter here proposes. It starts with an elite; it educates this elite as specialists most often in non-"useful” things. Perhaps the fundamental difficulty comes when one attempts to define “higher” education and to determine how qualified one needs to be before he has a “right” to want it. Andrey Potter 329 in the use of tools and gadgets. For such a career-conscious and prac- tical youth, engineering education has a special appeal. Care must be taken, however, that the elements of education for right living, tradi- tionally associated with liberal or general education, are an integral part of engineering programs of study. Now whether the engineering college graduate becomes a well-educated, cultured, socially-con- scious and public-spirited citizen, or merely a competent but narrow technician, depends upon many, many factors other than the courses included in his program of study. Engineering education in this country rests on a foundation of science, of humanities and of social relationships. Contrary to the popular impression, it is an integrated program of study with scientific- technological and humanistic-social subjects extending throughout the entire undergraduate curriculum. Training in skills or so-called voca- tional education is definitely subordinated to discipline of the mind. While major emphasis is placed upon science and technology, the en- gineering student devotes a considerable portion of his time to human- istic and social science subjects. For instance, in my institution we re- quire a minimum of ten courses in literature, philosophy, psychology, economics, history, government, and similar subjects which are hu- manistic and social science in character.” Personally, I am very doubt- ful as to whether the end product would be improved by requiring more general studies, if it means the weakening of the scientific and technological foundation.” There is another rather interesting thing in the engineering cur- ricula. Humanities and social science subjects are not relegated to the earlier and less mature stages of the student's career. Again Sir Richard ** About the normal quota for engineering schools of the best class in the United States. Here, however, is one difficulty the engineering college has to contend with (and it is true even when the engineering school is sited at a university); there is a somewhat common interest in motivation pervading the whole student society which diminishes the chance for cross-fertilization, for the accidental awakening of tangent interests. Thus, though art specialists and music specialists and his- tory specialists doubtless tend to gravitate toward each other in liberal arts uni- versities, at least all of these types are in the university alongside the science stu- dent and accidents can and do happen. In fact the British system seems to prove that the accident will occur. This requires that the technological institution work harder on the problem, and by and large technological institutions do so. ** Few would disagree with this statement, but many would reject the implica- tion that more general studies would necessarily weaken the foundation. In fact, one of the principal criticisms of general education in technological schools is that it is too general and lacks a depth of concentration which can be possible only with more time. At the same time the proliferation of professional electives is being º: by the professionals themselves and not by the “humanists” who would not know. 330 Specialization in Education brought out the fact that the immature student can learn physical sciences, natural sciences, much better than he can learn the humani- ties, because it takes age, it takes experience, it takes living to have an appreciation of the social and humanistic subjects. We find ordinarily in our engineering colleges, the freshman who comes to the engineer- ing college is not at all interested in literature, philosophy or psychol- ogy and things of that sort; on the other hand when he reaches the junior year and particularly the senior year he is very definitely inter- ested in enhancing not only his scientific and technological education but also his general education. Thus the humanistic and social science subjects are not relegated to the earlier and less mature stages of the student's career, as during that period of his development he lacks interest in, and receptivity for, such studies and has an inadequate understanding of the bearing of history, economics, government, phi- losophy, literature, and so forth upon the scientific-technological studies.” Emphasis on the engineering method, and sound prepara- tion in the physical sciences and engineering fundamentals, parallel instruction in social sciences and humanities. Engineering education is endeavoring to impress upon its students that the aims of all educa- tion are to foster an appreciation of the best; the best in science, the best in literature, the best in humanity, to aid the individual to under- stand and to adapt himself to his environment in such a manner that he will make a useful contribution to society. The engineering student is taught to serve society, to appreciate values, to work with others. What better objectives has any other type of education? We must not forget in this connection that much of the student's education comes from activities outside of the classroom. I am one of those people who have always believed in student activities. I feel that they are a very, very important part of the student's education. Now, voluntary participation in student publications, musical organizations, dramatics, debates, literary contests, athletics, and the reading of good books, and other student activities, are not limited in our universities and colleges to those pursuing liberal arts or general programs of study. Presidents of great universities which have engineering colleges know that the scientific and engineering student participates equally vigorously in such student activities which are most helpful to him in * A good and important statement, and true for the undergraduate curriculum. By and large, however, all humanistic and social studies cease upon entrance to graduate work; and this is not true of science and engineering majors alone. It applies with equal force to medical schools and law schools and even schools of business. Andrey Potter 331 teaching self-expression, fair play and ideals of citizenship in a free democracy.” It must be recognized that many of our ideas and attitudes about social and cultural matters are the results of living with people, are the results of experience and maturity, rather than instruction. For most people, their greatest and most important aesthetic and intellec- tual developments come after they have completed their formal edu- cation. Education, Ladies and Gentlemen, is not merely a juvenile episode; adult education is a necessity to insure a well-informed elec- torate in a democracy and to keep professional people abreast of the developments in their fields." Engineering education, a recognized form of higher education in this country, with well-planned undergraduate and graduate programs of study, is bound to grow in importance because of the necessity of utilizing more effectively our diminishing natural resources, and by reason of the importance of engineering and science in providing for more and more human comforts. This type of education is constantly being improved by strengthening our centers of research in basic sciences as well as in technology, and by giving special recognition to teachers who act as catalysts in stimulating, inspiring and encouraging our youth to greater endeavors. Summarizing my remarks, I’m convinced, Ladies and Gentlemen, that engineering education as a form of higher education in this coun- try is not specialized, in that studies in social sciences and humanities supplement the scientific and technological subjects. The graduates of engineering curricula are making contributions in fields where science is applied to the problems of industry and public works, and where work must be organized systematically with due regard to human values as well as to costs and returns. In other words, the engineer is not only interested in machines and metals and materials, but also in men. The problems of the engineer are marked by great individual responsibility, involve matters requiring the use of high intellectual processes, and bring the engineer into intimate contact with social, economic and scientific problems of society. The present need is for more postgraduate and post-scholastic adult education for employed engineers. The postgraduate studies are for the purpose of enhancing the engineers' scientific and technologic capital, while the post- 54 Potter called in evidence Dr. Morrill, President of the University of Minne- sota, who was present, and Dr. Dodge, then President of Norwich University. * A confirmation of Livingstone's contention, see page 309, and especially the ensuing discussion of adult education. 332 Specialization in Education scholastic studies should aim at developing in the engineer, the mature engineer, the engineer who is working, a better grasp of man's vital problems and sympathy therewith. In other words, it seems to me that post-scholastic studies offer an opportunity to improve the general education of the engineer and to equip him more effectively to dis- charge his obligations as a citizen in a country or in countries where the meaning of liberty and the sanctity of humanity are fully appre- ciated.” :k >k >k :k >k Dean Sherwood proceeded: “Our final speaker is Professor Phillip J. Rulon of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Formerly Acting Dean of that School, he is known for his work in the field of educa- tional psychology. Professor Rulon is one of the co-authors of the famed Harvard Report, General Education in a Free Society"—Pro- fessor Rulon.” ” PHILLIP JUSTIN RULON It is natural that a great and famous school like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology should be concerned lest its graduates be over- specialized. It is natural that the faculty of such a leading technologi- cal institution should take pains, as it earnestly does, to turn out, not narrowly skilled technical operators, but instead responsible profes- sional workers who are human beings and citizens as much as they are specialized technicians. This natural concern about the danger of overspecialization has been put in the form of two questions among those which we are here to discuss. One question asks whether it is higher education that is overspecialized, or is it that modern industrial society requires too great specialization on the part of workers? I do not know the answer to this first question, because I do not know what degree of specialization on the part of workers is too great. * In his peroration Potter has made an eloquent appeal for the true values of adult education; an appeal which must not be forgotten when, in the discussion, he talks more specifically of adult education as a method for keeping up to date professionally. As stated here in his planned remarks, Potter's position is so close to the position taken by Jaime Torres Bodet and given in detail in Appendix G, that his interest in a special group is entirely understandable. Indeed, the problem of general adult education in the sense which Bodet demands in the Appendix would be appreciably easier if all those who needed it had had the advantage of an engineering education (or indeed of any other thorough education). 57 See footnote 2. * For a brief biography of Rulon, see Biographical Notes, page 525. Phillip Rulon 333 To solve the problems which come up in connection with my own specialized work—educational measurement and experimentation—we need access to the advice of highly specialized specialists. We need not only specialists in anthropology, psychology, mathematics and other disciplines, but specialists within specialties. We need the ad- vice of specialists within the field of mathematics—sometimes a spe- cialist in n-dimensional geometry, sometimes a specialist in matrix algebra, sometimes a specialist in mathematical logic. Does modern society, then, require too great specialization on the part of workers? I do not believe so. Too great for what? Too great for the satisfactory feeding of the people in time of peace? Too great for their satisfactory housing, or health care, or recreation, or education, or the provision for justice before the law, or for their development of moral and ethical values? The followers of Malthus warn us that the population of the earth is doomed to undernourishment through the eventual failure of the earth to provide food for the increasing numbers of inhabitants. Have these followers suggested that this fate is boded by an overproduction of specialists? I have not heard them say so. Is it not just as believable that specialists in food production may alleviate the Malthusian dan- ger, rather than precipitate it?” All of us have lived through a housing shortage. Has it occurred to any of us that the problem of housing might be less a problem if we had fewer specialists, or if those we have were less specialized? I have not heard this theory advanced. Concerning medical care, we have indeed heard it proposed that the present era of specialization is resulting in a serious lack of general practitioners. What are the actual facts? The 1948 Directory of Medical Specialists lists something over 29,000 certified specialists in this country. It has been estimated that there are approximately 180,000 practicing physicians in the country. This leaves 150,000 who are not listed as specialists. Many of them may indeed be specialized practitioners even though they have not been certified as such and listed in this catalogue. But who is to say that 80,000 specialists against 150,000 general practitioners represents too much specialization? Too much for what? The medical men with whom I have conversed tell me that their medical failures are most often traceable to a lack of fundamental * For an extended discussion of this possibility, see Chapter III. 334 Specialization in Education knowledge of the organization and function of the human organism. Does anyone suppose that this basic knowledge is going to be ad- vanced by generalists? Isn't it much more reasonable to assume that the frontiers of knowledge in physiological chemistry, for example, will be advanced by specialists in physiological chemistry? Weren't the sulfa drugs, the iron lung, penicillin, radium, the artificial kidney and the medical applications of bacteriology all developed by spe- cialists? Or let us ask a different but equally important question. Does the average citizen today have to spend a larger fraction of his time or of his available income to get medical attention than he did 100 years ago? I do not believe so. There may be data on this subject. That is, we may be able to make estimates as to what fraction of a citizen's time and income were spent on medical care 100 years ago, and what fraction today. Possibly the fraction for today is the greater. I doubt it. And shall we compare the quality of medical care of 100 years ago with that of today? Does anyone actually suppose that this ominous specialization in medicine has been accompanied by a decrease in the quality of medical care devoted to the average citizen? I do not believe so. And what of specialization in education? We have specialists in education of course—not only those who specialize in education, but those who specialize within the field. Men devote their lives to making studies of administrative practices in education. Others direct their attention to the problems of public support, tax measures, legal prob- lems in education. We have specialists in the problems of vocational choice, and of mental measurement. If this were regarded as over- specialization within this field, what would be the evidence? That the use of mental tests has decreased the effectiveness of our educational work? The evidence is to the contrary. That children make poorer choices of vocations now that this specialty has been developed? Ex- perimental evidence indicates otherwise.” Then, taking the broader view, just how does the sixth-grader today compare with his predecessor, say, 50 years ago in 1899? The fact is that this youngster today knows things which that other youngster didn't even dream of." Consider for a moment that more knowledge 99 The reader will recall that Hook felt we had fallen behind only in the art of teaching—see page 310. * And, it might be added, is abysmally ignorant, or knowledgeable only in theory, about many things the other youngster knew. Whether or not this is sig- nificant may be a matter of personal prejudice, which, it is to be hoped, will Phillip Rulon 335 is added to the world's storehouse every day in every year without any commensurate removal from another door of the storehouse. That children in this century can be brought to any passing degree of mastery of this knowledge—even to an unsatisfactory mastery of such a wealth—is a tribute to those who have specialized in the work, not an indictment of the field for overspecialization. And what of justice? There is specialization within the law. Has any- one proposed that this has resulted in an injury to the average citizen in the justice he can expect before the bar? I have not heard this theory advanced. I have heard it proposed by law professors that there is too much specialization within the law, but I have not heard them propose that this has resulted in a deterioration in the justice which the law is supposed to provide. This same approach has been used in advancing the claim of over- specialization in other fields. It is all too common for the charge to be made that specialization has proceeded too far, and it is all too un- common for the plaintiff to say, “Too far for what?” The fields of human endeavor are supposed to serve human ends. I propose that the charge of overspecialization should be accompanied by a bill of particulars which indicate with supporting evidence, wherever possible—and with consistent and logical arguments where evidence cannot be adduced—to show that this overspecialization has resulted in a deterioration in the fulfillment of those human ends.” never have to be tested by a sudden reversion to a more primitive society where the forgotten things might be essential to survival. 62 This is perhaps the time to pursue Rulon's argument to its end, before he brilliantly invokes our emotions about the U.S.S.R. No one would dare suggest that Ex-Mayor Hague, or other symbols of a certain kind of political person were not admirably specialized for their own purposes. And the general results of urban politics confirm this, too. Rulon has on the whole chosen to select those examples of specialization which are beneficial to society, such as medicine. But the principal conclusion of Rulon's argument may seem frightening. The only logical final answer is that there must also be specialists in China affairs, and Russian affairs and the like, which, of course, the State Department has, and properly. The tough question is, when do the specialists cease to speak with authority and when can the increasingly uninformed public step in? How are we to urge, on the one hand, specialization in all technical matters such as engineering and medicine and law, and at the same time argue, as we have been arguing, that these same specialists should also be informed and render judgments on the actions of their opposite- number specialists in government? For it is certain that the State Department spe- cialist can run as many rings around Potter even in what he knows about China, to say nothing about what he has a right to guess, as Potter can around him when it comes to thermodynamics. The main difference may be that a wrong spe- cialist in China affairs could kill more people or cause more human distress than can possibly be conjectured for the surgeon whose scalpel slips or the engineer 836 Specialization in Education So far I have considered only the problems of a peaceful people in time of peace. Perhaps the threat of overspecialization is the threat of being overrun by a less-specialized people in case of war. We are today worried about our erstwhile friends, the Russians. Now which Russians are we worried about? Are we fearful of the overwhelming power of the unspecialized Russian, the party member who inherited the land of the kulakº Or are we concerned about the Russian spe- cialists who duplicated our B-29's which were captured by the Rus- sian military specialists? Are we anxious about what the Russian farmer may do to us when he leaves his community farm to invade our shores, or are we troubled by the menace of atomic fission in the hands of the Russian specialists in nuclear physics?” What about the past war? Was the German blitzkrieg mounted by generalists or by specialists?" Was the Luftwaffe organized and op- erated by non-fliers? Was Grand Admiral Doenitz an amateur of sub- marines? Was the German Wurzburg radar developed by generalists? Or did the Bismarck sink the H.M.S. Hood by a direct hit aimed by specialists with specialized equipment, developed, constructed, in- stalled and maintained by specialists? Apparently specialization is a great threat to us when our enemies exploit it. Does it not then contribute to our own security when we ourselves exploit it? What about our specialization in the last war? In the dark days of the vicious triangular shortage—of high-octane gasoline, synthetic rubber and escort vessels—did we need more spe- cialists or more generalists? As I recall it, the great cry in those days— and all through the war—was for specialists and more specialists. If I read my Gallic Wars aright, it was Caesar's engineers and other spe- whose bridge falls down. Who in the long run is to oversee the specialists them- selves? A specialist in overseeing? And is not this precisely what we fear? * In fact do we not also fear the “party member” who is specialized to die and who is available in enormous numbers? It is the party member and not the physi- cist who might march to the English Channel, thus neutralizing a great part of our “specialized” advantage since it would force us to destroy our captive friends, a thing we have been “specialized” not to do. Rulon might have made a stronger point had he said that it was the hordes we feared, not because they were hordes but because they were subject to the will of some admirable “specialists in the control of hordes” sitting in the Kremlin. * The idea of having it was that of a generalist, Hitler. By all accounts, this man was a specialist in nothing save in influencing people and this seems to have been the result more of intuition than of training. In the long run he was defeated by the will of Churchill and Roosevelt (helped, of course, by specialists), and of these two the same thing might be said; they were not specialists in the sense of this discussion, that is, formally educated for their supreme tasks. Phillip Rulon 337 cialists who provided the means for his conquests.” And in time of war as in time of peace it may be specialization, rather than any contrary arrangement, that enables pushing ahead over difficult bar- T16I S. But war is a bad setting for a discussion like this. Somehow our anxiety about the Russian specialists seems to argue against specializa- tion. It is hard for a peace-loving people to follow the logic which prescribes specialization on our part to combat specialization on the part of an enemy. So let us leave the war out of the discussion except to remember that the threat of war certainly does not argue either against specialization in general or that we in particular are too spe- cialized. A second question which has been put to us is whether the spe- cialist has acquired information without wisdom or conscience. Again, I do not believe so. In general, it seems to me that the voices of conscience in this coun- try are those of specialists rather than otherwise. It would be rather difficult to gather data bearing upon such a general thesis, but if we are willing to be somewhat more particular, we can see how data might be had which would bear upon this question by parts. One set of human virtues includes the trio faith, hope and charity. Perhaps the public-opinion people could poll the populace and find who has the faith and the hope among us, and perhaps who has the conscience. I suggest that the specialist may be found to have his share of both and perhaps more.” Faith and hope would be hard to investigate. In the matter of charity, the evidence may lie nearer the surface. The Red Cross drive has recently been launched, and there will be a Community Fund campaign. Hospital drives and other unselfish enterprises designed for the general good provide opportunities for observations on human be- havior related to charity. I do not refer to giving money. I suggest that the names of the active workers in these undertakings be submitted to a panel of judges, so that each worker may be classified as a spe- cialist or not, on some criterion. If we think that specialism in the law is being accompanied by a loss of conscience on the part of 95 On the other hand, whether Rome’s “great engineer” was good for Rome is another question to be answered (and disputed) only by historical specialists. * Hook says no more (page 311); Livingstone says some specialists, but not his kind, may have less (page 805); Rulon suggests more; and nobody knows. The question is probably less how much conscience than, is there enough in- formation to make conscience useful; or is the specialist to use “hunch” on every- thing outside his specialty? 338 Specialization in Education lawyers, then each lawyer engaged in these enterprises should first be adjudged as either a specialist or not. We could next find the ratio between the number of specialists participating in this work and the number of specialists not participating. A similar ratio could be com- puted between the general law practitioners participating, and those not participating. If the ratio for specialists is far lower than for non- specialists, we would have one datum in support of our fear that the specialist has gained knowledge without conscience. My guess is that we should find no such relationship, and that we might indeed find the reverse. As for wisdom, we could go back to the managing boards of these same enterprises and have all the workers judged for their sagacity, judgment and balance of outlook. A comparison of the specialists with non-specialists might indicate a lack of wisdom on the part of the specialists. My guess is that it would not, and that the comparison might indeed favor the specialists. Of course, no such single datum can answer our questions, nor any small group of data resolve our doubts. In the matter of faith, a su- perior fraction of our specialists may be found to adhere to some set of principles which they regard as transcending practical considera- tions, and we may still be anxious about their faith. In the matter of hope versus despair, we may find the suicide rate among specialists far lower than among non-specialists, and we may find the personal par- ticipation of specialists indicating a greater devotion to charity. With many such data in hand, we may still doubt the wisdom and conscience of our specialists, and doubt our own wisdom in permitting the current degree of specialization. And so to help us interpret all the data, let us call in the historians, as has been suggested. Let us ask whether the Greeks or the Egyptians or the Aztecs or the Romans declined and in some cases perished be- cause of overspecialization. (These historians will, of course, be spe- cialists.) In my own unspecialized reading of Mr. Gibbon's monu- mental classic on The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, I did not find him blaming overspecialization with any appreciable empha- sis. Indeed, my own unspecialized reading leaves me with the im- pression that almost everything has been blamed for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire except overspecialization. This leaves over- specialization unique—or nearly so—as one of the very few influences which have not been adduced to explain that great historic tragedy. Well, I have hinted that specialism may be a good thing rather than bad. I have hinted also that it is inevitable in our society, whether it Discussion 339 is good or bad. I should like to close with the suggestion that special- ization may give us an opportunity to have our cake and eat it too. It may turn out that the specialist in mathematical biophysics has less wisdom and a weaker conscience than he would have had if he had devoted himself to the humanities. But it may also be true that as a mathematical biophysicist he has wisdom and conscience superior to the general run of his unspecialized fellow citizens. In short, it is pos- sible that persons who specialize most thoroughly are those who can most safely be trusted to do so without falling short on wisdom and conscience. Such men of wisdom and conscience as Bridgman, Bush, Conant, Eddington, Einstein, Jeans and Oppenheimer—to mention a few in alphabetical order—provide examples of the possibility I have just mentioned." We should hesitate—it seems to me—to execute the goose which may be laying these golden eggs. :k >k >k :}; :k The panel now advanced as a solid phalanx into the discussion. No basic dichotomy had been revealed in the prepared statements. Spe- cialization was good, and was here to stay. Sir Richard might assert that specialization in the classics was likely to be more beneficial than specialization in science; but Dean Potter would reply that engineering education was general education. The discussion is reproduced as a dialogue: SHERwood: Thank you, Professor Rulon. I take it that any similarity between your statement and the Harvard Report is purely coinci- dental. We have a few minutes for questions between our panel mem- bers. I believe you will recognize that their approach has been quite different. If their differences have not been sharply accented, perhaps the questions can do the latter. Dr. Hook first. THoov. T have rºllection c for evervy member on Flho no nel hiº H +kere * ** *-* *—º.1. *_* W.M. º. *... . . º.º.º. *...* sº. --- *-* *-*...*... e. all--1 º ºf *1-->~ *...R. V.A. J.L.-R. M. Jº -ºl. *-* - L. w --y ...R. J. W. J. J. J. R.-a ºf J. *_*... . W-l. J. W-A t’---- isn't time to ask them all, and so I shall ask a question of Sir Richard by way of a critical comment. I want to express my agreement with the spirit of his sweetly reasoned discourse this morning. But I want to express my dissent from some of his recommendations. I agree with him that in order to criticize our culture we need some standards, but it seems to me very doubtful whether we need to return for our stand- ards to the past, particularly the past of 2,500 years ago. Whitehead 87 Rulon here has mentioned great men; it would be interesting to see whether a similar list could be compiled of equally talented specialists who should not have been trusted to specialize. 340 Specialization in Education suggests somewhere,” that ancestral voices prophesying may not be very reliable in an age with whose fundamental problems our ances- tors weren't acquainted. I cannot see how the culture of Greece, or a study of that culture, would furnish us with standards that would enable us to solve the problem of full employment in the free society or the problem of control of international energy. I would go further. It seems to me that the standards of comparison which have been de- rived from Greece and from the Middle Ages have too long been fol- lowed in Western Europe, and have conspicuously failed to solve the problems which the modern world has deposited upon our doorstep. And in closing, I should also like to point out that when we speak of the standards of Greek culture, there isn't any one Greek way of life. There are several. We identify the Greek way of life with the idealistic genteel tradition because of Plato. But there is the tradition of Pythag- oras. There is the tradition of Epicurus.” There is the melancholy aspect of Greek genius, to use Butcher's phrase. In other words, we need a standard to select what, in Greek life, is to be relevant. It seems to me, then, the fundamental criterion in relation to the past should be relevance—relevance to the problems, the needs, the hopes and the ideals of the present. SHERwood: Thank you, Dr. Hook. Do you have a comment, Sir Richard? LIVINGSTONE: Yes, though I am afraid if I really made it, it would be a great deal longer than my original speech. Now, I'll just start from Professor Whitehead. I am sure he wouldn't have agreed with Dr. Hook. One can't look through his books, for instance one has only got to read “Adventures of Ideas,” without seeing how continually he insists on going back to Plato as having the right attitude, among other things, to science. To some things, after all, age makes no difference. Shakespeare, to go just three centuries back, was completely ignorant of most of the things we know. And yet, no one would say that the * “Now I suggest to you that to-day in America ancestral voices prophesying’ are somewhat irrelevant. And for this reason: they do not know what they are talking about. The fact is that our honored ancestors were largely ignorant of modern conditions, and so their prophecies are impressive, vaguely disturbing, but very unpractical.”—Alfred North Whitehead, Essays in Science and Philosophy (New York, Philosophical Library, Inc., 1947), pages 201–2. * And, Hook might have added, the tradition of Sparta, or Thebes, or Corinth, or Macedon. Long training has accustomed the Western mind to identify “Greece.” with Athens. Pythagoras and Epicurus, the men cited by Hook, were as a matter of fact both Samian-born. Epicurus made his fame in Athens, Pythagoras in Thebes. The present must rework the traditions of the past, selecting what it needs from many different possibilities. Discussion 341 reading of Shakespeare is irrelevant to human life. I think they would say the same thing about the New Testament—that is further back still —and I think they would say so about Plato and other Greek authors. I should quite agree that you won't find the solution of our actual problems in any Greek author. Though I think there is no person from whom one can learn more about education, the actual procedures of education, than Plato. But what you do get, I think, in the great Greeks, you get the sort of general fundamental principles with which to approach life. And I will only mention two of them which seem to me very important. It was a Greek of the fifth century who put the question “What do we live for,” and his reply was, “To contemplate the works of nature.” It was a Greek of the sixth century B.C. who said that our business was to follow nature, listening to her. And what I think you do get in the Greeks is, well, a great many things; but you get two things which are extremely important. You get interest in life and curiosity about life, and, secondly, you get this habit which seems to me has never been surpassed since, of trying to see and record things as they are. Just look at Plato. Plato was a man of strong views; but he would put the case against himself as well as his opponent could have put it. Or look at Thucydides and Aristotle. And I think the evidence for going to the Greeks for the right attitude to life is pro- vided when you consider what they did. They created out of pure superstition the scientific approach to life in the sense of science as the desire to know things and the desire to see things as they are. Of course, applied science they were not concerned with, and we can learn nothing from them about it. And again, they did the same thing in morals. Out of pure barbarism, as you can see—not quite pure but a great deal of barbarism in the world of Homer—see what has been created by the age of Plato. And if you want a better definition of liberal democracy as in this country and in my own we conceive it, will you find any better definition than you find in the funeral speech of Pericles in the second book of Thucydides? You see, my point really is that they give you the right general attitude to life in a short form better than anybody else. Nietzsche made a very good remark about them. He said the Greeks are simple like genius. That is why they are the immortal teachers. Well, I feel I have made a very incomplete and inadequate reply to Professor Hook. I would like to argue it with him at greater length. SHERwooD: Thank you, Sir Richard. I take it that Plato has little to contribute to our modern problem of traffic. But perhaps that's not a 342 Specialization in Education fundamental problem. Gentlemen, I think our program should take this turn, that we should continue these questions for a few more minutes and not have our final rebuttal because time is short and this may prove more interesting. I tell you that now so that you can act accord- ingly. Now, who's next? Professor Rulon? Let's try to have the ques- tions a little shorter and the answers a little shorter. RULON: Sir, I wasn't going to ask a question.” SHERwooD: Good! RULON: I think one of the points that has come out of this discus- sion needs further development, and I should like to see it put on the agenda for the End-Century Convocation of M.I.T. It has been said several times by many of us that children and young people learn facts, and therefore science, and technology, and machine shop practice, and so on, much more easily and at a younger age than they learn to deal with these larger and more, shall we say, ultimate problems of life. It has also been suggested that we have adult education to take care of that. The two things that occurred to me were, first, I wonder if any- body on this platform this morning arrived at his today's conclusions while he was an undergraduate in college. And I wonder if you can expect undergraduates to have the concern that the alumni have after they have got out. The next thing I wanted to say was, about this adult education business, I am in thorough agreement that you ought to have postgraduate education through every means possible; and may I sug- gest that one reason we don't have it is that our present society keeps our successful specialists so busy serving the ends of society that they haven't got time to study any humanities, anyway. SHERwoOD: I think one thought that occurred in our discussions last evening was that one of the illustrations of topflight adult education is the League of Women Voters, which I assure you, as the husband of one, is not for one sex only. Dr. Potter. PortER: Mr. Moderator, and Ladies and Gentlemen, it is very grati- fying to find that at least three or possibly four of the people in this audience are very definitely interested in adult education. Professor Kittredge, the great Shakespearian scholar of Harvard, used to tell about an alumnus, a graduate of Harvard College, not of Law or Sci- entific School, or of Engineering School, who visited him on the thir- tieth anniversary of his graduation, and in discussing things with Dr. 70 Whether a matter of electronics or of the education of our transcribers, the Editor is much impressed by the Johnsonian mannerisms of these discussions as transcribed. It seems hard to believe that so many of our speakers consistently in- serted the Johnsonian “Sir” in precisely the apt Johnsonian places. Discussion 343 Kittredge decried the fact that the reading of Macbeth was interrupted by graduation, and he said he had wondered during the past thirty years how that story came out. SHERwood: Gentlemen, we are not getting many questions. Pardon me, Sir. PottER: The fact remains, Ladies and Gentlemen, the majority of our college graduates, whether they have an A.B. degree, or a B.S., or Engineering, or what not, are not interested in books and in good read- ing. Their scholarly interests are definitely limited to the sport page, the comic page, possibly the financial page, and now and then to an illustrated magazine which a person does not have to read. I wish Sir Richard would tell us what his experience in Great Britain is in inter- esting professional people, people who have had the benefits of higher education, to continue their education through some form of adult edu- cation. What has been your experience, Sir Richard? SHERwooD: Sir Richard. LIVINGSTONE: Well, I am afraid we have too much taken the view in England that adult education is for the people who have not had edu- cation in their youth. And that, of course, was very necessary because, after all, the school-leaving age up until recently was fourteen, and I think if you went through the Labor members of the present day you would find a number of them had left school at twelve or thirteen; and it was really the great adult-education movement called the W.E.A., which started in 1900, which has made the present developments in labor democracy possible, but it is growing among other people. A very interesting college has been founded for people who are going to occupy managerial posts in industry where they come in their late twenties or thirties, seconded by their firms, for eight weeks' study, for studies which are largely, of course, professional, but also have a liberal element in them. Otherwise it is a very difficult question which Dean Potter has asked because the answer is so sporadic. I would say that adult education on the whole is very much on the march in England, but I also think that there are quite a number of people who, having left school at seventeen or eighteen, feel that that is about all that is required of them.” * At this point all participants seem to agree that it would be a good thing to have more adult education and they have not yet begun to discuss two types, one for citizenship and one for greater professional advancement, to which Potter will shortly refer. At the moment the issue is one of better citizenship, and Livingstone has just conceded that because of the early school-leaving age the problem was difficult. Candid American educators would concede that the early leaving age was real even for many college graduates at least so far as interest in further 344 Specialization in Education SHERwood: Thank you, Sir Richard. Dr. Thomas had his hand up a minute and I think he is itching to say something. Dr. Thomas. THOMAs; Dr. Sherwood, I would like to comment on a point that Dr. Rulon made. Perhaps I would like to put it in the form of a question. He made the statement that in fighting Russia, which is certainly on the minds of a lot of us today, that we are relying, or have to rely, on our specialists. To fight Russia, we have to have our specialists in nuclear energy, and nuclear fission, airplanes, and so forth; at least I took that from his statement. Now I quite agree, but personally I think we need a great deal more to fight Russia successfully and not have a war. I think we fall down in not realizing that to fight a war with spe- cialist versus specialist is not enough. The Russians fight us with ideas. We have not learned to fight back with counter-ideas. SHERwood: Perhaps the obvious question is—Mr. Churchill is a spe- cialist in what? Dr. Lilge, do you wish to get in here before we go on? LILGE: I was interested in what Dr. Rulon said about faith, hope and charity in his speech, and I believe he said at one time that the faith perhaps, I think that was the value he mentioned, of specialists might be estimated by statistics of suicide or non-suicide among specialists. Since we are all specialists more or less, I am wondering where he would get his control group. SHERwooD: Dr. Rulon? Oh, all right. Dr. Hook. Hook: I would like to make just one comment on what Mr. Thomas said. I don’t think we have to fear the Russian export of ideas so long as they don't export their troops.” We can meet ideas in the market place, but the problem is that the Russians don't stop at the importa- tion of ideas. I would like to return, however, to the question of the panel. I have a feeling that there hasn't been sufficiently sharp con- frontation of issues. We agree too much this morning. But I wonder whether we actually are in fundamental agreement. For example, Dean Potter has given us a paper, according to which, if the idea is logically followed, there is no difference between specialized education and gen- eral education. But if engineering is not specialized education, I won- der why he calls his school the “School of Engineering”? Why do we knowledge is concerned. This brings us in one way or another to the basic prob- lem, more serious in lands where illiteracy is admitted, but fairly serious in lands where illiteracy is denied, which was summed up for those who admit their illit- eracy and in stirring words by Jaime Torres Bodet, Director-General, UNESCO, in a speech delivered at Kronberg Castle on June 16, 1949, at the formal opening of the International Conference on Adult Education, at Elsinore in Denmark. These excerpts are quoted in Appendix G. 7* Hook's epigram is, in a sense, a verification of the contentions of footnote 63. Discussion - 345 call it a “Professional School”? I think there is a difference between general education and specialized or vocational education, and it is not a matter of semantic confusion to make that distinction. By general education we mean a knowledge of those subject matters and a famili- arity with those skills which we think should be required of every man and woman in the community; but certainly we are not going to main- tain the same standards for a knowledge of medicine, or a knowledge of engineering. Consequently, I am wondering how we focus upon the problem of specialization unless we do recognize this fundamental difference between general education on the one hand and vocational or specialized education that supervenes on it. SHERwood: Thank you, Dr. Hook. One comment in passing: I think that at the rate at which the liberal arts colleges are introducing sci- ence, additional science courses, and at the rate at which the engineer- ing curricula are building up strong humanities stems, the two cur- ricula may cross each other and end up on opposite sides before we know it. Dr. Potter, do you have a comment in relation to Dr. Hook's statement? Potter: Well, my only comment, Mr. Moderator, is that well-in- formed people who are not useful, irrespective of the type of education which those people may have had, do not contribute very much to society, to human comforts, and I cannot imagine how any type of education can serve society unless it makes the individual useful. In other words, generally well-informed people have very little use in serving society.” SHERwood: Well, that's certainly one statement. What was that, Dr. Hook? Hook: I am not so much interested in making people useful. I take their usefulness for granted. I would rather see them enjoyable and enjoying themselves. I think there is too much emphasis upon useful- ness in the narrow sense of the term. There are many things which we enjoy because we just love to do them, because we like them. We don't ask to justify them in respect to further usefulness. What is a thing useful for, anyway? The end result has to be an immediate con- summatory enjoyment or satisfaction. I wouldn't go so far as some people in the nineteenth century who used to drink a toast hoping that scientific discoveries wouldn't be useful,” though of some recent scientific discoveries I think we can properly say we hope they will * Where would this definition of “serving society” leave William Shakespeare, or Abraham Lincoln, or Winston Churchill? Sherwood probes this in a moment. ** Some people in Washington, half in-the-know, drank similar toasts in 1943–45. 346 Specialization in Education never be used. I think we can go very far astray from genuine educa- tional goals if we apply this maxim of usefulness too narrowly. I should stress significance, and experience, and enjoyment, and let the useful- ness fall wherever it may. SHERwood: Perhaps we have a semantics problem again as distin- guishing between usefulness and, what was your other word? Useless- ness? Hook: Well, there is a place for the “useless” in life. SHERwood: Our next question? Who has another thought here? Dr. Thomas, are you all run down? I hope you are not getting out that sec- ond speech. THOMAS: No, I have no other question. SHERwood: There is one thought that might be interesting to bring out. It has been touched on two or three times here, and that is the idea that younger people are able to assimilate skills and the sciences, in their elementary form anyway, whereas they are not able to enter upon studies which might serve, as Dr. Thomas suggested, to provide a basis for later synthesis. Does that mean that the combination of a humanities program and a specialized educational program should proceed as two integrated but parallel stems rather than the layer-cake proposition which is sometimes popular? For example, I believe at some universities the whole of the general education content, so speci- fied, is in the first two years in a four-year professional program, whereas in others, as in the medical school, a liberal arts general edu- cation, specifically without emphasis on medicine, is required for en- trance to a medical school. I take it that from some of the discussion today these layer-cake arrangements would be criticized. Is that cor- rect? Dr. Hook, I think you. . . . Hook: I have a question for Mr. Thomas. I was a little bit puzzled by the distinction that he made between the analytic approach and the synthetic approach. Now, I am all in favor of analysis. I think we don't have enough analysis in the world today, particularly in social fields. People hand out salvation on every street corner. I want the analytical habit of mind developed and I can’t see that it prevents creative and constructive work. If I understood Mr. Thomas, he said that the work of science made for an analytical approach, and yet at the same time he admits that our own century has witnessed the most remarkable achievements on the part of the scientists. I should say that if I were to characterize our own education as having one fundamental de- ficiency, it is that it is not analytical enough; that the inherited dogmas, inherited traditions of our age are not put to critical test; that we don’t Discussion 347 examine our heritage and reconstruct the heritage in the light of the present. I hate to appear like a devil's advocate for all unpopular causes on this panel, but . . . SHERwooD: Dr. Thomas. THOMAs; Well, I don’t blame my good colleague for being confused. He has confused me. But I would like to sharpen up what I intended to say because it was in a field which is a specialized field and the only field that I have any right whatsoever to speak on, and that is the field of science and engineering. And I am not speaking of the social sci- ences. There Dr. Hook may be perfectly right, and his fellows need perhaps more analysts. I think Hook is a pretty good one. But in the scientific field some of us are concerned about the trend of science in our own country. So far as applications of science are concerned, the science which busies itself with the applying of fundamental ideas, we, I believe without fear of contradiction, have reached a very high plateau. We in America succeed and are good at applied science. But some of us who are trying to take a longer view of things are con- cerned about the approach to fundamental science in the United States. And here, Dr. Hook, you will find that many of the funda- mental principles were not born in this country, for example, those of the atomic bomb. The fundamental, the underlying principles of that were largely defined in other atmospheres. Now, with the decline of Europe and universities in Western Europe, of course with the excep- tion of England, scientific intercourse between the nations declining, so that we don't know really what Russia may be achieving, we here in America must create some sort of an atmosphere which is better for fundamental thinking, particularly by our young students in great universities such as this.” Now, in describing that atmosphere I have used these two terms—analytical thinking, which I agree with you, Professor Hook, is very important, but something more. We must have a synthetic approach, and I don't mean that in the vernacular. I mean a building-up. We must have men such as men who came from some of our schools in Western Europe who not only were great chemists but knew enough about biology, for example, to be critical of their colleagues in biology. We are becoming so specialized in our science that a man who studies organic chemistry and who runs into a problem in biology, turns it over to his teammate who is a specialist in biology, and accepts his report from the biologist. Even today we don't do our analytical work in chemistry as we did even twenty-five years ago. ** See Compton, pages 30, 31. 348 Specialization in Education Now, that is what I am talking of, and that is the thing that I think we have to watch, and I am using those terms in the narrow field of natural science. I am sorry that I have taken so long, SHERwood: I regret that we are going to have to close off our dis- cussion. Before we do, however, I would like the privilege of having the floor to ask just one more question, this one of Dean Potter. Dean Potter, you speak of engineering education as a distinctive type of gen- eral education. To what extent do the typical engineering curriculum and the typical program of the liberal arts college overlap in providing a general education common to both? Potter: Mr. Moderator, in answer to your question, the engineer- ing curricula of this country comprise at least one-half of a program of study in the field of general education. In other words, the engineer- ing student devotes a little more than half of his time to subjects which would be acceptable for an A.B. degree at any recognized liberal arts college,” and he devotes somewhat less than half of his time to sub- jects which are in the field of applied science and technology. While I am on my feet . . . while I have the microphone before me, there is one thing, frankly, about which I am very much concerned, and I hope that some of the industrialists in this room will particularly pay attention to my statement. I am very much concerned about the graduates of all colleges during the first five or ten years after gradua- tion. I have known of any number of graduates of all types of institu- tions who found themselves in a rut, and the difference between a rut and a grave, as you know, is only that of dimensions and outlets; and due to the fact that nobody has given them sufficient encouragement to continue their studies. At Purdue this year we will give degrees to about 2,500 students in engineering. I am very much concerned about my graduates who go to Lynn, and to Schenectady, and to Pittsburgh, and to the other industrial centers of this country, that the industrial- ists who employ them give them an opportunity to continue their edu- cation, particularly to broaden their education by pursuing certain studies in the fields of humanities and social sciences. And also I hope that the universities and colleges such as M.I.T., located as it is near Lynn, and other institutions located near other industrial centers, will 7° Subject to a little qualification, this is true. Slightly less than 20 per cent of the contact hours of a typical engineering curriculum is devoted to English, his- tory and social sciences, which would be acceptable as beginning or even junior subjects in these fields in a liberal arts curriculum. Another 30 per cent in mathe- matics, physics, chemistry, biology or other fundamental science would also be acceptable as to content, possibly, but not in such great quantity unless the stu- dent were majoring in one of these fields. Summary 349 liberalize their attitudes about graduate study and give all graduates encouragement to pursue some postgraduate study with the bait of an advanced degree. In other words, here is the Lynn Works of the Gen- eral Electric, the most important plant probably in the country in the field of jet propulsion. Now, I should like to see my boys who are at Lynn given an opportunity to do graduate work at M.I.T., or at some other institutions in this city, so that they can enhance their knowledge of the tools which are essential for an individual to advance in the field of jet propulsion. I thank you. SHERwood: Thank you, Dr. Potter. Ladies and Gentlemen, I am terribly sorry that we must cut this off. I conclude, therefore, by thank- ing our distinguished panel speakers for the generosity of their time, for their willingness to come here and discuss our question this morn- ing. Thank you, Ladies and Gentlemen. In summary, this panel would seem, on all superficial bases, to have been in very close agreement. Semantic difficulties began to arise and had these been explored the differences of opinion would certainly have become sharper. As it was, it seemed to be universally held that there was a necessity for specialization today. Everyone said this in one way or another and Professor Rulon gave a smashing account of how ridiculous it was to think we would be getting anywhere in contempo- rary society without the specialists. Going beyond this, other values were found in specialized education. Sir Richard Livingstone, for in- stance, found intrinsic value, pointed out that it had never hurt British leaders to be specialized, that British education was more specialized than American education and that, finally, one learned by studying specialization to know what it was to know something about a subject instead of merely being interested in it. He could not resist adding, however, that some kinds of specialized studies were more useful for ~~~~ oral vºn rvºr, + º-, rh º e e g general purposes than others, and in particular cited the classics as being especially useful, and sciences and technology as being espe- cially limited. Dean Potter, on the other hand, found engineering edu- cation to be a form of general education and, one gathered, quite as good a form as there was, although he did not state that it was a universally useful form. Sir Richard Livingstone felt it was also necessary, however, to go beyond having a serious speciality and to make several other studies, one of which was to study man. He thought the classic times offered the best opportunity for this study although he would not decry the Middle Ages. He was seconded in this by Frederic Lilge's impression 350 Specialization in Education that the world of thought and experience should be available to the specialists. Another segment which most of the speakers felt might be over- looked included the social and political problems of the day. Living- stone felt that it was essential in any good education for today's living that one be aware of these problems. Lilge, Hook and Potter all sec- onded him in this. Hook was especially emphatic about this when he said, “All specialized education is inadequate in preparing its devotees to live and think intelligently in our changing culture, and therefore we must provide for proper political education. But let us never con- fuse this legitimate demand with the politicalization of learning which ultimately makes science, as in the Soviet Union, a matter for the police.” Only Livingstone added two other ingredients to the specifications. One was that we should study our times from the outside, for which purpose he found nineteenth century history to be much too recent; the other was that we must manage somehow to find the good in life, in other words, to come to grips with problems of ethics. Several people, however, found dangers in specialization. Among these was Lilge, who detected in American specialization a tendency to become preoccupied with externals, a difficulty in sharing experi- ence. In particular he called attention to the risk arising from what John Stuart Mill had long ago called the tyranny of public opinion. Referring to it as a standing threat in a democracy, he felt that the powers of a standardized collectivity which threatened to produce this tyranny of opinion might be fostered by the phenomenon of specializa- tion since “technical or professional specialization, when unmitigated and unbalanced, is apt to leave the members of society with little of importance to say to one another.” Thomas, on the other hand, found the greatest danger in specializa- tion was that it was concentrating upon analysis and was not doing enough in training people to be good synthesists. Thomas also was depressed about what he had detected as a determination of the youth of the land to seek economic security at a time when he thought they should be more courageous. But these ideas were challenged, either in general or specifically, both by Rulon and Hook who pointed to the performance of specialists as citizens and suggested that probably on the whole it was, if anything, better than that of the non-specialists, and by Potter for engineering education anyway, which he said was really a form of general education. Potter also challenged Thomas's idea when he held that the university should cater to the desire of Summary 351 students for economic security by giving them subjects which would provide that security. Considerable emphasis was laid at times, both by Livingstone and by Potter, on the notion that the subject taught was by no means so important as the quality of the teacher, but neither one of them pointed out how great teachers were to be produced in sufficient quan- tities to meet the great demand for education which now prevails. Thus there certainly was a real contrast between Potter, on the one hand, who held that engineering education as conceived today in the United States was in effect a good general education, and Livingstone, who would almost certainly disagree with this point of view; again, there was contrast between Lilge, on the one hand, who thought that specialized education was leading to a preoccupation with externals and subjecting us possibly to tyranny of public opinion, and Hook and Rulon on the other, who would say that the specialists were, if any- thing, the best citizens. A further disagreement existed between Livingstone who felt that a study of the classics offered the best opportunity to study man, and some of the engineers and others who held that a study of the classics would offer us little guide to the solution of our current problems; to this Livingstone's reply was that it would help us to study the sig- nificance of main current problems which were not those of traffic or similar practical matters. The plea of Thomas for synthesis was not echoed by anyone else but was only mildly attacked. The largest point of agreement was that specialization was with us; there was nothing harmful in it per se; in fact, it was inevitable and desirable, not only because we needed specialists but because, as Livingstone had pointed out, it afforded one of the necessary ingredients of a full-blooded education. There was some difference of opinion as to what general education was and as to whether general education should be carried on throughout the entire curriculum, as suggested by Potter and as is the practice in engineering schools, or as a preliminary to specialized training as sug- gested by Hook, the practice for schools in which most professionalism is taught at the graduate levels. Hook probably made the best summary of the role of the university when, decrying the doctrines of Ortega and Hutchins which would call for some kind of overriding unity, he said, “There is only one kind of unity which seems to me to be compatible with freedom of scien- tific, scholarly and technological research. It is not a unity of doctrine or system but a unity which expresses itself in an uncoerced con- 352 Specialization in Education vergence of interests from various disciplines on common problems. This is itself a natural development of tendencies immanent in scien- tific inquiry, as the existence of interdepartmental seminars and in- stitutes of human relations on many campuses testify. Whether one chooses to work as a lonely pioneer on the outskirts of the known, or as a part of a team or group, must be left to the intellectual interest of the individual investigator and the character of his problem. If one chooses to project a synthesis of known results, to build bridges be- tween fields, to translate technical languages or one technical language into another, that is his privilege. Here there is much useful work to be done. But we can be confident that tomorrow's findings will spring the system and require a new technique and a new language. This is indeed the life of science—a life which is threatened whenever higher education is committed to an official synthesis or an official philoso- phy.” CHAPTER VIII The State, Industry and the University INCE the turn of the century many trends had been observable in American higher education. These had been developing for a long time before they became manifest. The earliest universities of Europe had been in a sense the private enterprise of their own faculties—a popular professor ate; an unpopular one did not. Shortly, by action of the guilds of scholars, the church and various individual philanthropists, the universities began to find funds which made them no longer exactly commercial institutions." By the time of the Ameri- can Revolution, these three elements of support were dominant.” When the American colonies became free there were nine institu- tions of higher education in the United States, two in one colony (New Jersey) and one in each of the other seven colonies. Four of the re- maining five colonies soon legislated to establish such institutions. These were not state universities in the modern sense. They received some financial support from public sources but, as John Dale Russell reminds us, they were “universities in states, rather than universities ‘of’ states.” 8 1 There have been remnants of the original system even down to the present day. Save for tax exemptions, there are a few institutions in the United States tion +,-- ~~~~~~~~~~4- +lº Ai- z-a -º- ººgº which are still entirely dependent upon tuition to support thcir opcrations. 2 The Editor is indebted for many of the facts (though none of the interpreta- tion) of the next few paragraphs to sections of the original draft of John Dale Russell's address for the Convocation. Russell departed from this address when he spoke. Some parts of it have been reinserted in the text. 3. A very important distinction; it is a distinction which the British draw sharply. For example, Sir Ernest Barker in British Universities (cited in Appendix F, page 486) says, “The fact remains that one of the characteristic British ways of action—perhaps peculiarly characteristic in the field of University life, but also traceable in other fields—is the way of acting without the State and yet expecting the State to help. It is curious: it is hardly logical; but it works. This is why one writer has said that ‘the British universities are the creation of the British nation, not of the British State.’” Sir Ernest’s description of the University Grants system is given in Appendix H; and that of Sir Walter Moberly, also in Appendix H. 353 354 State and University Jefferson probably reflected as well as anyone the ideals then held as to the purposes of such universities. Many of his letters deal with the appropriate functions of a university and the appropriate curricu- lum for various people whom he advised on their own studies. In his letter from Monticello to Peter Carr, dated September 7, 1814, he treats at length of his hopes for the new state university in Virginia. It is quite clear that higher education at that time was intended to be limited to those who would enter the learned class as opposed to those who were destined for labor. The learned class in turn was divided into those who “1, . . . are destined for learned professions, as a means of livelihood; and 2, the wealthy, who, possessing independent fortunes, may aspire to share in conducting the affairs of the nation, or to live with usefulness and respect in the private ranks of life.” Those entering professional training would presumably prepare them- selves for the law, the church, medicine and the army; it was not im- possible also for the “agricultor” to attend a school of “rural economy” or “the gentleman, the architect, the pleasure gardener, painter and musician to the school of fine arts.” There were also to be schools of “technical philosophy” designed for artisans.” As time went on several things happened. In the first place the range of the professions was sensibly widened; in the second place the economic classes, from which young men might aspire to the profes- sions, expanded; in the third place the numbers of those who might seek a “gentleman's education” diminished enormously, at least in pro- portion to the numbers of all who might seek a higher education. In these ways American university education began to depart greatly from the scope of higher education in Europe. The latter part of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century witnessed a further significant change. State universities began to increase in size, number and quality. Seldom if ever did they attain to the prestige of the old, established, “private” universities in states which had such old establishments, but in the newer states the pub- licly supported universities waxed great and offered the sternest of competition to their privately supported rivals. No private institution could truly be called private, perhaps, since almost all enjoyed some measure or even a great measure of tax exemption on their real prop- erty and income. But the degree of public support furnished a rela- tively simple means of distinguishing the two types. * Philips Foner, Basic References of Thomas Jefferson (New York, Willey Book Company, 1944), page 730. The Problem 355 It was inevitable that thousands of young men and women in each state should be admitted to the state universities; that these universities then should grow until in numbers they represented almost all, though not quite all, of the largest universities of the land. This was not only, of course, a matter of simpler entrance requirements; it was related too to the lower cost, both in tuition and living, of going to college near home; and it was related finally to a gradually growing and possibly fallacious American notion that equality of opportunity meant that every young man and woman who “wanted” a university education ought to have one." One harassed educator in a great eastern state is said to have remarked that things would be vastly easier if the legis- lature would declare that every person born in the state were auto- matically entitled to a college degree on attaining a specified age. The standards of many state universities remained of the highest; many of their leaders were wistful about the abilities of the private in- stitutions to exclude the unfit; many were proud of their ability to eliminate after entrance; some sought earnestly the formula by which the few of great competence could have a thorough education, while the rest could also have a university training suitable to their abilities. Special curricula of various sorts proliferated—things became more and more complicated. Nonetheless until the end of World War II the is- sues were not sharply drawn. There were trends—state universities were constantly increasing in power and prestige; private institutions were losing none of their prestige, but were taking care of a smaller proportion of all those who went to college; and at the same time the financial problems of the “rich" colleges were becoming increasingly difficult. In 1900, when the century began, about 62 per cent of the students in higher education were studying in privately controlled institutions. By 1920 public institutions were accounting for 53 per cent. Then the trend reversed itself momentarily and by 1930 privately controlled colleges had recovered the leadership in numbers, going up to 53 per cent. In the next decade things reversed again, and in 1940 the pri- vately supported institutions had 45 per cent of the students. Since then there has been a further change, and at the moment the numbers are about equal. 5 In 1900, 4 per cent of youths 18–21 years old or 240,000 out of 6 million were enrolled in colleges; in 1946, 13 per cent of those in this age group or 1.7 million out of 9.4 million were thus enrolled. Statistical Summary of Education, 1945–46 (U. S. Office of Education, Washington, D. C., 1949), Chapter I. 356 State and University The difficulties encountered by the private institutions were prima- rily financial. They developed inevitably from increasing movement towards some sort of a welfare state. Wealthy individuals who had formerly made large gifts in their lifetime, or in their wills, now had less to give since graduated income taxes had returned much of their wealth to the public coffers. Income on investments had generally de- clined so that the endowments of colleges had yielded less. Meanwhile the ever-shrinking dollar worked the other way. What income there was would pay less of a professor's salary or buy less of the needed equipment at a time when state-supported institutions, bulging with tax money, could offer serious competition to attract the best minds. For a time the privately supported institutions defended themselves by increasing tuition, but this, of course, had an end point. There was a limit to what any student could pay; and if increases in tuition were not matched by increases in scholarship funds these institutions would find all too quickly that, in fact, they were having to do what they had never wanted to do, select from the small group who could afford to pay. To do this would amount to a throwback of over a century. Another tendency was also at work; without it there might not have been so much concern. The Federal State had consistently shown an increased interest in assisting, then managing, the affairs of its citizens. The age-old battle between the citizen and the state, the state and the Union, was one which would possibly never be over. But Americans who watched the progress of statism elsewhere were not all enthusi- astic about its probable effects here. There was a widespread feeling that what the nation paid for, the nation would insist upon controlling. And the privately supported institutions, the diversity of which had resulted in almost every pioneering effort in American education, were frankly frightened. The issue became more than one of survival. The larger and more famous ones were almost certain to survive as in- stitutions. The question was, what sort of institutions? In July, 1946, President Truman appointed a Commission on Higher Education. This Commission reported " that the number of students in American colleges and universities should be doubled by 1960. There were many educators who were aghast at this proposal—not because anyone should be denied opportunity, but because it seemed to them unlikely that there were that many young men and women in the nation who were really qualified to make use of a university edu- * Establishing Goals, Higher Education for American Democracy, Vol. I (Gov- ernment Printing Office, Washington, D. C., December, 1947), page 89. The Problem - 357 cation of the rigorous standard which seemed desirable; or enough teachers who would be able to impart such an education. There seemed some chance that in this expansion, unless great care were taken, the entire quality of American education might become diluted, the most able penalized to raise slightly the average training of the less able. Many doubted that this was the best way to open opportunity or in the best interests of the nation as a whole, a nation which desper- ately needed leaders of the highest caliber, aptitudes, and training. The further risk at once appeared that in the financing of such an extended venture more taxes would be levied, reducing still further the capacity of private individuals and institutions to contribute to the privately supported universities and colleges. This risk appeared the more real in view of the proposal that public funds for the support of education in the United States (other than scholarships) should be limited to the support of public institutions. Thus the trend of economics and the trend of politics moved to- gether to create a situation of anxiety as to the future of the privately supported educational institutions in the United States. This question was probably the most urgent educational question in the nation. It formed a fitting subject for the “intellectual panel” which met on the afternoon of Friday in Morss Hall. The question as stated in the pro- gram for the Convocation read: “The century has witnessed an astounding expansion of publicly operated institutions of higher learning, and of the degree of financial support provided by the various nations to private and public univer- sities alike. This trend causes apprehension in many quarters, resting on the doubt that a nation, having provided support, can resist the temptation to interfere with the spirit of free inquiry which is be- lieved to have epitomized the richness of Western higher education. “What grounds are there for such an apprehension? What are the alternatives? What are the conditions which may yield compatibility between outside support and the independence of an academic insti- tution to pursue its activities its own way? What is the stake of the whole society in maintaining at least a limited number of completely independent, privately supported educational institutions?” To the discussion the Institute had called together a panel made up of a former colleague, now president of its closest rival in science and engineering; a political philosopher, one-time president of a first-rate small institution, and now holder of a high position in one of the greatest state universities; the president of another private university, long known for his liberal views about the structure of the State; 358 State and University a one-time professor and dean of a great private university, now in the service of the Federal government; and a trustee of three important privately supported institutions." It had also summoned another speaker whose absence was much regretted. Sir Walter Moberly, Chairman of the University Grants Committee of the United King- dom, could have presented a quite different approach to the same problem, one which seemed to meet some of the challenges implicit in the American approach. But Sir Walter unfortunately found the date of the Convocation impossible to meet.” The moderator of the panel was one of M.I.T.'s best-known younger professors, about to become its Provost. He had studied the problem of financing of the universities long and well, and he elected to de- scribe the problem in detail in the following remarks. Said Dr. Strat- ton: 9 “We are meeting this afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen, to examine some of the most perplexing problems confronting this nation at mid- century.” 7 Respectively, Lee A. DuBridge, Peter H. Odegard, Bryn J. Hovde, John Dale Russell and Laird Bell. 8 The way the University Grants Committee operates is not too well known in the United States. It offers a pattern of great interest which may or may not be adaptable to a much larger country in which many more universities might claim equal leadership. But even if not immediately applicable, it seems too important to let the accident of Sir Walter Moberly's absence keep it out of the reporting of this panel. Fortunately, Sir Walter's views were broadcast over the BBC in the form of a discussion with Sir John Medley, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne. This broadcast was published in London Calling, September 2, 1948, under the title “The State and the Universities” and is produced in part in Appendix H. The reader may wish to compare this attitude with that expressed by John Dale Russell on page 396, and in Appendix K, page 502. Russell's position as a tax- payer is not unique; it probably is representative of the attitude of most Ameri- can taxpayers. See also Sir Walter Moberly The Crisis in the University (London, SCM Press, Ltd., 1949), and in particular pages 225–242. ° For a brief biography of Stratton, see Biographical Notes, page 528. 19 In 1948 a preliminary study of the financing of higher education and research, both public and private, was made by an exploratory committee of the Associa- tion of American Universities. This report indicated that a complete review was needed. As a result the Association obtained a grant of $400,000 from the Rocke- feller Foundation and a further grant of $50,000 from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Henry M. Wriston, president of Brown University and president of the Association, made this announcement in mid-summer 1949: a commission was established by the AAU to carry out the study. Its chairman is Frank D. Facken- thal, formerly acting president, Columbia University, and now special consultant on college administrative problems to the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Other members include Paul M. Buck, provost, Harvard University; Frederick A. Julius Stratton 359 “Most Americans today feel themselves threatened by two mortal dangers. They fear an infiltration of the philosophy of Communism into our social institutions; and they fear military action in Europe that may engulf us all in a third World War. “Very possibly many of us exaggerate the acuteness of both these dangers. However that may be, there lies before us just one clear course of action. In the long term, there is only one way to combat the specious claims of Communism, and that is by constant and vigorous effort to eradicate the deficiencies of our own social institutions. As for national security, in the military sense, it is equally clear that we shall never win a World War by force of overwhelming manpower alone. Our ultimate strength lies in the vast resources of our national industry; in the magnificent laboratories of our universities; and above all in the intellectual and spiritual resources of the men and women who have brought all this into being. “Education maintains and enriches these resources and thus is the only solid foundation to national security as it is to national welfare. Do the schools and colleges of the United States today meet this edu- cational challenge squarely? Is the opportunity for advanced study governed primarily by the financial means of the student or is it now in fact limited only by his capacity to learn? Has the burden of educa- tion become so great that we should relinquish it in its entirety to Middlebush, president, University of Missouri; and two members of this panel, Dr. DuBridge and Mr. Bell. John D. Millett, professor of public administration, Columbia University, has taken a 3-year leave of absence to be executive director of the commission. Dr. Millett is quoted in School and Society (Vol. 70, no. 1824, December 3, 1949), page 865, as having thus defined the problem at a joint dinner meeting of the Association of American Universities and the Association of Graduate Schools held in Madison, Wisconsin, October 28, 1949: “The problem for which we are seeking a solution is that of financing the vari- ous means, both privately and tax-supported, to that education. Our basic task will be to examine the objectives and the organization of top-level training for leadership in our democracy and for services to our economy. . . . In applying these objectives we should keep in mind three basic functions of higher education: provision of facilities for advancing general culture within a broad framework; provision of professional training in medicine, the law, engineering, teacher train- ing, and business education; and the training of teachers for higher education and for research in the human as well as the natural sciences. . . . We have been profligate in the exploitation of educational resources as we have been with our soil, our forests, and other natural resources. . . . Now the time has come for re- view, reappraisal, and rationalization. . . . The success of our study will depend in large measure on the degree of co-operation which we receive from existing institutions of higher learning and of research in assembling the facts without which our findings can be only wishful thinking.” 360 State and University state and Federal government, or do private schools and colleges have a lasting place in our free and democratic society? “This panel this afternoon is concerned particularly with the future of our universities. The cost of higher learning has increased enor- mously, partly because of the vast number of students who wish to avail themselves of the opportunities of a university education, and partly also because of the costly facilities that have become an es- sential element of a modern university. Research has become an inte- gral part of our educational system. This is an era of synchrotrons and wind tunnels, of electron microscopes for the biologists and of 200- inch telescopes for the astronomers.” These are the accepted hall- marks of every leading school of higher learning. Clearly, the re- sources of private institutions are wholly inadequate to meet these new demands. Large state universities are endeavoring to care for the enormous increase in enrollment.” State legislatures have become increasingly generous in providing funds for research. Moreover, a variety of Federal agencies are sponsoring research throughout the 11 There is a striking difference between the increase in cost of research in matural science and that in the social sciences. Students of social science doubt- less exact somewhat larger library costs than students of natural science; but they do not use cyclotrons, and indeed use almost no apparatus save that of manpower. If only the manpower is kept even as between the two disciplines, the entire sys- tem may become out of equilibrium and weighted in favor of natural science, for which it is generally easier to find support since it can offer a more concrete pro- gram and a higher probability—which however remains a probability, not a cer- tainty—of successful (and “useful”) results. As the cost of apparatus becomes higher and higher, institutions have been led into pooled resources (Brookhaven for the East, Argonne for the West). The progress in this direction is stumbling. It will be interesting to watch, for example, how far institutional ambitions can be overcome in the current effort of the lead- ing mid-western universities toward collaborating in certain elements of their library service. Full coöperation usually means sacrifice of individually prestigious positions and universities have not been different from indviduals in their reluc- tance to make this type of sacrifice. ** The largest enrollments as of the second week of the autumn term or semester in 1947 and 1948 as given by Circular 238 (November 10, 1947) and Circular 248 (November 15, 1948) of the Office of Education, Federal Security Agency, were as follows (“Private” institutions are asterisked): I947 I948 New York University “ 46,312 47,647 University of California 43,000 43,469 Columbia University “ 31,604 28,000 University of Minnesota 28,312 27,248 University of Illinois 26,769 25,920 Ohio State University 25,418 23,929 University of Southern California * 16,401 22,740 University of Michigan 20,302 21,002 University of Pittsburgh * 18,785 19,526 Wayne University “ 17,922 18,455 Julius Stratton 361 country in both public and private institutions. There is a new bill before the House to establish a National Science Foundation. Through the so-called GI Bill, our Government has experimented widely since the War in the furthering of higher education through university scholarships, and there are other bills now before Congress which propose to give to such aid a permanent character. “Thus there is a new national consciousness of a responsibility for education at the highest level through public institutions. All this is good; but are these facilities of public education in themselves suf- ficient to ensure the development of intellectual leadership? Can our large public institutions both ensure an equality of opportunity and succeed in cultivating superiority of spirit and intellect?” Can they both provide for a rising standard of general education, and discern the gifted mind and foster special talents? “Although it is clear that the major burden of higher education must be borne by the State, I am sure that all our Panel speakers will maintain that in our democracy there is a place for private educational institutions.” So long as these privately supported centers of learning are a part of our educational system, we need have little fear of the regimentation of thought that characterizes every country that has fallen under a dictatorship. “The practical question, then, is how these private institutions can survive in the face of a growing cost of advanced study. Can Govern- 18 Note, for example, Potter's proposal (page 328) that the university has a responsibility to give the majority of students what they want (in this case, a better chance for economic security) rather than to help the few who might seek the superiority of spirit here mentioned by Stratton. No one at the conferences was found to assert that men's abilities were equal or that superior abilities should not be cultivated to the top of their bent; but most insisted that every ability should have a chance to stand forth and be measured. See also, for example, William S. Learned and Ben D. Wood, The Student and his Knowledge, Bulletin No. 29 (New York, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1988). In this famous study the relations of secondary and higher education in Pennsylvania were reported. Nearly 30,000 pupils were tested with the following result: “Pennsylvania arts colleges alone took nearly 4,000 of the high-school group tested in 1928. They accepted nearly 1,000 with test scores below the average of all who did not go to a college of any sort, and they overlooked 3,000 pupils with better scores than the average of the 4,000 whom they did take. Furthermore, these 3,000 pupils had not merely higher scores than the lower half of the col- lege group; they kept pace with the better college students to the very top of nearly every distribution. In other words, if we may believe the tests, the colleges may not now be enrolling too many persons, but to the extent of at least one-third of their enrollment, they are certainly dealing with the less capable.” 14 And in fact everyone did, although some of the proposals made might be- stow a lingering kiss of death. 362 State and University ment itself assure their economic soundness by contributing to their support? Or will this expedient in the end destroy the very diversity and freedom of action which have been their great merit? The con- cept of privately supported educational institutions is inseparable from that of private enterprise itself, and American industry has a vital stake in the future of our endowed schools. Can a way be found, within the framework of our present tax laws and with proper regard for the rights of stockholders, for industry to join in the support of private education? “We may scarcely hope that all these issues will be resolved this afternoon, but I am confident that we will make some progress. And now we propose to conduct the discussion as follows: I am going to ask each one of our guests this afternoon to present in about fifteen minutes his views on the problems of these issues we have before us. “I can hardly believe that all will see eye to eye. And consequently we will follow that by a more informal discussion in which, perhaps, some of these matters may become more clear. “We should like very much to have the audience participate also in the discussion. I think it is clear that because of the limited time, the size of our audience and the difficulties of being heard, this is going to be rather hard to do. However, if anyone feels that some question has not been adequately treated, that there is some point that he wishes to raise, would he be so kind, a little later, as to write it out on some of the sheets of paper that have been passed out, then pass it over to the aisle; an usher will bring it up and insofar as it is possible, at least, the moderator will ask the questions. It would be helpful to me if these would indicate to whom the questions are ad- dressed and I hope that they will be short.” " “I take particular pleasure in introducing to you the first speaker on our panel. Dr. DuBridge is no stranger to M.I.T. As the Director of the Radiation Laboratory, during the war, he brought into being on this campus one of the largest and most inspired research organiza- tions of all time. And although he has left us to become the head of a great rival institution, we of M.I.T. will always have a very warm place in our affections for Lee DuBridge. Dr. DuBridge.” " 15 This panel did succeed in dealing with some questions from the floor (see pages 407–417). 16 For a brief biography of DuBridge, see Biographical Notes, page 518. State and University 363 LEE ALVIN DUBRIDGE I am sure the questions which the chairman has outlined to you, you realize are broad and deep and complicated, and that any one of us is going to take only a slight nibble into this great problem. As we discussed the methods of proceeding with this panel discussion I was reminded of the old definition of a panel, which it is said “is like a board, is long, and wooden, and narrow.” We have tried to keep our discussions from being either long or, we hope, wooden. I am afraid, however, they may be rather narrow since each of us must select a given, narrow sector to speak about. Obviously, the central subject of our discussion today is the Ameri- can university. And I think we should first state clearly what we think is the function of the American university in this day and age. I believe the functions of the American university are two-fold: first, the education of young men and women, and secondly, the broaden- ing of men's minds through the discovery and interpretation of new knowledge. We sometimes designate these two functions for brevity as education and research. But I should like to emphasize that these are two interrelated and necessarily complementary functions, and often they are both lumped under the single term of scholarship. Now, we need not at this panel discuss the question of how well the American universities are carrying out their functions of education and research. Our task today is to explore the extent to which these functions are also of interest to the state or Federal government on the one hand and to private industries on the other, and how any interest on the part of these agencies can best be exhibited. It goes without saying that the State has always had an important stake in the field of higher education and in the field of research. A democracy such as ours exists and thrives only on the basis of an intel- ligent and educated citizenship. Also it grows and thrives only as the frontiers of knowledge and understanding are pushed ever forward, because knowledge forms the base of our progress. Clearly, if no uni- versities existed today in this country, it would be essential for the government to create them. Therefore, it is right and proper that state and national governments should take an interest in higher edu- cation, as they have done. Similarly, private industry has also an important stake in the ac- complishments of our universities. Industries are built by men and women, and each man or woman must be adequately trained for his or her job. And the men and women who are leading modern industry 364 State and University either on a technical or on the business side, are those who have been trained in our colleges and universities. Furthermore, industry, too, progresses only on the basis of new knowledge. New industrial prod- ucts and processes arise only after new knowledge has made them possible. Clearly, also, if no universities existed, the industries would have to create centers of education and research. Now, it is a rather curious fact that while government and industry have important stakes in the success of our universities, we find that until relatively recent times, until this century, neither has been a major direct contributor to the financial support of our universities. The universities of this country began as private enterprises, and have been supported down through the years largely by the generosity of public-spirited citizens. And even today half of all the college students in this country are enrolled in the privately endowed institutions. But there has been an enormous change in the past fifty years. Be- fore that, the private institutions had a virtual monopoly in the field of higher education and now they are reduced practically to a fifty-fifty position. And there are some people who, observing this trend in numbers, come easily to the conclusion that fifty years hence the state universities, probably with Federal support, will have a virtual monop- oly in the field, while the private universities and colleges, with pos- sibly a few important exceptions, will have passed out of the picture, or will have been converted to institutions supported largely by state, or Federal government, or both. [DuBridge elaborated this in his original text as follows: There are others, observing on the one hand the increase in private funds which are being accumulated by state universities from their alumni and others, and on the other hand the increase in government funds going into the support of research or other activities in private institutions, who de- clare that fifty years hence there will be no distinction between the state and the private institutions. Both will subsist partly on private and partly on government funds.] Now it is easy, of course, to extrapolate past developments into fu- ture trends, but everyone knows that such extrapolation is a danger- ous business. Because a man sets out from Boston to go to Albany is no sign that he is certainly going to San Francisco. Some people just don’t want to go to San Francisco.” 17 DuBridge lives in Pasadena but he has been known to visit San Francisco. Note Odegard’s Californian reply from Berkeley in his opening (page 378). This is reminiscent of the young Houstonian who, free as air, was being urged to Lee DuBridge 365 The inevitability of the eventual preponderance of state and Fed- eral support of higher education, as seen by some, rests first upon the assumption that private support will certainly be inadequate to take care of rapidly rising enrollments and increasing costs. Now, it is easy, of course, to take a very dim view as to the future adequacy of private sources of financial support. We are all familiar with the facts about declining private fortunes, falling interest rates and rising costs. The situation is extremely serious. The question is, is Federal subsidy the solution? The argument for Federal support apparently goes some- thing like this: The Federal government is taking away from indi- viduals and corporations so much in taxes that they have no money left to give to educational institutions. Hence, it is said, the money which they do not have to give away should be taken away by addi- tional taxes to support these institutions. Just how long will such a vicious circle continue? As the government takes more and more in taxes the individual is less and less able to support worthwhile enter- prises, so the government takes away still more in taxes to support those enterprises itself.” We forget that the only possible sources of funds eventually, for any enterprise whatsoever, are individuals and corporations. The live somewhere other than in Houston because it was so hot there. His wide-eyed reply: “Why, it's hot everywhere in Texas!” 18 This poses a very real problem. The private institutions in their present frame of mind would certainly much rather receive their funds from private sources—they feel safer that way. DuBridge here states the vicious circle very clearly. If, as Russell later suggests (page 894), the Federal funds raised for education are to be given only to in- stitutions which are otherwise state-supported, it does not follow that the Fed- eral government will thereby take somewhat less from the natural supporters of private institutions. Indeed, without some appropriate amendment of tax laws, as DuBridge suggests in his next paragraph, this is almost certain not to happen. Thus the question before the privately supported institution is hard to answer. Should it on the one hand insist that Federal support not be given to it, and try at the same time to have tax laws amended and to establish some upper limit to Federal spending for higher education; or should it attempt to participate on an equitable basis with all other institutions, drawing from the Federal fund con- trary to its principles and subject to its fears? Russell (see page 418) would seem to deprive the private institution of either course and yet hope it could remain, supported by benign statements that no one wants to see the private institutions disappear. The reader needs to be quite clear here what disappear- ance would mean—no one expects to see cobwebs hanging over the doors of Har- vard and M.I.T. or a general egress of teachers and students from Cambridge, for example, to Urbana, Minneapolis, or Berkeley, but who decides how Harvard and M.I.T. are to be operated may be quite another matter. This is the crux of the argument. “The piper calls the tune” is a cliché because like most clichés it states a truism. See DuBridge (page 368) and, to the contrary, Sir Walter Moberly (Appendix H). 366 State and University only question is whether individuals and corporations will supply money to worthwhile enterprises voluntarily or whether the govern- ment must begin the endless task of taking it away from them. Sooner or later it is my prediction that this spiral is going to be reversed. I do not believe that the people of this country prefer to have their money taken away from them rather than to give it voluntarily. I do not believe that so much is now being taken away that there is nothing left to give voluntarily. There is just as much left to be given away as to be taken away, and if less were taken more would be given. It would be better for the government to amend its tax laws to encourage private giving, rather than to attempt to assume the burden of direct support itself. But why is it that we fear Federal support? Why not take the easy way out and let the government make our collections for us? “Federal aid to education” is a phrase that is in the wind. Why not climb on the band wagon and relax? [DuBridge elaborated this substantially in his original text as follows: The methods of persuading individuals and corporations to give may have to be different or more strenuous than in the past, but that such methods exist I shall continue to believe until I have seen more adequate proof to the contrary. There are many individuals of small and great wealth who, I am certain, will respond generously when the real facts and the real needs have been made clear. And the corporations have not yet begun to assume their share of the load in a great enterprise which is so vital to their future. At the same time we must admit that the struggle to persuade people to give funds for the support of the privately endowed colleges and universities of this country is going to be a long and difficult one. Why do we bother?] Even if it isn't absolutely necessary, why not take the easy way out and accept Federal aid anyway? The phrase, “Federal aid to education,” has a pleasing sound but is a complex phrase indeed. It would be well to make clear just what we are talking about. For example, I know of five different proposed programs which all parade under the name “Federal aid to education.” These are: 1. Federal subsidies to the states for the support of local public school systems. 2. The provision of Federal funds for financing research enterprises in the colleges and universities. 3. The provision of funds for Federal scholarships to college stu- dents. Lee DuBridge 367 4. The Federal support of advanced training in certain highly spe- cialized fields in which the government has a special interest, such as medicine. 5. The direct Federal subsidy to institutions of higher education, either private or state. The arguments for and against any one of these five proposals may be quite different from the arguments for and against the others. I, personally, for example, agree that certain of these proposals are necessary and desirable, but am not willing to admit that others are either desirable or necessary. As we go down the list, let us agree that number one—the Federal support of our public schools—is not on our agenda today.” As to number two, the Federal support of research, I think it is both necessary and desirable for the government to provide funds for re- search contracts in the universities. The strengthening of science is clearly a matter of national interest and security. However, when the government supports a research enterprise in any university by a con- tract, this is really not a subsidy to the university but only a payment for a service rendered to the government. And these contracts do not solve the university's problems of getting funds for buildings or en- dowments and, so far at least, they have not opened the door to Fed- eral control.” 19 And by dismissing it, the problem is much simplified. Since students, by and large, can (and, by and large, do) live away from home when they go to college, it becomes much less important, save for local pride, that every state have an equally good university than that the standards of secondary-school edu- cation in Alabama, for example, measure somewhat near to those in New York. There are still some remaining problems. A state university in a prosperous state is likely to be better than a state university in a poor state, but the tuition may be about the same in both. The tuition to a non-resident is always substantially higher than it is for a resident, so the young man of ability but little means, com- ing from a poor state, may have less opportunity for top-flight education. Some states, realizing this difficulty, are beginning to pool their resources in special fields. But even then the policy of the private institutions, of equal tuition to all no matter whence they come, plus liberal scholarships, may actually prove more beneficial, although even non-resident tuitions in first-rate state universities are usually not so high as those in the best private institutions. 20 The ability to be a center for such research does often help the university to attract staff and advanced students; and the reputation achieved by distin- guished work, of course, helps to improve the calibre of the applications for under- graduate work as well. The threat of control arises when the amount paid for such support represents a bigger proportion of the total institutional annual budget, than it could feel comfortable about jettisoning hurriedly even over a matter of important principle. An example of such a possible threat was the legislation pro- posed in the Congress that no Federal funds should support any research in a university which retained on its faculty anyone who might be branded by the 368 State and University Item three, the provision of Federal funds for scholarships is also a proposal hardly open to question. The GI scholarships of recent years have served as a precedent and the results have certainly, on the whole, been good. The gifted individual is a national asset and the economic barriers which prevent his being educated to the limit of his intellectual qualifications should be reduced. But to suggest that schol- arships are an aid to educational institutions, is to overlook the fact that tuition fees cover only a portion of the cost of higher education and that the educational institutions themselves must find the funds to supply the remainder of the costs as well as to supply the necessary buildings, facilities and staff.” I shall omit for lack of time a discussion of the support of medical and similar specialized education and proceed at once to the fifth pro- posal, the direct Federal subsidy of universities. That is what I mean today by Federal aid to education. Why isn't it universally favored? The answer, of course, is very simple. Anything which a government supports financially, it must of necessity also control.” The right of the government to control that for which it pays, has, of course, long been established, but I think it can also be maintained that the gov- ernment has also a duty to control that for which taxpayers' money F.B.I., or the Department of Justice or other suitable agency as a Communist, or as subversive or, in fact, as dangerous. Obviously such a law would constitute a vigorous threat to academic freedom, but an administration might have great diffi- culty in resisting if a five-thousand-dollar professor were involved against a five- million-dollar business which was more than half of the annual budget, and the termination of which would at best mean the release of many very good men and at worst might mean a serious financial blow to the institution. In the crass terms stated such legislation may have no hope of passing, but curbs are ever threatened and might occur, for example, in the guise of anti-discrimination laws. Thus only if the institution keeps contracts within limits where they can all be terminated should the government become too rough, can all be really well. Dr. DuBridge correctly states that the doors have not, “so far at least,” been opened to Federal control by research contracts. Perhaps the qualifying phrase was inserted with some of the above considerations in mind. 21 A large question of principle will arise with new scholarships. GI scholarships were not calculated on the basis of need (save that the GI could only earn a cer- tain maximum outside) and this was probably a sound principle—the gifted indi- vidual, it can be argued, should be fully supported regardless of his private finan- cial competence. But it will be hard to keep subsequent legislation on such an even keel—note, for example, the system of appointment to the United States Military Academy which almost certainly, by its proportional feature, deprives the Academy of many first-rate applicants living in the more populous states. 22 Russell will later be critical of this statement and will introduce some argu- ments around DuBridge's later statement (end of paragraph) that support with- out control would be “immoral.” A careful study of this paragraph will be useful in preparation for the discussion which will ensue. Lee DuBridge 369 is being spent. As some have pointed out, it is possibly even illegal, under our present democratic system, for the Congress of the United States to give taxpayers' money away to agencies which can then ex- pend it without accountability to, or control by, the government. The phrase, “Federal support without Federal control” is not only there- fore meaningless and unrealistic, but I believe is an essentially immoral motto, whose only result is to confuse and to mislead. Now, it is hardly necessary on this occasion to present the argu- ments why Federal control of our private universities is undesirable. Intellectual inquiry must be free to go in all directions. It may, and frequently does, run counter to existing theories, vested interests, long-established prejudices. Truth, in the long run, is always revolu- tionary, for it broadens men's horizons, and this usually suggests new and better ways of doing things.” Now, of course, an enlightened democratic government will always encourage the search for truth and the teaching of truth. But there are two difficulties: (1) one cannot always count on having an en- lightened government, and (2) it is not always crystal clear just what is truth. That dictatorial governments do arise and that their first line of action is the suppression of free speech, free thought and free educa- tion is a fact which needs no argument in the year 1949. But we might not have to wait for a dictatorship in this country. Keeping in mind the antics of just one Congressional Committee relative to just one government-employed scientist recently,” let us ask what would be happening today if all the professors of all our colleges and universities of this country were paid in whole or in part by Federal tax money.” What a witch hunt might be in progress right now! Academic freedom is not something which is destroyed only by concentration camps and firing lines. It can be withered to a shadow merely by the threat of economic insecurity, of unearned disgrace, of unsupported public attacks. Scholarship, after all, is a delicate flower. Though its hardy roots have survived a thousand years of persecution, its blossoms have come to full glory in only a few places and at a few times in human history. 28 Robert M. Hutchins, Chancellor of the University of Chicago, in his 20-year report The State of The University 1929–1949, September 21, 1949, is eloquent on this subject. See Appendix I. 24 Referring, one imagines, to the Director of the National Bureau of Standards, Edward U. Condon, and the Committee on Un-American Activities, although not necessarily, for other less dramatic cases could be cited. 25 See footnote 38 in this connection. 370 State and University Here in America today it has the possibility of thriving as in no other place and at no other time. And even here it thrives best only in those places where its freedom is most nearly unrestricted. We shall not want to run even the remotest danger of destroying this flower. Rather we need to redouble our efforts to insure the flourishing of scholar- ship of the highest order. I think no one can argue that the positive way to insure this develop- ment is to throw our private universities into the lap of the Federal government. Much as we may welcome the government on occasion as a purchaser of some of the services which the universities may render, we do not welcome it as an owner of the business. Freedom and progress for education and research hardly lie in that direction. But unless private and corporate giving to private educational insti- tutions is greatly expanded, these institutions will face the awful dilemma of choosing between impecunious independence and sub- sidized subservience. I do not believe the American people will force this choice upon us. :k :k :k :k :k Dr. Stratton then said: “Thank you very much, Dr. DuBridge. We have heard a forceful statement from the physicist and would like to hear now from the field of political science. I am very happy to call on Dr. Hovde, Presi- dent of the New School for Social Research. Dr. Hovde.” 28 BRYN (JOLF) JACOB Hovde What I shall say here may seem a little off key to some of you, but I say it rather deliberately because I think we must consider the questions that we have before us in terms of the structure and the nature of society. The State, industry and the university are all instrumentalities of society. They each reflect the basic nature of the society which they represent, and do so differently at different stages of social evolution. Historically we must recognize that human society, especially since the industrial revolution, has no static character. It is in a constant state of evolution, more rapid in the present time than in any earlier period. We need here only remember that American society in 1789, when our Constitution was adopted, was economically primitive as com- pared to the present, that mechanized industry did not yet exist, that * For a brief biography of Hovde, see Biographical Notes, page 520. Bryn Hovde 371 therefore large aggregations of capital and large organizations of labor were unknown, that means of transportation were rudimentary, and that local communities embraced far more of the total life of the indi- vidual than they do today. Social, not to say moral, concepts were different then than now and inevitably education had a character radi- cally different from the present. And most of this has happened in the 88 years since M.I.T. was founded. This being so, it is only natural to conclude that the State, industry and the university will always change to conform with social changes. The State of today is so vastly different from the State of the original Constitution, that the founding fathers might turn in their graves if they knew of it. [In his original text Hovde went on to say: though probably such men as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, being evolutionary and even revolutionary in thought, would view it with great satisfaction.] The American Federal State represents the result of all the economic, social and cultural evolution of the country, though naturally lagging somewhat behind that evolution. It is no longer possible for the State to ignore the enormous national integration of American society through the media of economic interrelationships, modern transporta- tion, social consciousness and cultural unification. This is true of industry, too. Whereas in 1789 industry, such as it was, was owned and operated by single individuals or partnerships of individuals, and operated on a small scale for profit only and with little concept of its social character and responsibility, American industry today is a mammoth affair which owes not a little of its character to the teaching and research of the universities and to the solicitude of the State. Industry today employs many millions of wage earners who themselves are very largely organized into mammoth unions corre- sponding to industrial organization, which by their collective bargain- ing power have come to wield an enormous influence upon national life in practically all of its aspects, including the universities. Organ- ized and operating upon such a scale, actual ownership of shares in industry becomes less and less important and the talent of manager- ship becomes more and more important. Thus broadly conceived, in- dustry, like the State, is both the product and the motor of continuing social evolution. This is true of the university in a particularly dramatic way. The university of 1789 corresponded in its structure, its content and the 372 State and University method of its teaching to the state of society in that year. It was di- rected primarily to the rather aristocratic education of churchmen and statesmen, providing primarily not practical occupational tools, but those skills and that knowledge which was suitable to leadership in a relatively static society. How different university education is today! It has been expanded throughout the years at a rate corresponding to that of industry, from which it has largely been supplied with funds and equipment. But increasingly the State has assumed responsibility for higher education in most of the states of our Union. The content and the purpose of university education have been expanded until, in the catalogues of our larger institutions, courses are listed to provide the most detailed and specialized knowledge. And there have been re- flected in this expansion the enormous significance of industry or business, the rapidly increasing functions of the State, and more lately the growing role of organized labor. The university has become conscious of its duty to serve ALL society, and today the emphasis is placed heavily upon the integration of basic knowledge. That integra- tion corresponds with the totality of society. The universities, whether public or private, today realize that one of their most important func- tions is to serve the increasingly dominant State with young people trained for its service.” Thus the university of today, firmly founded upon American society in evolution, is an instrumentality that is conditioned by and which in turn conditions the evolution of the State and of industry. In this evolution it is impossible to say which of the three instrumentalities of society we here consider is causative and which resultant. They inter- act upon one another. They change and grow together, but all of them reflect the progressive evolution of society and each of them may exer- cise certain independent choices. Admitting that throughout the world, and not least in the United States, society is in process of change, and that the State, industry and the university participate in and reflect it, we come to considera- tion of the crucial question of our time . . . whether these changes shall be directed by the authoritarian oligarchy of Communism or by all the people democratically organized. It is not, of course, Commu- nism which produces social change. Communism merely gets an op- portunity by reason of social change coupled with certain economic and cultural circumstances which fortunately, so far, do not exist in * This is taken by Hovde as a thesis and seems to him not a matter of opinion but a patent fact. Bryn Hovde 373 the United States. I say “fortunately” because we are now only too well experienced throughout the world with Communism, having had an opportunity to see it in action. The alleged objectives of Communism and its loud declamations of sympathy for the downtrodden can be shared by many who are not Communists. The fact that such sympa- thies are held by good people in every society is no evidence of their Communism. What really marks Communism is a ruthless authori- tarianism that stops short of no falsehoods or cruelties to perpetuate in power those leaders of the Communist Party, which is always and with purpose kept small, who hold the reins of power.” Its essential characteristic is disregard for civil liberties, including especially the freedom of science and investigation, which our own universities cherish so deeply, and which society through the State and partly through industry does its best to establish. In opposition to Communism stands democracy. Democracy pro- vides the methodological framework through which social changes can express themselves in every aspect of life, and for all the members of society. Democracy is alleged to be a slower way of accomplishing the objectives of social change, but in reality it is the most rapid and effective way, and by far the safest and the most enduring. In the democratic process the alternatives of social change are tested against one another before the majority in society makes its final choice. It appears from time to time in the course of the evolution of society that its instrumentalities, particularly the State, industry and education may be at odds with one another. This, however, is merely a semblance. It cannot in democracies be a fact, though it is fair to say that those instrumentalities of society sometimes do not correspond identically in the degree to which they themselves are altered by the processes of social change. One of our obligations in democracy is therefore, in whichever one of these instrumentalities we may serve, to bring it into full consonance with social transformation, and to keep these instru- mentalities as well as we can in consonance with one another. To do 28 Hovde's experience at the World Congress of Intellectuals, Wroclaw (Bres- lau), Poland, August 25–28, 1948, gives him the right to speak from personal knowledge and not from hearsay. He went to Breslau in the belief held by many liberals, and still held by some, that the best chance the world had was for people of the Western world to talk, at least, to some Russians. He was so appalled by the attitude of the Russian conferees that he was finally driven to a notable state- ment about America. Published in the Saturday Review of Literature, November 18, 1948, it is quoted in Appendix J. Hovde referred to this experience in the discussion (see page 408 and footnote 76). 374 State and University this naturally requires a very high degree of apperception, both of social change and of the degree to which our particular instrumentality does, or does not, correspond to it. But where should we expect that more than in the universities?” 29 Laski would have called this a rhetorical question and have said that we might expect it but we would not find it, either in private or public-supported in- stitutions. Laski’s views were biased but provocative: “Average American parents are not going to send their sons and daughters to any college from which they may come back convinced that the American way of life needs to be thoroughly refashioned. The parents want their sons and daugh- ters to be kind and gracious and intelligent; but they want them, above all, to know how to get on' in contemporary America, and to begin by recognizing how rare it is to be at once successful and a non-conformist in any regular profession or calling. . . . “There is an inner and profound conflict within the United States which reveals itself on all fundamental matters of social and economic constitution. And since the colleges are overwhelmingly controlled by one part to the conflict, they natu- rally reflect the artificial compromise made by the university teachers who are uneasily aware that Milton was only right in the very long run when he insisted that truth is never worsted in an open encounter. The grave fact is that the en- counter has ceased to be open in precisely those realms to which the conflict has moved. The same causes that made theological orthodoxy the centre of conflict a hundred years ago, make the demand for orthodoxy in the social sciences the centre of conflict today. A ruling class in any society will permit discussion of its fundamentals only when it can watch dissent from them with smiling ease. “But the result of the absence of vital discussion on the mental climate of the American college is obvious. Very few of the central issues which divide men in the world outside can be fully and freely debated within its walls; or, if they are debated, the victory of the conventional must be assured. So that principles for which men wager their lives, even though they be mistaken, must lose all their ardent vitality as they receive academic attention.” . . . Going on to say that students are disturbed by the gap between legend and reality, Laski continued: - “And all this is much more likely to be the case if they find that a college president may be driven to resign for the offence of approving birth-control openly when they know that contraceptives are sold in every drug store; or that Roman Catholic voters may be able to prevent so eminent a philosopher as Bertrand Rus- sell from teaching mathematical philosophy . . . because the ecclesiastical hier- archy abhors his social and ethical doctrine.” Harold J. Laski, The American De- mocracy (New York, The Viking Press, Inc., 1948), pages 367–368. Laski had fair experience with various American colleges, favorable and unfavorable. He loved and admired America, as many pages of his penetrating book show, but he admired Russia more. The book is a brilliant presentation of a biased point of view which always has enough truth in it so that it needs to be pondered. In this same acrid chapter on American Education, Laski said one other thing which bears on Hovde's present statement: Page 856: “The experience of nearly a century suggests that the more sharply public opinion expresses itself . . . , the less chance there is that the academic person will be safe if he is heretical. He is more likely, I ought to add, to be safe in an endowed university than in one maintained by a state.” [Italics mine. ED.] Bryn Hovde 375 In view of the foregoing and in more specific terms, the following conclusions concerning the State, industry and the university in their interrelationships seem obvious. Whether some of us like it or not, and no matter which political party may be in office, the evolution of American society is steadily in the direction of the positive social-service State.” No longer is the function of the State merely that of the policemen. It has today many other functions and it is everlastingly assigned new ones, such as that of being the guardian of industry and the whole economy, with more and more regulatory and even operating powers. The State is being obligated by society with a major concern for education, so that all youth, and even adults, may enjoy equal opportunity and to ensure that society may be well served in all of its special needs. Hence, there arise the specific questions that are before this panel, particu- larly that of how the universities can maintain their academic and intellectual freedom if they are dependent upon the State for their financial support. To me it seems clear that if we practice democracy in all that we do and keep the State responsible to a democratic so- ciety, we need have little fear on this score.” We ought not, therefore, to fear the State, but only its seizure by some special-interest group in society. The democratic State is the instrumentality of the whole so- ciety. In the democratic process each new proposal for extending the powers and the duties of the State requires the application of the social reasoning process of proposal, resistance and experimentation. As participants in the evolution of society, it becomes the obligation of industry and the university to share in this reasoning process with equanimity and with an open mind. Similarly, industry will certainly undergo transformation, both with developing technology and with social evolution. Industry is not some- 80 This has clearly been the trend. Whether it should be reversed would be a matter for vigorous debate. Whether it can be reversed is equally open to discus- sion. DuBridge might reply with his comment on extrapolation, “Some people just don’t want to go to San Francisco.” Nonetheless, this is Hovde's thesis that the trend will not be reversed and his argument rests on that premise. 81 Russell will say the same thing (page 896). The statement as made by Hovde is, of course, incontrovertible but is also iffy. The traditional fear of the American individual of the kind of people he is likely to have to represent him and work for him in government does not die easily—and despite improvements in the quality of career civil service, the American citizen has much to justify his apprehension when he observes his elected officers taken as a whole. Hovde's point is valid only if the majority of a democracy would be prepared to render financial support to “minority” universities. 376 State and University thing extraneous to society, with an independent existence. Its forms are no more sacrosanct than the form of the State or of the university. Industry is one of the most important manifestations of social activity, utterly necessary to society; therefore the State and the university must at one and the same time serve industry and help to guide its development in the direction demanded by the social order. On its own side industry must realize that it has an enormous stake in the university, giving it the most generous financial and moral support in its claim to intellectual freedom. Nor can the university claim to be the supreme mentor and judge of the State and of industry or of the propriety of social change. The university must first of all learn to conform itself to society and must next exercise its participating critical function, sharing fully in the social reasoning process and contributing directly by the preparation of the scientific and technological skills, personified by its students, to the proper exercise of their social functions by the State and by in- dustry. Even more important is the function of the university to give to every student that basic concept of social function, both of the individual and of institutions, which alone will make of the democratic process the conscious and purposeful framework for the progressive evolution of society. I do not mean by this to say that it is the duty of the university to inculcate any monolithic viewpoint in all of its students.” On the con- trary, the university must live on a high place where the winds of opinion blow freely. It must respect differences of particular view- point as necessary to the process of social reasoning. It must studiously avoid becoming the tool of special interests, whatever they may be. t must function as the moderator in the town meeting of society, al- lowing all to be heard who wish and expressing no judgment of its own, except to commit itself irrevocably to the free scientific method of discovering the truth, and to the democratic process. I agree with the thesis in the program for this panel that “the spirit of free inquiry . . . is believed to have epitomized the richness of Western higher education.” I also agree that there is ground for appre- hension that a nation, having provided support, can resist the tempta- tion to interfere with it. But there has been equal ground to doubt that industry, where it has provided support for the university, would re- frain from interference with the spirit of free inquiry, except in the ** Possibly a reference to Ortega y Gasset and Chancellor Hutchins, but whether or not, note how he agrees upon this point with Hook's reference, page 314. Bryn Hovde 377 natural sciences.” That spirit is nowhere more safe from interference from any source than in the universities of Western and Northern Europe where the State provides almost all the support.” The truth is, that the spirit of free inquiry is never safe. It is something we have to guard under every system of support. The problem, therefore, is to make it the conscious rule of our allies in all segments of society.” 88 This is probably correct in principle save for the fact that “industry” is not a single unit while the Federal State is. Certainly some “rugged individuals” who have paid a large percentage of the costs of some institution or other have been able to modify the courses of such institutions in accordance with their wills, some- times for good, sometimes for ill, and sometimes idiosyncratically. Certainly a single great corporation, if it were the principal support of a university, might try the same thing. Certainly individual industrialists, supporters of institutions, occa- sionally yell when a professor seems to them to have taken the wrong side in a political discussion; but though they yell, they seldom withdraw their support. And as yet the National Association of Manufacturers or similar organizations wield no influence of this sort at all. There is no easy way by which “industry” could be brought into agreement to force a policy on an institution it supports, for “industry” is not an organization. Moreover, the university has a powerful defense which it can exercise simply by airing the controversy if it should arise. This de- fense is by no means so effective against the Federal government. The Federal gov- ernment, unlike “industry,” is already a unit and able to pass legislation or to en- courage investigators who may have powers, including those of police, far beyond the powers to which “industry” might aspire. These are important differences. It was the State Department which stopped alleged Communist scholars, of real dis- tinction, from Western countries, from landing in America; many universities sup- ported by industry would at once have offered these same scholars platforms had they entered the country. If this seems an unfortunate example to a reader who happens to approve the State Department policy in this matter, he should remem- ber that it is cited as an example of where the power really lies and not to point out whether, in a given instance, the power was used wisely or unwisely. * A very telling point, though conditions are not entirely analogous. The ad- vanced Socialism of Sweden and Switzerland make their relationships different; the limited opportunities for students in the great universities of Belgium, Holland, France or Italy—that is, limited in quantities of students—make their positions different; most nearly, though not exactly, comparable is the British experience. Oxford and Cambridge, the dominant institutions, were for many years private of the private. This was why the Institute was so anxious to have as a member of this panel Sir Walter Moberly, Chairman of the University Grants Committee. It is true that there is relatively little criticism of State support in England. But the method of administration is important. Moberly has described it in another place (Appendix H). The reader will wish to ask himself, not whether such a type of administration is possible under the American political system, which of course it is, but whether it is likely. If he is interested in the likelihood he might study the opposition which arose to letting a National Science Foundation be admin- istered by scientists instead of by representatives of groups, i.e., farmers, laborers, consumers, and, it might be said, politicians. * This spirit of free inquiry is not very well understood by massive segments of the population, even among the educated. If Hovde means here that it is the mis- sion of the university to make sure the spirit of inquiry is understood, he is cer- tainly right. Freedom of inquiry, it must be remembered, needs at least two fac- 378 State and University If the spirit of free inquiry is dominant there, the university need have no concern about the source of its support. :k >k >k >k :k Dr. Stratton continued: “Thank you very much, Dr. Hovde. I want now to call on another political scientist. Through his association in years past with Amherst College, Williams College, and later as President of Reed College, Dr. Odegard has had an unusual opportunity to judge the difficulties that confront every small privately endowed educational institution. And now as Chairman of the Department of Political Science, the Univer- sity of California, he also has learned to understand the character and the problems of the very large state university. I take pleasure in intro- ducing Dr. Odegard.” ” PETER H. ODEGARD I’d like to take exception to one remark of Dr. DuBridge, right at the outset. It is quite obvious that Dr. DuBridge comes from Southern California. Otherwise it is inconceivable to me that he should stand up here and say that there is anybody in the United States who doesn't want to go to San Francisco. He was obviously thinking of Los Angeles. American colleges and universities today it seems to me are faced with four main problems: [In his prepared text Odegard elaborated on the mission of the university as follows: Colleges and universities are established and maintained in our society to accomplish four basic purposes: 1. To transmit from generation to generation the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of mankind; 2. To train young men and women in the skills and techniques required for constructive or creative service to our society; 3. To increase the knowledge of mankind through basic and applied research in every field, and 4. To promote the effective utilization of the best knowledge available in every walk of life. tors: being allowed to pursue the inquiry, which is one thing, and the easier thing; and being supported financially in making the inquiry, which often is quite another matter, as many a scholar can testify. Diversity of support would seem more likely to promote diversity of interests and thus increase the opportunity for freedom of inquiry through the supplying of support for a greater variety of types of inquiry. 36 For a brief biography of Odegard, see Biographical Notes, page 523. Peter Odegard 379 The colleges and universities do not have a monopoly on these functions. In the transmission and dissemination of knowledge, the family, the church, the elementary and secondary schools, the press, radio and cinema, and hundreds of other organizations, institutions and groups share responsibility. The training function is likewise shared by the managers and practitioners of every occupation, trade and profession. It is at least arguable that except for background, basic skills and theory, the best training for any occupation is “in service training” where young men and women work with, and under the direction of, older and more experienced hands. Although university leadership in basic research is acknowledged, both applied and basic research are carried on by industry, government and the professions. Some scientists and some university administrators have argued that the university ought to confine itself to basic or fundamental research, leaving the application of basic knowledge to specific problems to other agencies. Fortunately, I believe, no one has yet devised a successful formula by which basic and applied research can always be clearly distinguished. In any case, the university does not have a monopoly in either field today. Universities and colleges, through their research and teaching, through con- Sultation and advice in many fields, and through public forums, conferences, bureaus and institutes, have come to play an increasing role in the more effective utilization of knowledge in meeting the practical and technological sciences. In the difficult fields of social welfare, personnel management and industrial relations, market analysis, crime control and prevention, judicial administration, universities and colleges are more important than ever be- fore. The day of the “ivory tower” university and the neolithic anti-rational industrialist and administrator is happily passing. Although universities and colleges do not enjoy a monopoly over the transmission and dissemination of knowledge, or the training process, nor over the increase and better utilization of knowledge, they do, nevertheless, occupy a unique position and have a special responsibility in all these fields. For no other institution or organization has the same combination of spe- cialized talents and facilities, nor the same degree of freedom in fulfilling these important functions.] First, the pressure of numbers and mounting costs; second, the reconciliation of the demand for specialized training with the equally great need for general education; third, continuing support for basic as distinguished from applied research; and fourth, the preservation of academic freedom. I can't talk about all of these, but I can hit some high points and perhaps come back to them later. Total enrollment of all our institutions of higher education has in- creased from about 1,000,000 in 1928 to about 2,500,000 at the present time.” And it is anticipated that enrollment will reach nearly 3,000,000 by 1960. It is still an open question whether this mass invasion of col- * The total population increased about twenty per cent during this period; col- lege and university populations one hundred and fifty-five per cent. 380 State and University leges and universities can be absorbed without seriously undermining their standards and their basic purposes. For good education, we often forget, is costly business. We have invested, or had in 1940, about $2,000 per student in plant and equipment that cost us to operate, be- fore the war, about $400 per student per year. I suspect that now it will cost us in the neighborhood of $800 a year, on the average, to operate our colleges and universities, even if we maintain the stand- ards of 1940, which were none too high. In point of fact, we have not maintained those standards and are not now maintaining them. [In his original manuscript Odegard added here: Student-teacher ratios, floor space per student, library facilities, faculty salaries, have all lagged behind the precipitous increase in enrollment and COStS. A special study on Building and Plant Expansion of the National Con- ference on Higher Education in April, 1947, revealed that “normal class- room and laboratory room requirements for college students is approxi- mately 200 square feet per student on the basis of pre-war standards” and that this has been reduced to approximately 110 square feet per student by the great increase in enrollment since the war.] Classrooms, libraries, laboratories are not only overcrowded, they are understaffed even by low prewar standards. [Odegard added in his manuscript: Student-teacher ratios are none too reliable at best, and since the war they have become particularly deceptive. The war virtually put a stop to the training and supply of qualified teachers at the college level. It will probably take us another five years to catch up even with the 1940 stand- ard in this respect.] We have recruited teachers almost by going out and knocking people on the head and dragging them into the classrooms. Students in many colleges and universities today are being taught by graduate assistants, or even by undergraduates, many of whom are only slightly better and sometimes not as well equipped as the students they pre- sume to teach. The result has been a progressive deterioration of teaching standards, even, as I say, when measured by the none-too- high standards of 1940. And to compound this trend toward mediocrity there has been the competition from industry and government, which has pulled many of the best-qualified scholars and scientists out of the colleges. The pressure on the colleges and universities was ac- centuated by the GI Bill of Rights. It is customary to pay tribute to the GI Bill of Rights, and I do pay tribute to it, too. It marks, in my Peter Odegard 381 judgment, a revolutionary step in American higher education and may be said to represent a step in the direction of the conservation of our intellectual resources, as important as the Forest Service in the con- servation of our natural resources. But the flood of students let loose upon the colleges by the GI Bill, without regard for their limited fa- cilities and even more limited teaching personnel, made the benefits under the bill something of a gold brick. We have the notion that everybody goes to college in the United States, and that everybody ought to go. If you go to the University of California you are almost sure of it. And yet even with the most ex- tensive educational system in the world, less than 8 per cent of our population 21 years of age and over has been to college.* Perhaps this is as it should be, because maybe not even all of those ought to be there. I am convinced that a very large number who are there should not be there. Where they ought to be, I do not say. There is, however, evidence that a lot of students are not in college who ought to be there, and the fact is that there is a high correlation between economic status and educational opportunity. [In his original text Odegard quoted Leo Chamberlain, Vice President of the University of Kentucky, as saying: At the present time it is estimated that many of the ablest youth do not go to college for lack of means. It is probable that from one-fourth to one- half or more of the families in the United States do not possess the means to send their children to college. When the student and his family are caused to bear two-thirds of the total cost of higher education, including living costs, the equalization of educational opportunity and the selection of stu- dents for their personal qualifications are not possible. (From a paper by Mr. Leo M. Chamberlain, Vice-President, University of Kentucky, on “Finance: Student Fees,” Report of Group XIV [Official Group Reports of the National Conference on Higher Education, held at Chicago, Illinois, March 31–April 3, 1947, sponsored by Department of Higher Education, National Education Association of the United States] in Current Problems in Higher Education, pages 159–60, lines 28–36.) J Let me give you just one figure. Before the war, in 1937 and 1938, a study was made of 1,023 Milwaukee high-school students with I.Q.'s of 117 or above. Every one of these students with an I.Q. of 117 or above who had a family income of $8,000 a year or more went on to college. On the other hand, of all of those students with I.Q.'s of 117 or more who came from families with $500 a year income, only 20 per cent went on to college. It is significant also that of the 1,023 stu- 88 See Bureau of Census Report, 1947. 382 State and University dents in the group, only 10 came from families of $8,000 a year or more and over 250 came from families with $500 a year or less.” [Odegard expanded this in his draft: In the neighboring state of Minnesota, it was found that of those talented high school graduates in the upper 10 per cent, half did not go to college. Only one out of three “graduates ranking in the upper third of their respec- tive classes was to be found attending college that year.” Similar studies in Kentucky, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas, I am informed, give similar results.] Neither industry nor the State in a democratic society can afford this waste of talent. I hope therefore that the GI Bill will be extended to non-veterans as a measure for the better utilization and conserva- tion of our intellectual resources. But, in my judgment, unless facili- ties are provided, unless faculties are provided, for the education of these young people as they come in, the GI Bill of Rights or its ex- tension will continue to be something in the nature of an academic fraud. American democracy has gone on the theory that only a part of higher education should be paid by the student and his family. The balance has been paid by private philanthropy or from public funds. The trend in recent years is toward more and more from public funds, with the result that our state institutions have grown in size and number. [Odegard omitted in the interests of brevity these data which are so interesting that they are worth quoting here: In actual dollar cost, college fees increased between 1928–29 and 1986–87 by 46.6 per cent in state-supported institutions, 14.6 per cent in private universities, and 25.8 per cent in private colleges. It should be noted that these increases came during the worst economic depression in our his- tory. Since the war, fees have moved upward again and again in most private colleges and universities. Emerson Reed reports that between 1940–41 and 1946–47 college fees increased 19.4 per cent for private in- stitutions, 23.5 per cent for denominational colleges and 7.7 per cent for publicly supported colleges. Since 1947 there have been further in- CT6aSCS. . . . One major cost to the student and his family has been, and undoubtedly will continue to be, his ordinary living expenses while attending college. When these costs are taken into consideration, we find that in 1946–47 the 89 The reader interested in these conditions may wish to refer to Equalization of Opportunity, a report to the Conference on Higher Education, April, 1947, by Earl E. Mosier, State Department of Public Instruction, Lansing, Michigan. The principal factor in this result may, of course, not be the cost of college itself, but the loss of earning power to the family. The question of subsidized edu- cation, like that of subsidized housing, has many ramifications. Peter Odegard 383 proportionate share borne by the student and his family, private philan- thropy and the government were 67.8, 11.5 and 20.7 per cent respectively. In 1947–48 the proportionate share borne by the student and private phil- anthropy, fell to 65.4 and 10.8 per cent respectively, while the shares from public funds increased by approximately 4 per cent. By 1959–60, it is estimated that, assuming no fundamental change in policy, the proportion assumed by government will increase to approximately 30 per cent, while that of philanthropy will decline to less than 8 per cent and the share of the student and his family will fall to about 62 per cent. These ratios do not and will not, of course, apply to every college and university, but they indicate a trend that might well be of concern to the friends of American colleges and universities. The obligation of the State to foster and support higher education is well recognized. It has been estab- lished policy in the United States, at least since the Morrill Act of 1862 and the inauguration of our system of state universities. These great institutions will and should continue to grow in strength and dignity. Moreover, if the state universities are not to decline in quality as they grow in size, there will have to be much careful research and experimentation to discover new forms of organization and administration. It is at least an open question today whether education of the highest quality is compatible with the edu- cation of large masses of students on a single campus, or under a single system of university administration. Although competition among a number of state-supported colleges and universities for improved methods of in- struction and research, better qualified students and faculty, may be a good thing, when this rivalry leads to competition at the state capital for funds, it becomes intolerable. How to reconcile devolution of administrative re- sponsibility and healthy intra-mural competition among rival state institu- tions with unified financial administration will require educational states- manship of a high order.] At the University of California we have 42,000 students on eight different campuses. I think it is open to question whether education of the highest quality is compatible with the education of large masses of students on a single campus, or under a single system of university administration. But time forbids discussion of that problem here. I am not one of those who believes that a state institution of higher learning must in the nature of things be the victim or plaything of politicians and pressure groups. In fact there is considerable evidence that, under wise and courageous leadership, a state university can be as free from these pressures as a private institution.” President and trustees of a private college can be timorous men of small vision, more concerned with maintaining the status quo than with free inquiry into the difficult and dangerous problems of our time. Such an institution 40 And there is perhaps no more notable example in the United States than Odegard’s own campus at Berkeley, California. 384 State and University will reflect their blindness and their fears. And such a private college, no less than a state university, can sink into a servile stupor where it confuses originality with immorality and stand-pattism with wisdom. In my judgment such institutions, where select students are sent to have their preconceived prejudices confirmed, scarcely deserve the name of college or university.” One way to prevent this sort of thing is to prevent a state monopoly of higher education in America by doing our utmost to conserve and strengthen the private colleges and universities. If American business and industry wish to invest in the future of this country, if they wish to conserve a free enterprise of the spirit and a free market for ideas, they can do no better than to support, through generous gifts, our private colleges and universities. It would be disastrous if the leading small colleges of the United States were to die and disappear. John Steelman's study on “Manpower for Research” shows this significant fact: “During the years 1986 to 1945, Furman University, Oberlin Col- lege, Reed College and Miami University together, four small schools, graduated more students, more in actual numbers, who later com- pleted their doctoral work in physics, than did Ohio State University, Yale University, Stanford University and Princeton University com- bined.” So long as these institutions are free and independent, they will buttress the freedom and independence of our state institutions. So long as they are free to experiment, they will protect the right of the state institutions to experiment. [Odegard expanded this in his original text: So long as they are free to experiment with new methods of teaching and research, with new curricula and with new techniques for admission and guidance, they will not only help to raise the standards of our state univer- sities, but will protect their freedom to experiment as well.] Nevertheless, if present trends continue, we are going to have more and more support from the State. And we ought to look carefully at * This reiterates a point made by Hovde, page 876. See, however, Laski, foot- note 29, last few lines. ** John R. Steelman, “Manpower for Research,” Science and Public Policy, Vol. IV, The President's Scientific Research Board (Washington, D. C., Government Printing Office, October, 1947), page 20. * Odegard rightly takes pride in the performance of these colleges, one of which (Reed) he himself led with distinction. The good, small college has regu- larly turned up spectacular numbers of distinguished graduate students in many fields, but it is unlikely that from this Odegard would argue that the demise of Yale, Stanford and Princeton should be regarded with equanimity. Peter Odegard 385 the terms on which these funds from the State are provided. I sup- pose it is asking a great deal for the State to give funds to universities and colleges with no strings attached.” But it ought to be possible to get some funds that way. If the government is concerned only with education and not with memorials, it should find it at least as easy to do as the private donor who occasionally does give the college free funds, as well as wrought-iron memorial gates and marble fauns. I suppose the least hazardous form of such public assistance would be an extension of the GI Bill of Rights and an extension of the present work of the Office of Naval Research in the field of research. It is only by a happy circumstance and by the wise leadership of the Office of Naval Research, that we have today fairly adequate support for basic research in the natural sciences.” Even now, this support rests on an unstable foundation since there is no guarantee that under pres- sure for practical and immediate results, a lot of the very distinguished people here at M.I.T. and a lot of those at Cal Tech may not find themselves under necessity of stopping what they are doing and going to work, shall we say, on guided missiles or something like that.” Everybody knows the story about the passing of large fortunes, the decline of income, the eating away of income by taxes. But I doubt if there are many corporations in the United States at the present time who are taking full advantage of their allowances under the Revenue Acts to make gifts to colleges and universities. If they would give up to the amount allowed under the Revenue laws at the present time I think the private colleges would be well supported.” 44 DuBridge said that such an attitude on the part of the State would be either immoral or deceptive. See page 369. t ** A reference to one of the most enlightened administrations of Federal re- search contracts. * Or of finding money elsewhere. Odegard here is suggesting that a Federal war agency might be forced to abandon the wise position that for another war fundamental research is more useful than a weapon for today and that at least a balanced program of immediate and long-range work is the only sensible one. Economy drives, spearheaded by those who do not understand, could indeed have the result suggested here. A few institutions, however, of which it is to be hoped Cal. Tech. and M.I.T. might be two, would be able with difficulty to meet the challenge and not be forced against their wills into uninteresting work. However, the threat is real, the difficulties would be enormous, and Odegard has a good point. ** There is a dilemma for industrial management which Odegard does not men- tion and which Bell discusses (page 897). Stockholders can, should and often do hold management to account for its acts. Which corporations give to which universities and why, the stockholder may enquire. Bell has one solution; there are possibly others but this is a problem which is being studied vigorously. 386 State and University [Odegard had an important statement here in his original text which read: The American people have been generous in their support of higher ed- ucation. They have not always been as intelligent in their understanding of its functions. In sending their sons and daughters to college, Americans have done so primarily from what Dean McCoun once called the bread and butter motive. That is, they have looked to the colleges and universities for the specialized training which has become necessary to make a living in our highly specialized society. Originally, this meant training for the min- istry and teaching. Later on, it meant training for the learned professions, for the arts and sciences, and for a variety of vocations that had formerly been learned “on the job” through apprenticeship and “in service” training. Under this pressure, colleges’ and universities' bulletins came to resemble mail order catalogues. Courses of study of varying length and complexity were offered in nearly everything from Pre-natal Nursing and Midwifery to Embalming and Funeral Management. The result has been the proliferation of the university with training courses and with quasi and pseudo profes- sional “schools,” some of which fill a real need for vocational training of high quality, but others of which can only be described as academic boon- doggling. However good or bad this trend toward specialized training, even of undergraduates, may be in itself, it has led to the progressive atrophy of the university's functions in the transmission of the cultural heritage of Western civilization. Recognition of this is reflected in the widespread interest since the war in what has been called “general education.” But so-called “gen- eral education” in the arts and sciences is not likely to succeed until the atmosphere of the university is changed; until it ceases to be a miscellaneous collection of trade schools; until it again becomes a center for the pursuit of knowledge old and new, not because such study will increase the earn- ings of its graduates, but because it will make them civilized human beings fit to stand as inheritors of the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of man- kind. So long as “general education” is synonymous with “ornamental” or “useless” education, it will not thrive in competition with vocational train- lng. {{ This problem of reconciling the legitimate demand for specialized train- ing with the equally urgent need for general education cannot be solved by the universities alone. It will require also better public understanding and support of colleges and universities dedicated to education as well as to professional and vocational training. Until the public is prepared to support good education in the arts and sciences as liberally as it now supports even mediocre vocational training, the present trend will continue.] If greater support from industry can be had only at the expense of independence for the university, then the cost will be too high. But it will be unnecessary to pay this cost if industrial leaders can be per- suaded of the value, not alone to them but to all mankind, of maintain- ing in full vigor these islands of free thought and inquiry in our so- ciety. Peter Odegard 387 In depending for support on public funds, even private colleges and universities run the risk of political interference and control. State legislatures, city councils and even the Congress are subject to pres- sures both from within and from without that make them less than ideal as governing boards for colleges and universities. The less they have to do with determining educational policies, the better. Every state university president knows how at budget time he must “walk on eggs” lest he offend some influential member of the legislature, even though he be little more than a political racketeer. But this only points to the importance of bringing to the legislature, and to the general public on which it depends, a better understanding of what a university is and why its freedom is essential for the freedom of all. For when the lights go out in the universities they are not likely to burn long in the church, or the press, or in industry or the State. In a very real sense, the measure of freedom in our world will be the measure of freedom on the campus.” :k :k :k :k :k 48 All of the speakers will agree with this, of course. Some find slightly greater probability of non-interference when the support is private; others assert for pub- lic support that private support has often interfered or has subtly determined the complexion of the institution. Both of these statements have bases in events. The point is not that one or the other type of support should be universal, but rather this: It would be naive to think that people furnishing the support will nobly re- frain from any effort, whatsoever, to influence the activity of the thing supported. The degree to which the institution can maintain its independence of the influence is measured by the diversity of its support. The degree to which various types of institutions may thrive in the United States as opposed to a single type may, then, well be measured by the degree to which the institutions have different types of support. This is DuBridge's thesis. There would, however, be a serious danger in identifying the interest of the university solely with the interest of its supporters. To look upon privately sup- ported institutions as the stalwart and down-the-line supporters of “American free enterprise,” for example, and the state-supported institutions as the equally unthinking and forceful proponents of the State, could create a division in Ameri- can education, and a division in even larger things, which might well be fatal. All higher education in America is after all a product of our economic system. Both private and public institutions have tax support. Both have private support. One has more of one type, the other more of the other. But if this should have to mean that higher education, or any segment of it, had to be the apologist for any particular set of economic ideas, the result could be tragic. All of this has been eloquently summed up by David D. Henry, President of Wayne University, in “Notes on ‘Free Enterprise and Public Education,” in School and Society, September 8, 1949. The whole article is worth reading. Here we quote a part: “No institution, private or public, escapes the necessity of dealing with political pressures. Educational institutions are made up of people, and as human organ- izations, they are subjected to political relationships. Political pressures are to be 388 State and University Dr. Stratton continued: “Our next speaker, Dr. John Dale Russell, has had a long associa- tion with both large and small educational institutions. And he comes to us primarily as an educator who is now the Director of the Division of Higher Education, the United States Office of Education. And there he has had an opportunity perhaps to view the problem of Federal aid to education, may I say, somewhat more from the point of view of the donor than that of the recipient. Dr. Russell.” ” JoHN DALE RUSSELL I do appreciate the fact that my travels through the educational world have not been detailed in this introduction and I am glad to acknowledge that I stand on this panel as the only bureaucrat repre- expected. In private institutions such pressures come from donors, from organized interests represented on the governing boards, from traditional institutional asso- ciation with church or similar interest; in public institutions they arise from gov- ernment agencies and pressure groups which can make themselves effectively felt in government. It is not to be assumed, as every worker in the field knows, that private education is exempt from political pressure. The fact that their pressures have different labels and arise from different sources does not alter the basic con- dition. “It does not follow, however, that, because political pressures exist, they con- trol. University administrators and faculties in soundly operated institutions, both public and private, are equipped to withstand them. A weak institution will suc- cumb, be it public or private; a strong institution, standing upon sound educational principles and organization, will withstand the pressure from special interests and will remain devoted to its educational objectives. “When financial support is solicited, however, on the premise that the institu- tion is dedicated to carrying out the points of view of any segment of the public it serves, that institution ceases to be free and lessens the strength of those who are supporting true scholarship. American higher education came to its present eminence and has rendered its great service to the American people because of its devotion to free learning and free inquiry and its dedication of the results of free learning and free inquiry to the public welfare. The public should be wary of those leaders in American higher education who would identify their institutional interests with the main or most obvious source of their financial support. In the long run they are dedicating their institutions not to the public welfare but to that section of the public which at the moment gives them money.” . . . “Higher education is in the service of the nation. A schism between those insti- tutions that are privately managed and those that are publicly administered will lessen the strength and contribution of the total group. Both depend, in the last analysis, upon the prosperity of the nation and the fruits of our competitive econ- omy. Both are in the service of society as a whole. Dedicated to this larger pur- pose, we must hope that professional integrity means more to our educational lead- ers than any immediate institutional gain that may result from unfair criticism of others or from the subverting of sound educational purposes.” 49 For a brief biography of John Dale Russell, see Biographical Notes, page 525. John Russell 389 senting officialdom in Washington. However, I am talking as much as an educator, and to some extent as a taxpayer, as I am as an official of the Federal government. The customary pattern of higher education that is drawn up in the United States provides a basic classification of institutions into two groups. We customarily speak of those that are publicly controlled and those that are privately controlled. If there were time enough on this program I should like to point out that that distinction is very artificial; there is a perfect continuum representing all kinds of gradations be- tween “pure” private control and “pure” public control.” Some insti- tutions are exactly fifty-fifty, and others represent various shades on each side of that division. However, for practical purposes, most of us understand what we mean by public control and what we mean by private control. As President DuBridge has pointed out, the privately controlled in- stitutions were the first to be established in this country and they al- ways enrolled a majority of the students until about forty years ago. The public institutions did not begin to be an important factor in higher education in the United States until the latter part of the nine- teenth century. But during the period since that time they have evolved into a place where they are now of major importance. Ever since 1910 enrollments have been fairly evenly balanced between the publicly and the privately controlled institutions, swinging first in one direction and then in the other, around the fifty per cent point. This rather even balance between enrollments in institutions under public control and those under private control has often been cited as a source of great strength to the whole system of higher education in the United States. With this conclusion I am in very general agree- ment. Each type of control has certain advantages and certain dis- advantages and the presence of strong institutions of each type tends to prevent the other type from suffering too much from its own in- herent disadvantages. The question may be raised, however, as to whether an approximately even balance between publicly controlled and privately controlled institutions, with respect to enrollments and financial strength, is necessary to achieve this desired result. Would the result be less satisfactory if the proportion were 75 to 25, or 90 to 10, instead of 50 to 50? * In his original manuscript, which he had to shorten, Russell gave a very clear exposition of the evolution of the university which is quoted in full in Ap- pendix K, page 502. 390 State and University Most of the alarm expressed today over the plight, as it is sometimes called, of the privately controlled institution, hinges on this question. Now, a good many people believe that there is need for an expansion in the educational services rendered to young people who have com- pleted the secondary school in the United States. The President's Commission on Higher Education, reporting some fifteen months ago, after a careful study of this question, recommended a program to double the number of students in our colleges and universities by 1960, basing that solely on the needs of our society for educated people. Now, if it be granted that this would be good social policy, question immediately arises as to what type of institution can be ex- pected to bear the increase.” A realistic view of the plans of existing institutions indicates that, for the most part, the privately controlled colleges and universities are not expecting to increase their enrollments. Most of them are look- ing forward to the time when they will be able to operate, somewhat more comfortably than at present, with a smaller number of students. The conclusion is inescapable that, if expansion is to occur and if the privately controlled institutions do not want to expand, then only the publicly controlled institutions can be expected to carry the in- creased load. This would mean a shift toward a preponderance of en- rollments in the publicly controlled institutions.” If the total enrollments are to be doubled, as recommended by the President's Commission, and if the privately controlled institutions choose to keep their enrollments at approximately the present level, the resulting ratio would then be three students in public institutions to one in private. Would this be disastrous? Would it reduce the strength of the privately controlled institutions? Would it deny to the public institutions the benefits they receive from the presence of the strong privately controlled institutions? Personally, I cannot see that any such dire results would follow. I do not recall that any serious complaint * There are many who would challenge the premise; see, for example, DuBridge in the discussion, page 404. *If the private institutions will not participate in so large an expansion, the conclusive answer is as stated. Private institutions, partly under the press of economics, have tended to accept a pegging upward of their prewar enrollments, perhaps amounting to as much as twenty-five per cent, but this is admittedly far below the hundred per cent recommended by the President's Commission. The physical plants of many of these institutions would accommodate a larger in- crease but their educational standards will not permit it because of the scarcity of good teachers. See, for example, Odegard, page 380. Many state-supported in- stitutions, of course, have the same conscience about the process but are compelled to take all the “qualified,” and this word is susceptible of a variety of definitions. John Russell 391 was made back in 1900 when 62 per cent of the students were in private institutions, and I do not read in the literature back to 1860 (I wasn't around at that time to know about it) that people were lament- ing the fact that only a small percentage were educated in public in- stitutions.” Furthermore, I think we have an important lesson to learn from the development of the secondary school in the United States. Three-quarters of a century ago secondary education was almost wholly privately controlled in this country. The public secondary school which we know as the high school began to develop rapidly after about 1890. Today something like 90 per cent of all the secondary- school pupils are enrolled in public high schools. But the absolute numbers of pupils in private secondary schools are considerably greater than they were in 1890. And the private secondary schools as a group tend to be stronger than they were in that day. Some of the weak ones, that served their pupils not too well in the 1890's, have dis- appeared in the face of competition from a better school maintained with public support, but I think no one needs to mourn the passing of a weak school. The experience with the development of the public secondary school in this country clearly indicates that the program of public higher edu- cation can be greatly expanded without impairing the strength or diminishing the field of service, in absolute terms, of those privately controlled institutions that are in a position to make significant con- tributions to American education. Will the increased support of higher education from public funds diminish the opportunities for free expression of truth and free in- quiry? In my judgment, public support diminishes the freedom of in- stitutions not one whit more than income from any other source. The institution that has endowment investments to protect, or prospec- tive gifts from philanthropists to cultivate, also has pressures which militate against certain types of free inquiry and free expression of truth. To use Dr. Odegard’s expression, there are times when those presidents “walk on eggs” also. Control by church groups carries a recognized possibility of limiting the freedom of investigation and teaching. Support from student fees particularly opens the way to the discouragement of free inquiry and free expression of truth in lines 58 No, probably not. This seems to be a straw man, however. None of the ad- vocates for preserving the independence of the privately supported institutions has expressed any such concern over the proportions of students in the two types, nor has any first-rate private institution been heard to express any jealousy about the size of a state institution. - 392 State and University that, for the moment, happen to be unpopular. If there are to be witch hunts, do not think for one minute that they are going to be confined to publicly controlled institutions.” [In his original remarks Russell included other forms of control and de- scribed them at some length, as follows: A third element of non-public control over the programs of higher educa- tion in the United States is lodged in the faculties of the respective institu- tions. Theirs is entirely a delegated power, but custom and tradition give almost legal force to the authority of the faculty on matters affecting the curriculum and instruction in our colleges and universities. The faculty group has at its command many ways for protecting its exercise of this power. An important and direct control over higher education is lodged in the students and their parents. They are the “customers” of higher education, and by distributing their patronage they exert a steady effect on the opera- tion of institutions. The recent organization of the National Student Associ- ation opens up the possibility of even more direct influence from the student grOup. Alumni also exert an effective influence in the conduct of most institutions of higher education. As a rule, the alumni are interested in the relatively superficial aspects of higher education, centering perhaps their chief atten- tion on the program of intercollegiate athletics. Thus they may be powerful in dictating the retention or dismissal of a football coach. Many institutions have provisions whereby the alumni are represented directly on the govern- ing board. Increasing dependence on support from current gifts from alumni opens up still another avenue for their influence to be exercised. Finally, there are numerous professional organizations in the United States which are able to exert a strong influence, mounting almost to con- trol, over institutional programs of higher education. For example, when the presidents of colleges and heads of secondary schools band together to form a regional accrediting association, the standards promulgated by such an agency come almost to have the binding effect of law in the management of colleges, particularly those which have not developed independent strength. When the deans of graduate schools meet together to determine which col- leges offer adequate preparation for admission to candidacy for advanced degrees, their pronouncements cannot be lightly disregarded by any under- graduate institution. When the doctors of medicine, organized as a profes- sional association, lay down conditions under which they believe medical students should receive their training, every medical school in the country must meet their standards or go out of business. During the last 20 or 30 years this type of control has proliferated extensively and now operates in practically every professional field. The accrediting associations operate with equal power over publicly and privately controlled institutions. * This is a strong point. There are other witch hunts of course than political ones, although the latter get the klieg lights. But the record does not justify the inference here. Of course there have been witch hunts in both types of institutions; this is not the question. The question is rather, where is the witch hunt more probable (see Laski, footnote 29). John Russell 393 The foregoing review of the varied types of social groups that exert con- trol or influence over the program of higher education in the United States makes it apparent that categorical distinctions between “public” and “pri- vate” institutions must be interpreted with great caution. All public institu- tions come under some measure of non-governmental control, and most pri- vate institutions come under some measure of governmental control. The concern is therefore with the predominance of a particular form of control, not with its absolute presence or absence.] The ultimate protection of freedom, the freedom to investigate and to proclaim the truth, in my judgment, lies not in forms of organization nor in laws and statutes. It rests fundamentally on the attitude of the society. If the society in which institutions of higher education operate holds the conviction that it must have centers where the truth is fear- lessly investigated and taught, those centers will not for too long be interfered with by any government that happens to be in power, nor by church groups, nor philanthropists, nor by any of the other usual sources of power in the control of institutional affairs. But if sub- stantial segments of the society want only a warped or distorted version of the truth, or if an influential majority agree that they want the truths slanted in a particular direction, the institutions find the greatest difficulty in maintaining their freedom of inquiry and teaching, regard- less of the source of their support.” To a considerable extent the various sources of power in the control of higher education tend to counterbalance each other. Thus in the early days of the medieval universities, when there was apprehension that the church was exercising too close a control over their activities, the faculty developed as a guild to provide an agency for another source of control. The faculty group still remains in rather complete control of the really significant features of the “internals” of higher education, that is, the curriculum and the instruction. Now that the State has entered the picture so prominently, consideration may well be given to the manner in which it can best operate, without taking over too large a share in the control over higher education. It must be assumed that all institutions, whether publicly or pri- vately controlled, do operate in the public interest. Their privilege of tax exemption rests entirely on that ground. In the development and expansion of publicly controlled institutions, therefore, due regard should be taken of the vested interest of established colleges and universities under private control. Nothing is gained if the State merely * See the comparable statements by Odegard (page 887) and Hovde (page 373). 394 State and University develops services that duplicate those already being rendered satis- factorily. The burden of proof rests with the new development to show that it will render a service not now satisfactorily provided in the existing program. With respect to situations in which there are well- established privately controlled institutions, with sound programs, the State's obligation may be viewed as a sort of a residual function, sup- plementing and extending the services already existing, One type of service seems to fall almost uniquely to the publicly controlled institutions. Very few of the privately controlled institu- tions are, at present, able to supply much education at low cost or at no cost to the student. Where it can be shown that large numbers of capable young people do not attend college because of limited financial resources (and this is true in every state in which an investigation has been made)—where this obtains, and I say it obtains in every state we have evidence on ""—there would seem to be no alternative except for the State to see that appropriate provision is made for the education of these groups.” Thus far, the states have served this unique function most inadequately. There are various ways in which the State might participate in the program of higher education. I think I shall not take your time to present my analysis of that, since Dr. Hovde has already given some attention to it.” [This portion of Mr. Russell's original text read as follows: The states can participate in the program of higher education in several different ways. The most common pattern involves the setting up of institu- tions which are directly controlled by the government and which receive the bulk of their financial support from governmental appropriations, thus offer- ing education at very low cost or at no cost to the student. A second plan is for the states to enter into a contract with a privately controlled institution for the rendering of certain specified services. The Federal Government, for example, has extensive programs of research car- ried on through contracts with universities. As another example, the State of Maryland extends financial support to certain privately controlled institu- tions, the understanding originally being that a specified number of citizens would be educated for service in public-school teaching in return for the grant. 56 See Odegard, pages 881–883, footnote 39 et cetera. 57 Some ask why the State should not pay for the education of all the best, wherever they are, whatever their parents’ economic circumstances. Compare, for example, the policies of West Point and Annapolis which do not ask this question of need. 58 True, Hovde did, and this made it possible for Russell to omit the discussion from his prepared text. However it does express his views as to how public money may properly come to private institutions, hence it is now returned to the text. John Russell 395 A third method is for the government to set up scholarship awards for capable young people, permitting them to use the grants in any institutions of their choice. The State of New York has long had such a system and has recently extended its scope. . The fourth method involves the outright grant of public funds to pri- vately controlled institutions, with no stipulations as to the services to be rendered by such grants. The support given Howard University in the past by the Federal Government has been of this type. There is a growing feeling that public funds ought to be used only in sit- uations where the public may have direct control over their expenditures. Many citizens feel that the plan of giving “handouts” from government tax receipts is an unsound method of channeling funds to the privately con- trolled institutions. Tax money is not usually allowed to be spent without assurance that the program maintained is subject to some governmental con- trol. The history of situations in which the State has begun the support of institutions by the method of unrestricted grants indicates that often the State winds up by assuming complete control of the institution. The scholarship plan is not properly viewed as a means of supporting in- stitutions, for in times when all institutions have as many students as they can care for, the grant to a highly capable student merely means that he, rather than some less able person, gains admission to college. The only ad- vantage to the institution is in the more highly qualified student body that is obtained by subsidizing especially capable people, who could not other- wise attend college. The scholarship plan is, therefore, an entirely accept- able method of using public funds to make sure that educational opportuni- ties are made available to those who can use them best. The contract plan has been successful in the field of research. It has been used much less extensively in the purchase of direct instructional provisions from privately controlled institutions. The State must always be alert to see that it is being served economically, that it is not supporting institutional activities outside those involved in the contract, and that the quality and the scope of the service are meeting the needs of the states. As long as the State is content to exercise little supervision over these features of the ar- rangement, as long as it is willing to let the institution do very much as it pleases in the fulfillment of the contract, the arrangement seems to be satis- factory to the institution. If the State becomes critical and wants to make ~l- >~~~~ +/- ~ --> -->4---4----, * ~ 1:1-ol +r roc + • g & changes, the institution is likely to resent the direct control that is certain to result. The alternative of canceling the contract leaves both the State and the institution in an unfortunate situation. The method of contract may be viewed as satisfactory on a temporary basis only, until a better arrangement can be made. Observation of the operation of the contract plan leads to the conclusion that, as the years pass, the terms of the original contract tend to be forgotten both by the State and the institution. The grants thus begin to take on the form of a free “hand- out,” rather than a direct payment for services rendered, and the arrange- ment thus comes to be a subject to all the objections of expenditure of gov- ernment funds without effective control. My conclusion is that in the long run there are only two acceptable meth- ods by which the government may participate directly in the support of 396 State and University higher education. The first of these is the long-established practice of main- taining institutions under direct government control, with the financing chiefly from government funds. The second is by the provision of scholar- ships for capable students. Scholarship plans can be arranged in such a way that governmental interference with the operation of the privately controlled institutions is avoided. The plan of making grants without any supervision of the program is completely unsatisfactory to me as a taxpayer. The method of support on the basis of contracts for service rendered, I would consider satisfactory only in emergencies where no other arrangement is feasible, and then on a strictly ad hoc basis and for relatively short term programs. (Italics mine. ED.)] I should like, in closing, merely to say that apprehension over the enlarged activities of the government in higher education does not seem to me at all warranted. Of all the agencies in society which might undertake an enlarged service in higher education, I am least worried about control through the government. After all, our govern- ment is just all of us. It is the only comprehensive social grouping that we have today. If any narrower group were to become predom- inant in the control of higher education, whether it were to be a church organization, or an organization of well-to-do philanthropists or organized labor, or some association of intellectuals, then we might have good grounds to be worried about possible restrictions on free- dom of investigation and teaching. The modern democratic State, being the most comprehensive and representative body of all the elements in our society, is clearly in a suitable position to maintain programs that fit the needs of the society. As long as we have our present type of representative government, with sovereignty distributed among forty-eight states, we need have little fear that collusion by governmental agencies will suppress legiti- mate points of view, or restrict investigation and teaching to some completely standardized pattern. The presence of even a small number of strong institutions controlled by nongovernmental agencies will be sufficient to protect against governmental invasion of areas that are particularly susceptible to governmental influence. In the last analysis the protection of the institutions will reside chiefly in the vigilance of the citizens. I sincerely trust and expect that we can depend upon them to see that neither government nor any other agency interferes with the institutions that maintain a freedom of teaching and a freedom of investigation. :}; :k :k :: :k Laird Bell 397 Dr. Stratton continued: “So far we have had what I should like to call an exposition of the theory of our problem. But whoever has had to meet the practical problem of corporate giving, face to face and head on, knows that it is the lawyer who has the last word. And accordingly, I am very pleased to call upon a distinguished member of that profession who by no means incidentally is also Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University of Chicago, and Chairman of the Board of Carleton College. Mr. Laird Bell.” 99 LAIRD BELL I assume that in the presence of these distinguished academic gentle- men, I am to speak solely as a trustee. I know my place—my business is not education, but money. These gentlemen have been discussing how to have government support of education without subjecting it to governmental domination. They have made it clear that it is a tick- lish business to take Uncle Sam's money and not have him call the tune. But where else is the money coming from? There is little question that taxes are drying up the fortunes of individual philanthropists, but at the same time industrial aggregations of wealth are growing apace. Some months ago in a magazine article I uttered some thoughts about the duty of corporations to step into the breach and contribute to edu- cation.” It is my painful duty to disclose to you that I have had more fan mail from college presidents than from corporation presidents. I will not repeat now the reasons I advanced for corporate giving. We in the education racket know it would be fine, but how can we make corporations want to do it? At the outset we run into the lawyers, which is always an unfortu- nate thing. Most lawyers will open the discussion by asking what right the directors have to “give away” the stockholders' money. There is not time here to develop the matter fully. Suffice it to say that while the lawyer who is tied to the books, and is unsympathetic anyway, can still say that he finds no wholly satisfactory precedents, there is a definite trend toward permitting corporations to give to education if some benefit to the corporation, not too remote and fanciful, can be established. Forty years after a British judge had said “charity has no business to sit at boards of directors” the same court approved a large contribution by a chemical company limited only to “the furtherance of scientific education and research.” A somewhat similar trend can be * For a brief biography of Bell, see Biographical Notes, page 514. 60 Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 181, 1948, No. 5, pages 68–72. 398 State and University traced in the American decisions. Furthermore, some fourteen states have express statutes permitting charitable gifts, and others are being urged to adopt such laws. Even more significantly, Uncle Sam since 1935 has permitted such gifts to be deducted in computing income, and that is a very practical consideration.” Clearly, too, the practice has become accepted in fact; in 1947, 71 of the 100 largest manu- facturing corporations in the country gave over sixteen million dollars to charity. The law follows custom, even though slowly. It is, there- fore, hard for me to believe either that any stockholder would object to gifts reasonable in amount and having some relationship to the business, or that he would succeed if he did. Now let us assume that some altruistic stirrings have been induced in a corporate breast, and that we have gotten past the law department; what reasons can the members of our mendicant order advance most persuasively? Let us first take up the matter of research. Research has become a minor, if not a major god in industry. True, research is a rapidly de- preciating word and covers everything from atomic energy to count- ing the persons that go past a cigar store. In real research, however, it is no exaggeration to say that educational institutions are prepared to tackle any problem that industry has the imagination to ask for, and to do it better than most industries themselves can. For the secrets of nature are not departmentalized; research spreads out into many fields; universities furnish facilities in more diverse fields than any one con- cern can hope to cover in its own laboratories. This then is a field in which universities have something to sell, which industry can well afford to buy. The great contribution universities can make, however, lies in the field of pure or theoretical research. Here we run into a common sus- picion of business men. There is no more damning adjective in the business vocabulary than “theoretical.” Yet I need hardly tell this audi- ence that it is theoretical and useless research that has made possible * All states have not been equally enlightened, unfortunately. The Massachu- setts State Department of Public Utilities, for example, advised in the case of the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company (Commonwealth of Massachu- setts DPU 8181, DPU 8324, March 18, 1949, pages 98–99) that it must deduct charitable contributions from profits, after fixed expenses and taxes had been de- ducted. Such actions naturally tend to throw the financial support of social in- stitutions back upon the government. The Interstate Commerce Commission also in 1982 (Ex Parte No. 107, “Accounting of the New York Telephone Company”) disallowed a contribution to the Emergency Unemployment Relief Fund of New York City as an operating expense, upon which rates are based, although it ad- mitted that it may have been a proper corporate expense. Laird Bell 399 the amazing technology of our age. If theoretical science dries up, ap- plied science will presently wither.” But theoretical research has become a very expensive game. It has to be played more and more with blue chips. Cyclotrons and betatrons are costly paraphernalia, and last year's cyclotron can easily become a discarded toy when somebody thinks up a better gadget; already we hear of synchrotrons. It is not a game that many individual companies can afford to play. In fields like nuclear science, for example, it is a fair question whether any agency short of government can hold the pace. Only Uncle Sam could have afforded to bet two billion dollars on the atom bomb; perhaps no one else can afford to make the bets necessary to turn atomic power to peaceful use. You may well ask why government should not carry the whole load. Perhaps government must carry the bulk of it. But this is no reason to sit back and leave it all to Uncle Sam. If he alone develops atomic power, we shall have governmental control of the instrumentalities of production beyond the dreams of Karl Marx. If we really believe the speeches we make to one another about the virtues of the private enter- prise system, we will not let government do the whole thing. In- dustry will attempt at least to be a junior partner. Private enterprise can furthermore make a contribution that gov- ernment cannot. It is a long step from discovery to utilization. A Fara- day in his laboratory could do the basic research that resulted in elec- tric light and power; the application of that power to a world which now seems largely hitched to a dynamo has been the work of hundreds of thousands of very practical men actuated by the humble motive of making a profit. I submit that in our workaday world mankind is likely to get a better break if the new discoveries are turned to actual use by a great many individual enterprisers striving to better them- selves. Apparatus, moreover, is nothing without men. Can research dom- inated by government command the highest talent to run the appa- ratus? Devoted men have given their lives in government service, and are still doing so, but a case can be made that scientific genius is more likely to flower outside government service than in. It is not merely the overhanging threat of witch hunts, which has recently been high- lighted.” It is a matter more of men working in an atmosphere of scientific endeavor guided by their common ideals of advancing knowl- 62 See Odegard’s point about ONR, page 885. 68 See DuBridge, page 369. 400 State and University edge, as against those subject to controls and regulations imposed by agencies having little conception of the freemasonry of scholars. Such free conditions exist in the universities, and, if industrialists genuinely believe in private initiative, they will make sure that these conditions not only continue but flourish. American industry has grown up under the philosophy of freedom. Freedom of thought is as important in that philosophy as freedom of action. Some view that phrase with suspicion, as one harboring danger- ous tendencies; but if we really believe in our system we will have confidence that it can stand being thought about. Freedom of thought is the prime characteristic of universities and liberal arts colleges. The maintenance of such centers of free thought is therefore essential to the preservation of that freedom under which industry thrives. It is in this regard that the privately supported institutions have an especial claim to the support of those concerned with the preservation of free- dom. Well as the State-supported institutions have defended their academic integrity, I believe that it cannot be questioned that free- dom of thought is more secure in the privately supported schools and that their freedom is a benefit to all educational institutions, and hence to industry. Parenthetically, the private institutions can stand up best, and should stand up best, against the assaults on freedom of thought now being inspired by the current anti-Communist hysteria. Many industrialists, however, look askance at “those professors.” Businessmen in general do a great deal of worrying about so-called Reds in college faculties. I suspect that some of them consider as a dangerous radical anyone to the left of the National Association of Manufacturers. Be that as it may, the wonder to me is that the amount of radicalism among teachers is so small. For it takes either an op- timistic teacher or a stupid one to think that his salary is going to keep up with the shrinking dollar. This does not make him necessarily a Red, but he would be a better man than most of us if he did not feel apprehensive and insecure. A man in doubt about the beauties of a free enterprise system which leaves him in straits has feebler resistance to ideologies that at least promise something better. So far as my knowledge of three institutions goes, the number of professors who are actually party members or fellow travelers is minuscule, but if in- dustry fears there will be more of them there is an easy solution—give the colleges the wherewithal to restore some feeling of security. How can such industrial support be brought about, considering that no one concern can hope to do much in so large a field? If a Laird Bell 401 corporation contributes to one institution how can it refuse others? “ If it tries to dole out its contribution among many will there be enough for each to be significant, either in point of support or of public rela- tions? To meet this problem,” I suggest consideration of an agency inter- mediate between the industry and the college, to which a particular industry and all coöperating industries could make contributions, the agency taking responsibility for the effective distribution of the funds. The agency could umpire between the needs of the various beggars. It could work out its own standards of distribution, with full information and a growing skill and judgment about the most useful application of the funds. It might develop criteria which would em- phasize excellence of instruction and research. It could face the very difficult adjustment between sectarian and non-sectarian institutions with less embarrassment than the individual industry could. From the point of view of the individual industry, this arrangement would have many advantages. It would take college presidents off the backs of the executives. A contribution to an agency composed of citizens known to the executives would probably be made with more confidence than to several institutions known only superficially, and as to whose confidence in using the funds the ordinary businessman may very possibly be skeptical—most businessmen know very little about how hard colleges squeeze each dollar. From the point of view of the college, the increase in effectiveness of the institution should be worth something, too. The presidents could stay at home a little and give more attention to education than to hat-passing. They might not wholly like competing with other schools in their appeals to such an agency, but that might be a stimu- lating influence—it would tend to put emphasis on the worth of the institution rather than on the sales talk of the president. Moreover, such a fund would offer another real advantage to both sides. It could very properly accumulate some funds in flush times to be dispensed in leaner years, and to that extent lessen the hardships of the business cycle on both the colleges and the industries. For such an agency I should suggest a small group of sympathetic businessmen, men with a demonstrated interest in education, promi- nent enough to command confidence and detached enough in their 64 See the same question on page 362. * Here Bell makes one of the few proposals for action which were made in the Convocation. See also Compton, page 29, Ryckmans, page 149, Stassen, page 480. 402 State and University thinking to disregard their own affiliations to dear old Siwash and whatnot—the type of man who has done so much in developing com- munity chests. I have been astonished at the time and thought busy men give to community chests and the grief of their budgeting ma- chinery. I am sure there are plenty of qualified and interested men who would take on such a job in the field of education. There is not time here to develop the idea fully, but I visualize a number of such agencies, organized and guided entirely by business- men. There could be some for the support of research in various dif- ferent areas; there could be regional agencies for the support of local institutions; there could be others for particular groups like the United Negro Colleges and for the women's colleges. Both charities and cor- porations have probably benefited from community chests; the idea should work equally well in education. Finally a word from the trustees’ corner: the proper function of a trustee is, of course, mostly to keep out of the way. But trustees do have use, at least as a bit of machinery to select the next president, and it is not a bad idea to keep them posted on educational matters even though administrators do not want them messing into them much. I have found a human tendency on the part of administrators to tell the trustees all about how good our particular institution is; but we are not always equally posted on how good the competition is. The agencies I have suggested would furnish a market place where our own scholastic wares would be offered in competition with those of others. Speaking for trustees, I insist that if our wares are really good we would like the assurance of it which awards of an informed inter- mediate body would give; if they are not, we would like to know that, toO. If, then, educational institutions can make a long-range contribution to the techniques of industry, and if their freedom aids in the defense of free enterprise, I believe it is not too much to claim for the insti- tutions the ungrudging support of industry. :k >k :k :: >k The panel proceeded at once into a give-and-take discussion, re- ported here in dialogue form: STRATTON: We are going to pass now, Ladies and Gentlemen, to a very much more informal part of our program. I wish that all of you could participate in the discussion which I trust will follow. If you look about, you will see the problems that I face. Nevertheless, if you feel that there is some issue here that should be raised as we proceed, Discussion 403 will you again write it down briefly on a sheet of paper and hold up your hand, and one of our aides will pick it up and we will handle as many as possible a little later in the program. This morning at breakfast we had a small preview of this occasion and it developed very shortly that our speakers were by no means so unanimous in opinions, in such harmony, as I had anticipated in look- ing over the manuscripts. In fact, my only regret was that we could not go on the air right at that time. I hope that we will be able to recapture some of that spirit, and I am going to ask Dr. DuBridge if he would care to lead off. DUBRIDGE: One is tempted to go right down the list of the various points that will be brought up and say, “I agree” or “I disagree,” and to expound at length on the ones with which he disagrees. I suppose I ought to feel comforted, as a president of a privately endowed insti- tution, at the assurances that have been given by two of our speakers" that we need not fear anything about Federal support and Federal control, that the Federal government is simply all of us, and if we all are pure and virtuous then the government will be, too. Nevertheless, I am afraid somewhat of my concern still remains. It is perfectly true that the atmosphere of freedom on the part of the public at large is our essential foundation for freedom, and if that is ever gone then we are really sunk. Yet I am a little afraid that even though that atmos- phere of freedom on the part of the majority of the public is present, it might not be exhibited through the channels of the Federal govern- ment, for two reasons. In the first place a Federal bureau, with due apologies to my friend, in its detailed control and directions to a uni- versity which it is subsidizing, may not represent the atmosphere of the public, or at least for a time it may not, a time long enough to seri- ously disrupt and hinder the growth of academic freedom and of free- dom in research and teaching." And secondly, I fear any control by any agency, if it is one agency controlling all universities. Mr. Russell has indicated that there are other sources of control of individual insti- tutions. He even expressed, apparently with some surprise, that the fac- ulty had some control.” I myself thought this was what faculties were for, to control the educational policies of their institutions, and that everything we do should be in the direction of preserving the faculty 66 I.e., Hovde and Russell. 97 In this connection see Golden on the relation of the organization to the individual, page 272. * Especially DuBridge refers to the original Russell manuscript, but see also page 893. 404 State and University as the controlling agency preserving our academic freedom and our search for truth. But it is true that in individual cases there are indi- vidual philanthropists, individual members of the board of trustees, individual segments of the public, there are alumni organizations, there are industries, and there are many other agencies which do exert influences on an individual university. But, in any university, we first find that there are many of these influences, which to some extent cancel out, and secondly, we find in looking around the country, that no two universities are subject to the same ones. And while influences push one university or college in one direction, at other colleges the influences will push in another direction. So, statistically, one has freedom of research and freedom of teaching. The thing that I would fear would be that any single church, any single labor union, any single industry, any single person, any single government had control of all of our institutions of higher education. In other words, it is diversity of control which is the very essence of American democracy and the very essence of the freedom which we have.” It is diversity of control which provides safety. It is centralization of control which I personally fear. I would like to remark on one other point at this moment. In Dr. Russell's talk he quoted the Report of the President's Commission on Higher Education.” I would like to spend some forty or fifty minutes, but I won’t, discussing this report because I think there are many things in it that need to be challenged. But one thing I want to chal- lenge here is that it is right and proper and desirable that there should be two or three times as many students in our colleges and universities within a few years as there are now. I just do not believe that there are that many students qualified for the intellectual work which we ought to be giving in our universities and colleges, that that higher percentage of students, 40 per cent of the young people of this country, have the intellectual qualifications, as the Report suggests, to go through four years of college and university. If 40 per cent have those intellectual qualifications, our academic standards have declined griev- ously in recent years. But I grant that there will be increases in the number of students going to college, the number of intellectually qualified students; that we should make it possible for those of low economic status but high intellectual qualifications to be going; and that there will, therefore, be the necessity of an increase in the num- ber of students in our universities throughout the country. And I 69 In contradiction, however, see Canham on the press, page 257. 70 See page 390. Discussion 405 agree also that the private institutions are not going to be able to ab- sorb this increase. The question is—what institutions are? Well, I as- sumed that it was the state institutions which would absorb this in- crease, each state determining within its borders, within its institu- tions, to what extent its facilities must be increased and its budgets enlarged to take care of its own problem. Now, that is one thing, but it is another thing to say that it is the Federal government which is going to absorb this increase by subsidizing, say, the state institutions. And the Report suggests that it is the Federal government which is going to take up this increase. I would like to suggest that possibly this is a thing which can be and should be left to the states. And when we talk about public control of institutions, we must be clear whether we are talking about the control by the individual states and local governments, or whether we are talking about the centralized control by the Federal government. Unless we know what we are talking about when we speak of public control, I think we are likely to get confused. If we mean state control by individual states, each working independently, that is one thing. If we mean centralized control by the Federal government, I submit that, indeed, is a very different thing. Well, those are the two points which I wanted to make in connection with some of the remarks that have been made by Dr. Russell and Dr. Hovde. STRATTON: Dr. Russell, I think that some of this was in your direc- tion. Perhaps you would like to answer. RUSSELL; Thank you, Mr. Stratton. Mr. DuBridge in his original presentation made some statements that seem to me are very strong. If I quote him correctly, he said that anything which the government supports financially it must of necessity control. And he used two very strong words for the situation in which the government would fail to control anything it supported. He said it was illegal and immoral.” Now, my strict Scotch Presbyterian upbringing leaves me with a holy fear of those words “illegal” and “immoral” and I just have to confess that if those statements are true, there is a lot more immorality around in this country than the Kinsey Report ever had any idea about. Be- cause for a long time we have had systems of Federal support of higher education in this country without control. I speak with first- 71. Yet Russell admits that he as a taxpayer would want control. See extract, page 896, italicized words. It is obvious that the word “control” has many shades of meaning. Russell is using it to mean objectionable types of control that infringe on freedom of teaching and research or that dictate personnel to be employed. He would argue that a financial audit is a necessary, but unobjectionable control. 406 State and University hand knowledge because one of those is operated through my own Division of Higher Education in the United States Office of Education. I refer to the grants which, known as the Morrill-Nelson grants, ever since 1891 have been made to the land-grant colleges. I challenge you to find any degree of control, other than the requirement of making an annual statistical report, as to what was done with the money. An auditor does not even go out to check up on the veracity of those re- ports. Until the war there was the further check that we publish those reports so that anybody could read them; but Congress, in its desire to save white paper, decided it was not even worth publishing those re- ports. So no longer do you have full public access to the information as to how these institutions spent this money. Furthermore, let me say that these grants are by no means confined to publicly controlled institutions. This institution under whose aus- pices we meet today, which all of us would think of as a privately controlled institution, certainly as free as any there is in the country, has, ever since 1891, accepted and used Federal money given it under the land-grant system. I suspect there is not one in a thousand of the students that know it, and probably not one in one hundred of the faculty that know that it is engaged in this “illegal and immoral” process, and yet its President annually turns in the report and its Treasurer countersigns a check from the Federal government for funds that have been given.” Now, strangely enough, although I disagree with the process by which Mr. DuBridge reached his conclusions, I agree practically with his conclusions. I agree with them, reasoning from a process that I would reach as a taxpayer and a citizen, not as an educator. I think the people of Massachusetts are reaching that kind of a decision about their use of public funds. When the Massa- chusetts Institute of Technology was designated as the recipient of Federal land-grant funds, there was little or no opportunity for edu- cation under public state control in Massachusetts. That situation is being changed rapidly, and the legislature in Massachusetts has changed the proportion of funds that go to this institution, reducing them in recent years. * The grant to M.I.T. in the year of the Convocation was $21,571, of which roughly $16,000 was on behalf of R.O.T.C. When we put these numbers beside an annual budget of $8,000,000 exclusive of government contracts, as DuBridge will shortly point out, this statement is a little disingenuous. It is true that the original land-grant subsidy to M.I.T. was more but it had become as little as $20,000 in 1910 and has not exceeded $23,000 in any year since. This is less than the out-of-pocket cost to M.I.T. of current R.O.T.C. operations. Discussion 407 As a taxpayer, yes, I want to have something to say about how my money is spent, and I think it best to do that through some form of government control. Therefore, I agree with the practical conclusion of Mr. DuBridge that it would be a misfortune to support all institu- tions of higher education by public funds. In fact, I do not know of any such proposal. Certainly it was not in the Report of the Presi- dent's Commission on Higher Education, for with the exception of a minority, a dissenting report of two people,” they specifically recom- mended that public funds be expended only through publicly con- trolled institutions. In fact, at present there is no proposal even for Federal aid to higher education of any sort, except through a scholar- ship arrangement, which I understand Mr. DuBridge endorses, and which I also do, very heartily. I just want to refer to two other situations in which there have been strong elements of Federal support, governmental support, without control. One of them also has been under my own auspices, or the auspices of my own division in the Office of Education. We have been supplying surplus property to institutions to the tune of many hun- dreds of millions of dollars. Without it they could not possibly have handled the flood of veterans which they have cared for during the past three years. That was done with Federal funds, and done, I think, without any objectionable control. Let me cite one other example. Do you imagine that Oxford and Cambridge in England have lost their freedom, have lost their right to investigate fearlessly and so on? Just look up the extent to which the British Government is now supporting all the universities of Brit- ain, including ancient Oxford and Cambridge.” STRATTON: I am sure Dr. DuBridge has a reply. I am going to try to give each one of you an opportunity, another chance. I feel that wrokºol lxz Dr. Hovrda vºzo, l, 131-A -o co-, co- * * - re --> S4-1-3 +l-3- ~s-l-3-2-4 ~~~ 21 12-vº-'-'-y J. M. V-2 Y \-4. W., WW WJ Ull. V-1. 1...N.V., U.V.J say Sullivu 11.115 Ull Ull.lº Suujevu, C1.1.1\l I can introduce this through some of these questions. I find a number here that apply to about the same area; here is a typical one. Should the university, Dr. Hovde, stand firm in its belief in academic free- dom, allowing winds of all doctrine to blow, and oppose those steps taken by our State Department which seem to undermine our de- mocracy through anti-democratic methods? Specifically, when a Shos- **Msgr. Frederick G. Hochwalt and Martin R. P. McGuire, Higher Education for Agreen Democracy, Vol. V, Financing Higher Education (December, 1947), page O. ** Under a very different arrangement—see footnote 3, and Appendix H. 408 State and University takovitch is encouraged to return to Russia as soon as transportation permits, should a Yale University refuse the use of a hall for a concert lecture? Dr. Hovde, would you like to comment on that? Hovde: Well, I think perhaps I have a right to comment on that be- cause I have on certain occasions made it rather plain what I think about Communism, both its basic principle and its methods of opera- tion.” As a President of the United States, who came from this state, said when speaking of the preacher and sin, “He’s agin it.” I’m “agin” it, too. Nevertheless I do believe that the State Department, which I have had the honor to serve for a little while, is wrong in this busi- ness. I see no good reason at all why these Communists from the Soviet Union and other States as well, whether they are Communist-dom- inated or not, should not be admitted to the United States to see what freedom is and to be confronted in an open and direct debate, and taken strictly to task, made to face these issues. If, in the process of such a tour as that offered by the National Asso- ciation of Manufacturers, no less, the Russian delegation should see what American business enterprise is and go home and compare it with their own, that might be conducive to peace. So I think the Department did not act so very wisely in this matter. Now, why didn't they? I can assure you, I think, that it is not because people in the State Department are people of little minds, or people of evil intent, or more obscurantists. It is because they fear that you and I would disapprove such an attitude toward freedom. And that is what I mean when I say that it is very important, more important by far than any- thing else, that the American citizens throughout the length and the breadth of this land, stand for the principle of freedom of inquiry; and not only in private universities, not only in public institutions, but in all walks of life. I have no fear of Communism or any other ism if I can meet it straightforwardly, in open debate.” I think we can always vindicate democracy against anything like that. And I should deplore it very much, therefore, if any institution, private or public, should feel it necessary to withdraw an invitation to a musician, such as Shostako- vitch, to appear in its halls. But it is public opinion which makes that sort of thing necessary, or which creates a temptation to it, and it is that public opinion that I think we must educate. That was what I tried to point out in what I said formerly. * For example, at Breslau, see footnote 28, and Appendix J. * Compare with Hook, “I don't think we have to fear the Russian export of ideas so long as they don't export their troops.” See page 344. Discussion 409 May I, while I am here, answer another question that came up to me from the floor. I do not know whether it came through the proper channels or not. I am challenged on this issue, and I shall quote the question: “You say the State is the instrument of the whole society, but at any given time the State is only the instrument of the party in power. Is it sound and good that a party in power should control edu- cational policies of universities?” I should like to turn this question over to Professor Odegard who is an expert in political science, who could give us the proper definition of the term “State,” but as I under- stand it the State is that enduring organization of a group of human beings within the particular limits of a territory organized in any way you please, whether with or without political parties, which governs in that area. Now, therefore, a political party is merely an instru- mentality through which a majority, which may change from time to time, expresses itself through the instrumentality of the State, and though the government is not the same as the State, the government is our government. We can change it, we can do with it what we please, but we cannot overthrow the State as such unless we simply merge it in another State. The State endures and exists whatever the form of government may be. I could ask a question or two of my own if I might. I was very much impressed with Mr. Bell's suggestion that a sort of college presidents’ wishing-well be set up. I can assure him and anyone who might have control of such a wishing-well that I should be coming too with my little tin pail and asking for a handout. I think it is a very, very interest- ing suggestion. It might be conducive in pumping into such a wishing- well far more money than is now pumped in from private donors, and it has very much to recommend it. But I would ask whether such a wishing-well or those who direct it, particularly perhaps if they be businessmen, unless they be businessmen of the type of Mr. Bell, would take into account the capital and operating needs of private institutions or would they give the money only for research projects? Endowment income is lower than it ever was, our needs have far outstripped the endowments possessed by most universities, and there is a very great deal of need now for increased current incomes for current operating costs and for capital plant. The more you centralize the doling out of money, or the giving out of money, the more I fear you impose, whether the institution be private or public, a tendency to make an accounting of that handout of money so rigid that you can justify it only to the most conservative people. Now, what I should 410 State and University like to see in our private institutions is a spirit of enterprise. I am the President of a small private institution and we pride ourselves on enterprise. I think that is the very reason for our existence, and it is that enterprise, that tendency to experiment, to do new things, and to do things in a different way, and to maintain quality rather than to pay attention merely to quantity, which is a peculiar virtue of the private institution. I think it is not so much the greater freedom in inquiry which is threatened so much by government money. I think you can have freedom of inquiry in a public institution, too. But I do fear in public institutions that red tape, that enervation, that comes with too much responsibility for safe things instead of bold things. STRATTON: I am going to ask Mr. Bell if he will reply to that ques- tion, and I have several from the floor of a very similar character, one of which I will read to you. Mr. Bell, would not your educational com- munity chest constitute a dangerous concentration of control in the hands of a group even less accountable to the public than the Federal government? Mr. Bell. BELL: I am not going to worry about that question until business has dug down into its pocket a good deal further than it has so far, and I am not going to worry about it even if they should dig down. After all, the funds of the endowed and privately supported institu- tions have come from business in one form or another and from no- where else. I give you this as a test. Where are the institutions which are more venturesome in social lines than the endowed institutions? Recently Mr. Gerhart Eisler spoke at Harvard and a storm of criti- cism arose, and Harvard stood firm. He spoke at the University of Chicago. He was refused admission to a university building at a state university, as I recall it. I was told this morning at breakfast that Mr. Harold Laski was denied the use of university property in two state institutions, and I live in fear that the President and the Chancel- lor of the University of Chicago will hear of it and invite him to the University of Chicago. Who are the trustees of these institutions now? They are business- men. They are not these timorous men that Dr. Odegard spoke of. He may have encountered some timorous men in the course of his peregrinations around through education, but I defy him to call the trustees of the University of Chicago or the Corporation of Harvard timorous men, and they are businessmen for the most part, and those that are not businessmen are likely to be lawyers, which is even worse. I am not proposing that the educational institutions of the United States should be turned over to a group of businessmen. Vast funds Discussion 411 like the Rockefeller Foundation have been administered, in the back- ground at least, by businessmen, and they certainly have not exer- cised a malign influence on education. I take it that none of us here, although the argument has at times verged on that, is in favor of abolishing the State institutions. The privately supported institutions are to my mind, a defense and a support to the public institutions, and the public institutions are a defense and a support to the private insti- tutions, and if we should ever reach that delightful time when business was prepared to support the private institutions exclusively, I should look upon the State institutions as the corrective of that. You also underestimate, by that question, the faculties. There has been some mention of the faculties here. You overestimate the influence of the trustees. Mostly the trouble has been created by the time you get the trustees together, and we have to see it through whether we like it Or not. STRATTON: I want to give Dr. Odegard a chance to join in this dis- cussion, and I have one question here which is evidently framed by a cynical mind. It says: “If a Federally subsidized education system were to permit all those properly qualified for higher studies to follow them, do you feel that such a large group of educated men set loose in our country would be entirely beneficial? And then for the political scientist and economist what effect do you feel it would have on our economy?” And I have here another question, too, which is along the line that has been mentioned before. “In your opinion, Dr. Odegard, to what extent should a man's political beliefs and activities be taken into account in deciding whether or not he is fit to be a teacher?” ODEGARD: It looks like an omnibus question. First, I’d like to com- ment on the first question that was asked, as to whether it would be dangerous to our society to have so many educated people. I am not worried about it at all, Ladies and Gentlemen. Recently I made a 4-rºw ~ * ~ſ arºv-4-n ºrn ol, wron: g g °nn o tour of certain alumni associations and I’m not at all worried about too many educated people. There was a time when it was thought sub- versive for people to be able to read and write. I think today without literacy, and without a literate population, we couldn't maintain the kind of society that we have. Why, think of the appalling situation people would be in if they couldn't read the ads, and I mean that seri- ously, believe it or not. Think how appalling it is that they can. It would be worse if they couldn't. I would like to add one footnote to that if I could. I think the Ameri- can people have been very generous in their support of education. I think American business has been more generous in its support of 412 - State and University education than any businessmen anywhere else in the world, but I think they’ve had a very good return for their money. I think, on the whole, Americans, while they're generous in their support of educa- tion, are not very clear in their understanding of what education is and what it is for. Most people, I suspect, send their boys and girls to college not because they are genuinely interested in having them become acquainted with the great traditions of our civilization or with learning the techniques by which they can advance the store of human knowledge. I suspect that most of them send their children to college and to the university because they hope that by some proc- ess they can acquire, sometimes by osmosis, I am convinced, some- thing that will enable them to make an easier living, a better living, or in any case make more money than they could if they didn't have this education. Now I think, to be sure, that is a worthy motive, but it is not in my judgment, the central purpose of education," and I think we need to do a great deal more than we have done to educate the American people on what is meant by education. I am not going to try that here this afternoon, but I would just make one comment on one feature of it that I intended to make when I was on my feet, and I might as well make it now. I think this attitude toward education is reflected in the proliferation in our universities and colleges of spe- cialized training courses. Now, I realize it is not easy to make a sharp distinction between education on the one hand and training on the other, but you can train a dog to play the Star Spangled Banner, and seals to do all kinds of tricks. So, too, you can train people to perform all kinds of skills, but education is essentially something quite different than that. And if you look at the catalogues of most universities in this country, they look for all the world like a kind of academic or intellectual Sears, Roebuck catalogue, and our colleges and universities have resembled intellectual cafeterias. A student comes through and he can take anything from prenatal care to funeral directing,” and I didn't make either of those up—you'll find them in the catalogues of institutions purporting to be universities. Now, I raise the question as to, say, a course in midwifery; I’m all for midwives, I think they’re wonderful, but I think that's a kind of training that is often used these days as a substitute for education. Most of the alumni of private and public institutions, and I am inclined to think that this is probably truer of * See, however, Potter (page 328), who thinks it should be taken into account by the universities. 7* See also the other curricula listed by Sherwood, page 301. Discussion 413 the great state universities than it is of the private institutions, but most of them are not educated men and women in the sense in which that word was used, let's say by Thomas Aquinas, or Aristotle, or Plato, or Rousseau, or what have you. I think they may be trained men and women. That is to say, they're trained to do certain things, but I think that is not necessarily the same as education. So I am not worried about too many educated people. Now, there were a couple of other questions there. One had to do with the inquiry concerning political opinions of an individual. Let me back up on that for a minute and say that too often the idea of academic freedom is talked about as though it were some kind of a gimmick by which professors protect themselves for irresponsible statements in the classroom. Now, I think academic freedom is, in a measure, that, just that, but I like to put the matter a little differently and say that it is not so much a question of the right of the professor to teach whatever might come into his mind, and a lot of things come into the minds of professors, as they come into the minds of everybody else; but I like to think of it rather as the right of the student to learn, and anything that closes the door to the inquiring mind of a student is hostile to the true purpose of education. And I think if we talked about this thing in terms of the right of the student to learn, rather than so much talk about the right of the professor to profess, we'd have a clearer and more realistic view of this problem. Now as to the specified question: I personally do not believe that an inquiry into a man's political affiliations, as such, has any relevance to his employment as a professor, except as those political affiliations may throw light upon his attitude toward the basic responsibilities of the scholar and teacher in our society. Let me put it this way, and I can give you a specific case. Recently at the University of Wash- ington some members of the faculty have been dismissed because they were members of the Communist party.” I happen to know one of those professors; I've known him for twenty-five years. He was my first instructor in ethics. And when that case first came up, I was asked by a newspaper reporter if I would hire a member of the Communist party as a member of the faculty of Reed College, and I said I would not hire a member of the Communist party as a member of the faculty * The Board of Regents of the University of Washington dismissed three pro- fessors, Associate Professor Joseph Butterworth, Associate Professor Ralph Gund- lack, and Assistant Professor H. J. Phillips on January 22, 1949, as a result of a controversy over asserted present or former Communist Party membership. See The New York Times, January 23, 1949, page 28, col. 1. 414 State and University of Reed College. I would not draw the line at a Communist, but I think I would draw the line at a member of the party. And he asked me why, and I said, “Well, I think all the evidence shows that the Com- munist party in this country, as in other countries, is for all practical purposes a branch, an extension of the government of the U.S.S.R. It is not a political party in the sense that we think of it in this society and I just don't want to take a chance on a guy like that. The chances are too great that he will not be free, that he will not approach the problems with the kind of objectivity that I think a scholar should.” Then he said, “Well, suppose you discovered a member of your faculty was a Communist. It isn't a question of hiring him, but a question of firing him. Would you fire him if you found out he was a member of the party?” And I said, “Not necessarily, not necessarily.” I called his attention, and I call your attention, to what seems to me a relevant distinction in considering this matter, and I take an illustration from immigration cases. We take the position in the United States that a person applying for admission to this country has no right to come in. People aren't born with an inalienable right to become American citi- zens, or to come into this country. It’s a privilege which we give or withhold as we choose. So when an immigrant applies for admission, the burden of proof, proving his right to come in, rests on him. The burden isn't upon us to prove that he does not have the right to come in. But once that alien is in this country, once he is here and subject to the constitution and laws of the United States, and you seek to de- port him, then the burden of proof is upon those who seek to deport him and not upon him; he doesn't have to prove his right to remain. The government must prove its right, its right to deport. The lingo of the lawyer I leave to Mr. Bell, but that is the substance of the rule.so * This type of doctrine has a long standing in American history. In the Massachusetts Bay in the early part of the seventeenth century the rule was that magistrates and other people of power must be selected only from those persons who were members of the church in good standing. This was discussed at length in correspondence between various Puritan peers in England and people in power in the Massachusetts Bay. One of the letters relating to this was sent by Mr. Cotton to Lord Say and Sele in the year 1636. The quotation from this letter is taken from The People Shall Judge (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1949), Volume I, page 10. Writing to Lord Say and Sele, Mr. Cotton said: “. . . non-membership [i.e., in the church] may be a just cause of non-admission to the place of magistracy, but yet, ejection out of his membership will not be a just cause of ejecting him out of his magistracy. A godly woman, being to make choice of an husband, may justly refuse a man that is either cast out of church fellowship or is not yet received into it, but yet, when she is once given to him, she may not reject him then for such defect.” Discussion 415 Now let's take this particular case. If a man you find who has been teaching at the university for twenty-five years, a physicist or an astronomer or a something else, becomes a member of the Communist party, I think you could ask a number of questions about him. Does he, or has he, by his conduct betrayed the basic canons of true scholar- ship? Now, I think it is possible for a lot of very innocent people, I think very blind people and sometimes politically illiterate people, to be sucked into a deal like that without affecting their value to the university so far as their scholarship is concerned; and hence I think there is a difference between firing a man where the burden of proof should be upon those who seek to fire him, and hiring him where the burden of proof is upon the one who seeks to be hired.* I don't know that that throws any light on it, but I think it would help to clarify a way of looking at this very difficult problem. I think, however, we ought to be under no illusions as to the nature of the Communist party in the United States; on that I have no doubt. STRATTON: Before we sum up, I think we have just time for two more provocative questions which I am going to address to Dr. Du- Bridge. It says here, “Do you mean by your statistical leveling process that there are as many left-wing corporations financing schools as right-wings? This is a new category in my own experience.” And finally, “Would not industrial corporations be wont to contribute mainly to universities primarily interested in technology and basic science, to the exclusion of the liberal arts colleges, or don't the latter need financial aid?” DUBRIDGE: Well, I think in my statistical equilibrium analogy I wasn't thinking that there were going to be just as many Communist corporations as there are members of the National Association of Man- ufacturers. I would hate to see any corporation, or any group of cor- porations, exert a predominating influence on any institution, and cer- tainly on a group of institutions or upon all institutions. My thought there was that, if through corporate gifts to a single institution (M.I.T. receives quite large gifts from corporations) there is a tendency towards corporate control, this will be balanced within M.I.T. by the control of the faculty, of the president, the alumni, of the Corporation, and of other influences, and if a company thinks it is not getting a good buy because it is not influencing the institution enough, it is free to withdraw its funds. And as long as company gifts are not a predominating part of the financial income of the institution, the insti- ** Here Odegard has stated the current attitude of most enlightened university administrators although others have phrased it in other ways. 416 State and University tution can afford to give these up. So I do not advocate widespread control by industrial organizations, or by any other agency of any institution or of any group of institutions; but I simply say that this diversity of control, this diversity of influences being brought to bear on individual institutions and on institutions at large is the basic ele- ment which allows institutions to pursue what, in their minds, in the minds of their corporation, their faculty, is the best way by which they can serve the public and can serve scholarship. In reply to the second question, about corporations giving largely to technical rather than liberal arts institutions, I think it is probably true that the first thing that will appeal to corporations in this period, when they are not quite sure they ought to give anything, is gifts to research projects in institutions which carry on research.” As a mem- ber of a technical institution I am glad to be able to capitalize on that feeling, and we are appealing to corporations to support research enterprises of a broad and fundamental nature, things that we are doing already and want to do, and to receive corporate gifts in support of them. And I think it is true that in these early days of corporate giving, it will be those things which the corporations can say have at least a long-range interest to the company, which will first attract company gifts. But I hope, as Mr. Bell indicated, that as the habit grows and as the legality becomes clear, and as the social atmosphere changes, and as the attitude of businessmen changes, this will be broadened and that the liberal arts colleges, which certainly need the support, possibly even more than the technical institutions, will be included in this new additional source of funds. And while I am talking may I just answer one question which Mr. Russell raised in challenging my “illegal and immoral” statements? I think I will stick to them, but he was kind enough to answer this question privately. I said, “How much money does M.I.T. get from the Federal government per year?” The answer was—$16,000.** Out of a budget, if I remember the last report correctly, of something like eight million dollars, exclusive of government contracts, $16,000 is not a very good crowbar by which the Federal government could exert control if it wished. And the thing that I fear is a large-scale subsidy of institutions, private institutions, by Federal funds, which does give ** The research is unlikely to be exclusively in natural science. Some aspects of social science, such as labor relations, already have received substantial support of this kind. i. See footnote 72. The figure cited by DuBridge is for the R.O.T.C. portion Only. Discussion 4.17 the crowbar; and there also the duty of control if the support is a predominant or a large-scale part of institution financing. I think you see, however, that really we are not so much in dis- agreement as it might at first sight appear. We have enjoyed poking fun at each other, but neither he nor I wishes to have the private insti- tutions of this country come under Federal subsidy and the possible danger of Federal control. On that, which is our essential point, we are in agreement; and that is the essential point which I wish to make in my remarks and I think he also supported it. STRATTON: We are only getting into the heart of our problem and the time for closing is rapidly approaching. I do wish to give every member of our panel an opportunity to state his position if he so de- sires. And so, very briefly, Dr. Hovde, I wonder whether you wish to add anything to your earlier remarks? Hovde: Thank you very much for that opportunity. There are one or two things I should like to say. I think in the first place, all of us, however much some of us may have spoken in favor of the govern- ment and its duty in education, do believe, nevertheless, in a kind of mixed economy in education. It is both inevitable and necessary. Pri- vate institutions, to function well, must function, it seems to me, at the growing periphery of educational life. They must engage in experi- mentation and in new enterprise; they must develop standards of quality which can be used as yardsticks in measuring public institu- tions and what they do. Consequently, private aid on a large scale to private institutions is certainly very much to be encouraged. Freedom of inquiry is also an absolute essential to a democratic way of life and we need it as a means for scientific search for truth and for the right way of doing things. There is no monopoly of this in private institu- tions, although private institutions have been proud, and properly so, of a growing belief in freedom of inquiry. That, I take it, is evidence of the fact that the citizen, too, begins to believe in it more and more, and as he does that will become a principle for our public institutions as well. And finally, on the matter of control, I come back to this, that both private and public institutions are necessarily under controls; the controls of the groups that support them, whatever they may be, and the control of public opinion as a whole, control of John Q. Citizen. Consequently, once more I want to emphasize the necessity of making John Q. Citizen believe in the freedom of inquiry. If we can do that we shall not have any more witch hunts against scientists, whether they be natural scientists or social scientists. And it is a rather interest- 418 State and University ing and deplorable thing to note that social scientists, more than natural scientists, have been subjected to these witch hunts. STRATTON: Thank you, Dr. Hovde. Dr. Russell, did you have a few comments to make? RUSSELL: It is unfair to deprive Dr. DuBridge of the last word on this question of morality, but I can see that his definitions are different from mine. I had never supposed that the amount of money involved made any difference about the morality of an act. I want to summarize my position very briefly as being this. It is in my judgment a source of great strength to the American system of higher education that we have strong, well-organized, well-financed institutions, both of the publicly and the privately supported type. I hope that they do not mix their types too much, and to that end, I, as a private citizen, would hope that the privately controlled institutions will not seek public sup- port; that they will continue to use the fact that the public institutions are getting more money as a lever with their own constituencies to increase their supporting resources as they have been able to do in the past, and as I think they shall be able to do in the future. So far as any action by the Federal government is concerned, I think we need not lose any sleep over it. Personally, I do not see any possibility that in the near future the Federal government is going to make grants for general purposes to higher education in any amount that will disturb the present rather satisfactory balance that we have in the system of higher education. STRATTON: Thank you, Dr. Russell. I should very much like to call on Dr. Odegard to discuss this matter of fiscal morality but I will ask him to speak for himself. ODEGARD: I have not much to add. There is not time and you are all tired. I would just say this, that we need to keep always in mind that American Society maintains colleges and universities not for the bene- fit of the faculty, not, I think, even for the benefit of the trustees, nor, if I may say so, for the benefit of the students. We maintain colleges and universities in our society because of our democratic faith that they will contribute in some way, not only to the development of a richer, freer and more enduring democratic Society, but will contribute in the process of doing that, to better, stronger and more creative in- dividuals. And if our educational system is to do this, we need to keep that goal always in mind and to test everything we do by that basic objective. That sounds like the Fourth of July and I meant it that way. STRATTON: And so, finally, Mr. Bell, will you make our concluding remarks? Summary 419 BELL: I think I cannot add anything to this feast of ideas that has been put before you, but I would like to say a word on behalf of that poor old thing, the American businessman. There is a slight tendency to regard anything that he favors as evil. Our protection against that, of course, is that there are lots of different businessmen. And the businessman of New England may not always see eye to eye with the businessman of Houston, Texas. The manufacturer may not always see eye to eye with that businessman who raises dairy products in Iowa. The protection of a multitude of different interests in business is, to my mind, as great an assurance of the objective point of view in any business organization as that which you get in a legislature. After all, you would not say that the Un-American Activities Com- mittee in Congress represented, as Mr. Russell said, all of us. I doubt whether it could be said to represent a cross section. It represents a vocal element which is capitalizing on a current fear and hysteria, and has been doing so for some time. I have not contemplated in my suggestion a single agency representing business. I have contemplated a good many different agencies, and I feel that therein lies the security against this insidious encroachment of businessmen; and once more I call your attention to the fact that about half the students in the United States are still being educated by privately supported institu- tions, the bulk of whose trustees to date, have not, I think, betrayed their trust, and they have been businessmen. STRATTON: And I want now, only once again, to thank all our speakers and you, for your kind attention. That's all. :}; >k :k >k >k The ideas brought out by this panel are not hard to summarize as they are very well presented in the final statements of the various speakers. There were, naturally, widely differing opinions as to the Social Service State. There was some disagreement as to what portion of our youth was really qualified to undertake a serious higher educa- tion. There was some disagreement as to the extent to which govern- mental financial support implied governmental control and in turn as to whether that control was dangerous or not—the safety of this posi- tion was argued to arise from the fact that “the government is all of us.” But the most important points were the generally repeated asser- tion that freedom of inquiry must be preserved in the universities and that it was desirable that both State-supported and privately sup- ported institutions should be kept in harness and that neither should be allowed to die. g CHAPTER IX The Store of the Future AROLD E. STASSEN, President of the University of Pennsyl- H vania, one-time Governor of the State of Minnesota, one-time Captain, USNR, and Flag Officer to Admiral “Bull” Halsey, one-time candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States, came into town as inconspicuously on Friday morning as Mr. Churchill had entered conspicuously twenty-four hours earlier. Quietly, he went with Mrs. Stassen to rooms at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Later in the day and unlike Mr. Churchill, who had remained holed up all day, resting and preparing for his address, the younger Stassen went over to M.I.T. to listen to what some of the other people were saying. A Time photographer caught him listening intently to one of the panels, seated next to James Bryant Conant, President of Harvard University. The circumstances under which Stassen had assumed the role of principal speaker for Friday evening would have been a test for any- one. The original plan had been to have Harry S Truman, President of the United States, on this occasion. As the reader will recall, President Truman had sent his regrets at an exceedingly late hour.” Confronted with this difficult situation, the Committee was able to decide in very short order on the man it wanted; a man who happened to be politi- cally opposed to the President. Fortunately, this man was friendly and coöperative and direct; when the invitation was telephoned to him, he asked for an hour to consider it. Within that time he telephoned his acceptance. Thus it was that Harold Stassen came to M.I.T.'s Con- Vocation. But before Mr. Stassen was to have his hour on the platform, and between that hour and the end of the afternoon panels, there were crowded minutes. There was, for example, a formal dinner given at the Hotel Statler by the 500 members of the F aculty and Corporation of M.I.T. * See pages 44–47. 420 Prelude 421 Hotel trade journals waxed eloquent about the provisions, but these need not detain us. There were no speeches. It was Mrs. Churchill's birthday and at the appropriate occasion a candle-lighted birthday cake was brought in while the guests sang spontaneously, “Happy Birthday to You.” Mrs. Churchill blew ineffectively at the candles. “Human-interest” stories varied as to how many puffs it took her to extinguish the lights; anyway, it was several. The platform guests withdrew to waiting rooms and the rest of the dinner guests were transported smoothly and quickly by chartered buses to the Boston Garden. This was a major logistic movement through the difficult traffic on a crowded Friday evening. It was ac- complished only by the efficient planning of Professor John Wilbur, in coöperation with transport officials and the police. The skill of the move was the occasion for extended comment in the daily press. It demonstrated how efficient engineers can sometimes be. In fact, the movement was so efficient that this group of guests arrived at the Boston Garden earlier than anyone had anticipated. There, however, they found a large audience already assembled, an audience which by the time the doors were closed filled the hall again to overflowing, an audience essentially the same as that which had greeted Mr. Churchill the night before. As on the previous evening, the United States Marine Band led by Major Santelmann played a preliminary concert. Fittingly, this was a program of American music, as the program the evening before had been British.” Meanwhile the platform guests waited at the hotel and at the ap- propriate moment moved forward in limousines, with siren-shrieking motorcycle escort, and just as on the evening before, were brought into the back areas of the arena, close to the speaker's platform. They mounted this platform to the strains of Hail America. There were few changes in the composition of the nlatform. Student Otto Kirchner re- *** * * -----L------~~~ ** sº ºn ºr * platform. *-* * *-* * *-*.*.*, *, *-* * * *-* ... -----.... *-y-....i. Lºv. L. J. v. A T placed student John Thomas Toohy; Mr. Stassen was added to the number. That was all.” * The Friday musical program included Song of the Marching Men Hadley An Outdoor Overture Copland Jubilee from Symphonic Sketches Chadwick Rhumba from Second Symphony McDonald Grand March “Hail America” Drumm * The guests in the order in which they sat this might, reading from right to left as the audience faced them were, Mr. Kirchner, Governor Dever, Dean Burchard, Mr. Churchill, Dr. Compton, Mr. Stassen, President Killian, Mr. Baruch and Dean Baker. 422 Store of Future After the National Anthem Dr. Compton introduced the principal speaker as follows: “We are honored by, and grateful to, President Harold E. Stassen of the University of Pennsylvania, who, on short notice, has very gener- ously agreed to deliver the address at this closing session of the M.I.T. Mid-Century Convocation. With his distinguished career we are all familiar. May I, therefore, give this introduction a personal note? “Through my relatives in Minnesota I had heard his praises sung from the time he was first elected Governor of that state in 1939, the youngest Governor in the history of Minnesota, and at that time the youngest in the United States. His wise and courageous administration won him two successive re-elections, but he resigned in his third term to enter the United States Navy. “In late January, 1944, I was first privileged to meet Captain Stassen in Noumea, New Caledonia, where he was serving on the staff of Admiral Halsey as Flag Officer. I was impressed by the unobtrusive yet efficient manner in which he handled the arrangements for a dis- tinguished group of officers from the Southwest Pacific and the South Pacific areas who were on their way to a joint staff conference in Pearl Harbor. “I next met Dr. Stassen immediately after the war at a series of in- formal meetings of a small group assembled under the auspices of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. This group undertook an analysis of the possibilities and requirements for the handling of the newly developed atomic power in the interest of international peace. These studies were turned over to the Acheson Committee of the State Department when it was formed, and the results of both studies were in turn passed on as preliminary material to assist the Atomic Energy Commission of the United Nations, when it was established, to grapple with this problem under the leadership of our distinguished friend on this platform, Mr. Baruch. “An effective administrator, a leader of American liberal thought, but with the word liberal’ understood in what I believe to be its true sense, and that described last night by Mr. Churchill with a small ‘l, 4 Dr. Stassen has joined the fraternity of those who see in education a great opportunity to construct for the future a better America and a better world. Dr. Harold E. Stassen,” President of the University of Pennsylvania.” 4 See pages 52, 53. * For a brief biography of Stassen, see Biographical Notes, page 527. Harold Stassen 423 Young, vigorous, handsome and dynamic, Mr. Stassen throughout his address stood feet widespread and firmly planted; he delivered the address in a powerful, confident and well-modulated voice. He spoke as follows: HAROLD EDWARD STASSEN Although I appear tonight, as you know, as an eleventh-hour sub- stitute for the President, I assume it is totally unnecessary for me to tell you, with a smile, that I do not speak for him, and that he is not re- sponsible for anything I say this evening. I am certain, nevertheless, that I can speak for the President, and for this vast audience, and for the people of our country when I give a salute to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for its amazing record of constructive, educational and scientific accomplishment, and say—best wishes—and Godspeed—to this great institution and to its able, modest, new President, Dr. James Killian. And I am supremely confident that in the same representative man- ner I may word a hearty and respectful welcome to these shores to that gifted and inspiring leader of the people of Britain in “their finest hour,” that contemporary Shakespeare, Burke and Nelson cast in one dramatic mold, the Honorable Winston Churchill. It has been asked that I speak of the future, that I address my re- marks toward the second half of this twentieth century which so shortly will begin. Let me respond that I am not given to prediction, and not even to a shorter range prediction, especially not after what happened November 2, 1948. Yet, seriously, I do recognize with you the im- portance of thinking ahead. I agree that at the mid-turn of a century, in this atmosphere of science, a searching inquiry into the humanities is important. I agree that the next fifty years is not too long a time to think about, when we reflect that, barring catastrophe, most of the undergraduates of M.I.T. and the other millions of our youth now en- gaged in study, will witness during their lifetimes this full half cen- tury of which we speak. There are those who will say, why speak of half a century, when within a few years we either will solve the whole world-wide question of relations of men, or see civilization die in the rubble of an atomic war! Others whisper that atomic destruction, with all its horrors, is but as a bow and arrow compared to the potential devastation of germ warfare. And still others say—and that is not all! No one is more keenly aware than I am of the vast capacity for catastrophe possessed by future war, or more determined that mankind must find the way to 424 Store of Future prevent its occurrence. Yet I here declare that to say now that all thinking should begin and end upon this question of the prevention of a third World War is to introduce a note of sterility into our analysis. It is to shackle our minds at the very moment in history when it is most essential that they be unfettered. I therefore state, in considered phrases, that if, God forbid, an atomic war does come, civilization will survive. If more than one future world war should come, with all the destructive force of every kind that is developed, civilization will yet survive. I say this bluntly, for I believe that the future course of man requires that there be a toughness of free minds, a searching, long-term thought upon future policy, a complete canvass of considered alternatives, and no blind spots or road blocks in our thinking, Terrible devastation and destruction and suffering can be dealt out, but, in my judgment, man can never fashion the means of destroying all men; man can never wipe out entirely throughout the world that curious combination of progress called civilization." 6 There is some parallelism between this affirmation and that of Churchill on pages 54 and 60. Stassen did not escape unscathed from having made this remark. In particular, it disturbed the left press. Perhaps the most violent diatribe which was touched off appeared in an address delivered by the Reverend Clarence Duffy at the Conference on Peace and Political Action, called by the Nationalities Division of the American Labor Party in New York City on May 14, 1949, and repub- lished under the title “Come Out and Fight for Peace!” in The Word (Glasgow) for June, 1949. The address was a very long one. The first half consisted of a eulogy of Abbé Jean Boulier, Roman Catholic priest and Professor of International Law, who was excluded by the United States State Department from entering the United States to attend the Cultural and Scientific Congress for World Peace (see page 38). The second half, with the sub-heading “Harold Stassen, War-Monger,” dis- sected Stassen's address. The text is much too long and much too confused to repeat intact. But since people holding the views of Father Duffy were generally not represented at M.I.T.’s Convocation, or at any rate were not heard, it seems proper to include here enough of what he said so that these views can be presented in this book. Quoting the paragraph to which this footnote is attached and for the moment paraphrasing Stassen, Father Duffy went on: “Two years ago, the same Harold Stassen with his hat in the ring for the Presidency of the United States, was endeavouring to sell to the American people the proposition that they could ‘do business with Stalin’ and that capitalism could coexist and flourish with that same Communism which he now finds such a threat. Since then neither Stalin nor Communism have changed in any respect but world conditions have changed in a manner that is alarming and threatening both to capitalism and the “business’ interests whose God is money and whose morality is conditioned by the latter.” Duffy then goes on to comment on Stassen's proposal for China aid as follows: Harold Stassen 425 Our first concern is not to be for places to hide. Our approach should not be one of either hysteria or resignation. Rather must we be determined that we will win through for freedom, that we will rebuild, we will go on, whate'er may come." Before turning our eyes to the future, we gain perspective if we re- call that when this century began fifty years ago, man had never “In the northern part of China, the people have come into their own after centuries of oppression and exploitation at the hands of the feudal mandarin, landlord class and, later, at the hands of European and American leeches. At last they own and can use the land which God made for their use and needs. The exploiters have moved south, or in some cases, east, and now Mr. Stassen, the protagonist of freedom, is advocating that the United States save one of the foulest economic and political systems in the world for the benefit of the native and foreign, British and U. S., bloodsuckers and exploiters of the Chinese people. “Mr. Stassen called for a MacArthur Plan in Asia patterned after the Marshall Plan in Europe which he described as the ‘most significant single thing we have done since the end of the war.’ To date the Marshall Plan in Europe has pro- vided Europeans with plenty of U. S. cigarettes, U. S. processed or packed coffee, U. S. powdered milk, U. S. chemically bleached white flour, U. S. canned foods preserved with chemicals, U. S. products of various kinds that are, like the afore- mentioned things, harmful to the health of the human being or to the soil from which he should get his food, and U. S. heavy machinery that disrupts the small farm economy of most European countries and that will eventually pauperize them, overwork and destroy their soil and its fertility. “It has, of course, provided Americans with employment and thus, in con- junction with the huge rearmament program, staved off an otherwise inevitable depression. For that reason it is supported by labor leaders who care very little what happens to Europe as long as union dues-paying members are kept con- tented in the cities as earning wage-slaves under an unjust and un-Christian economic system that has deprived and dispossessed them of their God-given birth-rights. “It has done exactly nothing and does not intend to do anything to help Eu- ropeans to become economically free and self-supporting. “The land of Western Europe is still either in the hands of the feudal landlord class, or, as in the United States, still awaits equitable distribution. “The natural resources of Western Europe, like the natural resources of the United States, are still in the wrongful hands of private, exploiting interests . . . “Western Europe is being organized by the United States under the Marshall Plan and the Atlantic Pact for another and more devastating war to bolster laissez-faire capitalism founded on a promoting un-Christian selfishness, greed and exploitation. “The war to save laissez-faire capitalism may, in spite of Mr. Stassen's judgment, be the end not only of this un-Christian civilisation but of the world. . . .” These passages admittedly throw little light on Stassen's argument but they have been included as one suggestion of why it was believed that people of Father Duffy's political and social beliefs could not be expected to add much to the discussions of the two days. 7 In much briefer words than those of Father Duffy (footnote 6), The Enter- prise and Times (Brockton, Mass.), April 4, 1949, approved these words: “These are valiant sentiments, typically American. The world has had many wars; too many. Civilization has moved forward. Man, the author of it, will not be exterminated while he keeps his faith in a higher destiny.” 426 Store of Future flown. The first, feeble, fascinating flight by Orville Wright occurred in 1903. Man at the turn of the century moved heavily over land and slowly over sea. Thus handicapped, food moved with difficulty, lands were tilled laboriously. In the first decade of this century many, many millions of people died of starvation and of plagues. I need not speak of today's non-stop, refueled aerial circling of the world, of many flights at speeds above 500 miles an hour, of some faster than sound, of communication by radio covering the globe every day, of the rapid increase in the transmission of visual messages via television, of production—mass production—and its amazing totals, of medical science and its conquest of major epidemics. What then of the future? Should we not contemplate as a minimum, readily available non-stop travel to any point in the world, communication of message and of picture everywhere, and new developed sources of energy re- moving old limitations of fuel and of transport? Clearly the physical facts today, and in increasing degree the pro- jection of these facts, mean that our thinking must be world-wide. And our thinking must give more consideration than ever before to the fundamental nature of man and the way in which he should live. This philosophic approach has greater validity than either an eco- nomic, social, military or political approach, for it affects all these, and Imore too. I talk of world-wide, fundamental concepts with humility, with hesitation. But I do hope that I may in some degree stimulate and pro- voke others, through disagreement and agreement, through modifica- tion and amendment, through correction and projection, to contribute a larger measure to the unending dynamic process of thinking our way through to the course we should follow. It is my view that there are in the world three major streams of philosophic thought as to the nature of man and the way in which he should live. Each is many centuries old. None is held purely and com- pletely by any numerically appreciable group of the people on the earth. Each has felt the cross-impact of the other. Each has received impetus, direction, modification from geographic and anthropological fact, from experience and circumstances, from scholarship, and from religion. - The correct evaluation of these three streams, and the appropriate development of policies at home and abroad, are of greater importance for the next half century than any other intellectual pursuit. These are the three. Harold Stassen 427 The concept of the natural rights of man, that he was meant to be free, of his inherent worth and dignity, of his spiritual quality, of his relationship to God, and of his brotherhood to fellow man. The concept of the subordinate status of man to man, of his possess- ing rights only as they are given to him by those in command of the society in which he lives, of might making right, of man's value limited to his material being, with no recognition of his spiritual value, and no God. The concept of man's little worth, indifference to his rights and wel- fare, of mystical and primary concern for the hereafter, of life as a vale of tears or a period of suffering, of devotion to a rigid religion and callousness to the conditions of living. These three might be termed the doctrines of the free and equal man, of the subservient and atheistic man, and of the apathetic and lowly man. Or they might be labelled the concepts of: liberty of man; order for man; and indifference to man. Each has a diverse and ancient background. None is held and imple- mented concisely and completely by any peoples. There are some shreds of evidence of the welling up of the first stream of natural rights in the misty glimpses of the earliest history of civilization when the workers on the pyramids and on the drainage projects of the ancient Nile Valley demanded that not only Pharaoh’s Court, but the workers too were entitled to the right to worship Ra, the Sun God, and receive the benefits therefrom, rather than to be limited to the worship of Osiris, God of the Earth and Underground. In any event the flow is clearly evident when we come to ancient Athens, in the writings of Socrates and Plato and Aristotle with their unfold- ing views of justice and of law. It is given major impetus by Christian- ity, in some respects by Judaism, and traces its development to the constitutionalism of ancient Rome, to Magna Charta, to Locke, to the founders of our own United States, to the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, to Jefferson and to Lincoln. This philosophy of the nature of man, as you recognize, has had predominant influence upon the governmental, economic and social systems of the Western civilization, of nearly all the nations of Europe, of the British Commonwealth of Nations, of the United States of America, and has had a considerable impact in all other portions of the world. The second stream, that of materialism and force, is noted in part in the Sophists and Epicureans of ancient Greece, and is traced through 428 Store of Future the seventeenth century French materialists, through Hobbes, through Hegel and Feuerbach of Germany, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Lenin, Hitler and Stalin. It is of import now in the ruling groups in Russia and her satellites, in Spain, and Portugal, and Argentina, and in the North of China. The third stream, that of indifference, springs from the earliest East- ern religions; and although in their theology they place high value on the life of man, yet the extreme mysticism and aesthetic emphasis of the beauty of a spiritual hereafter, when coupled with the poverty and want of overcrowded destitution, cause the principal current religions of Asia and the East—Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Moham- medanism—to contribute largely to this stream. This philosophy, as you recognize, is of key significance in all of Asia, including China, Burma, India, Malaya, Pakistan, and also in Africa. I recognize that a question may arise as to relating Hitler and Stalin, Nazism and Communism, to the same philosophic stream. But I reply that the attitudes in both instances toward the nature of man and his rights are closely identified, that the bitter clashes in doctrinal state- ment, and the war between them, rose from their proximity to each other as major, mutually suspicious powers, rather than from any fundamental ideological difference, and that the führer principle of Hitler's system, and the centralism of Stalin's system, and the whole approach of ruthless domination and cold-blooded liquidation of those with whom they differed, were of the same cloth. Some may also question the inclusion of Hindu and Moslem, bitter in their clash with each other, in the third category together. But their fanatic hostility toward each other is confirmation of the mystic and rigid beliefs and callousness toward mortal life, rather than a negation of it. I say to you tonight, I have a deep and abiding faith that the first stream of philosophic thought, that of inherent right of liberty, is cor- rect as to the nature of man. I believe it points the way for policy and for action in the confusion and clash which have arisen so soon and so sharp in the wake of World War II. I am confident it can be the basis for winning through toward the true objectives of mankind. It presents laws as true universally for all men, as are the laws of physical science which we know are valid, even though many men do not recognize or believe them. We should understand its own dynamic, living qualities and our constant effort should be to improve the implementation of that philos- Harold Stassen 429 ophy in economic and social and political systems, and endeavor un- ceasingly and skillfully, and by peaceful means, to increase the ad- herence to it in the other portions of the world. We should further seek to improve our system with the aid of the constructive value of the bitter criticism of its economic and social shortcomings made by those who hold the opposing materialistic philosophy. And finally we ought to enrich our doctrine by the more highly developed sense of beauty and by a measure of the tranquillity of those who hold the concept of mystical indifference. In applying our broad theory to specific, hard problems in definite terms, there may be many here tonight who, though they have traveled with me thus far, will part company with me on specific suggestions. Nevertheless broad generalizations are of little value unless we give them this specific application through proposals for definite actions in the problems that are before us. If my analysis of the major stream of philosophic view motivating the Communist leadership of Russia and her satellites is correct, then it definitely indicates that their appraisal of relative force will be the key influence restraining or encouraging their aggression. Holding as a fundamental idea the denial of any higher concept of justice or moral- ity, they believe that someone will rule by force and from their stand- point it had better be them. This means in turn that no voluntary release of power over others can be anticipated, no voluntary yielding of human rights, no granting of freedoms, unless compelled by the pressure of internal or external, impending or applied force.” Relating this inescapable situation to the specific China problem, we must conclude, that by our inaction and by our withdrawal of aids, we are foolhardy to thus contribute to the Communist domination of China. We should move, and move promptly, to bolster the southern half of China, to assist by materials and by counsel in maintaining the in- dependence of Canton, and of the four southern provinces of Kwan- tung, Kwangsi, Fukien, Hunan, and of Formosa and Hong Kong.” * This gives the answer to Father Duffy (footnote 6). It is useless, in the minds of more and more people of the Western World, to try to lead Russia by example. Stassen is not here, as later portions of the address will show, urging an active application of force to Russia to persuade her to “grant freedoms.” He does urge an unrelenting defense of those freedoms which exist so that they shall not go under, and then relies on the gradual process of infiltration of information to persuade the Russian people some day to supply an internal as opposed to an external pressure. ° In the nine months between the address and press-time only Hong Kong and Formosa remain anything but academic, and the situation continues from our point of view to deteriorate. 430 Store of Future And giving due consideration to European needs and to our own total economic situation and capacity, we should regularly invest a portion of our resources in Asia for the resistance to Communism. The amount should be a minimum, as I see it now, of a billion dollars a year. It should be administered on an Asia-wide approach; I am not proposing a China program, Japan program, Burma program—an Asia- wide approach, preferably in relation to local provinces and individual projects and in underwriting private endeavor, rather than being fun- nelled through any central, major government. Clearly the Marshall Plan in Europe has been the most significant single right thing we have done since the end of the war and, as you know, I supported that from its very beginning and before that. And I say tonight it is high time that we have a parallel American Mac- Arthur Plan in Asia. Supported in a major way, it should be long-term in its vision, adjusted to oriental conditions, continuous in its execution, carrying the same flexibility of detailed application, and the same high concept of objectives and requirement of self-help as the Marshall Plan.10 If we are further right in our philosophic view, then it follows that men everywhere have the right to know the facts and information and ideas from other parts of the world. An individual can pull down a curtain for his own privacy, but no ruler has the right to drop a curtain and close off men from communication with their fellow men, and that, sir, was the great principle, one of the greatest principles of the speech of Fulton. The program represented by the “Voice of America,” there- fore, should be greatly expanded and ingeniously multiplied. Not only messages by radio, but in addition the widespread dissemination of printed literature giving facts and information and ideas, should be carried forth. I am informed by men who know, who have the tech- nical competence, that such literature can with comparative ease be scattered broadcast over closed borders by means of drifting balloons, or from high-flying airplanes during favorable winds. There needs to be a continuous, widespread, dramatic program of printed messages from free men to all mankind. You know, in fact, one of my friends sug- gested the dropping of a few Sears, Roebuck catalogues should be in- 10 This Stassen China plan, one of the most concrete proposals for action to come out of the Convocation (but see also Ryckmans, page 149, Compton, pages 28–31, etc.), naturally received the widest comment in the press. For the most part the press was friendly to the objective but dubious as to the practicability of the method. The extended comment is reported in Appendix L. Harold Stassen 431 cluded in the literature from the sky.” Of course, we are actually dis- cussing messages and literature of much wider significance than that of consumer goods production. I am proposing that we vigorously con- test for the minds of men everywhere. If methods such as these of sending material over borders seem contrary to ancient rules of diplomatic respect for borders, let me emphasize that when officials of governments constantly pour out vitri- olic attacks on free peoples, and that is all they pour out to their own people, the remedy is not that of trying to block their free speech. The remedy is not infringement upon the right of assembly to hear this party line whether it be in New York or Newark within free countries. Rather our doctrine indicates that the response should be wide dis- semination of information. The peoples in Russia and the satellite coun- tries should be continuously told of our views and intentions, firmness and objectives, of our desires for peace, of the facts of the rest of the world. We should apply for support from the minds of the peoples in these dictatorially governed nations. The internal pressures for freedom and for peace that will come from a well-informed people within these countries can be just as important as the deterrent of our own potential counter-acting military force that is available in the event of war. These are times without parallel, and we must ingeniously develop a way in which to carry on the contest of ideas. Winning that contest will be the best assurance that there need not be a grim struggle by military force. Some men have turned to materialism at a number of points in history when faced with widespread abuses which denied in practice the phi- losophy of liberty and equality which was professed. The present sway of this coercive materialistic concept is directly traceable to reaction against the autocracy of the Czars, to the monopolies and unfairness to labor in early capitalism, to the neglect of the responsibility of brotherhood by our West after World War I. Above all its present ex- tent has been due to the cruel measures of force used by those cold calculators who seized power under its doctrine. Throughout recorded history men, after listening to the exponents of this philosophy of order dictated over humanity, have repeatedly rejected it in their minds and struggled on for more individual liberty.” And I say the plain people will reject it again. They will reject it in Russia, they will reject it in Eastern Europe, if we but give them the chance by pursuing dynamic, humanitarian policies, by sending them the facts, by maintaining alert 11 Stassen's reference to this companion of the American home obviously puzzled Mr. Churchill as he sat on the platform. 12 See W. S. Churchill “peoples in bondage need never despair,” page 60. 432 Store of Future and adequate military strength, and by never surrendering through the jelly-like course of appeasement. Of marked interest in this whole affair has been the recent conduct of peoples dominated by the third stream of indifference, and their rapid response to any ray of hope of better life on earth. The favor- able changes in Turkey and in the Philippines are recent confirmations of this. Thus I am encouraged to say that the story of man gives renewed and deeper faith in the inherent truth of our philosophy of the native worth of man, that he was meant to be free upon this globe. Now it is likewise imperative that we improve the application of our own philosophy to our own social, economic and political systems. Cer- tainly the violations of civil rights, the discriminations and repressions of bigotry, which are too numerous in our country, are directly contrary to the philosophy to which we subscribe. There must be a steady in- sistence upon progress in this respect. It would be tragic if this session of Congress adjourned without at least passing the anti-lynch and anti- poll tax measures. Major progress must be made in this direction with regard for those portions of our population which have suffered dis- crimination in their opportunities for education, in facilities of better health, and in decent housing. Our concept of the nature of man is further guidance, though in a very different manner, in our economic and social policy. It means that those policies taken as a whole should contribute to the rounded de- velopment, the creative capacity, the worthwhile character and the true happiness of man. The objectives of our economic policies, therefore, must not be limited by the materialistic principle of meeting to the maximum degree the physical wants of man. It is undoubtedly true that if government were to take over the distribution of all the food of the nation, at least in theory it could deliver a packaged assigned amount of food to every household every day at less expense than now in- volved. It is equally true, in theory, that if government took over the distribution of all the clothing of the country, it could deliver to every person every year allocated clothing at less expense than clothing now costs. The same observation could be applied to other necessities of life. Let me make it clear that from a strictly material approach I believe that the result of such an attempt would in fact be the loss of interest in production, lower supplies and the failure to attain the material Utopia outlined. But entirely apart from the question of the successful production of material returns, do you not agree that removing from the individual Harold Stassen 433 both the privilege and the responsibility of planning for the provision of necessities, of making choices, of budgeting earnings, of weighing relativities, would result in the end in a people of less resourcefulness, less value of personality, less happiness, less strength of character?” Thus I feel the economic socialists are departing from the basic phil- osophic stream in which we would move. Their concentration upon attempted material service to the many, with disregard for the indi- vidual rights and opportunities of the few who are especially talented in various fields, negates the basic tenets of our way of life. The concept of the natural rights of each man must give rise to a constitutional system that protects man against oppression by the tyran- nical rule of a single ruler, or by a clique of rulers, or by an unbridled majority itself. Is it not clear that each aspect of the system should serve the many and the few? It should yield dividends in standards of living, in education, and enjoyment, to the many, but it should also keep open the avenues of opportunity for the few who stand out in each category. Such a system should safeguard minorities of whatever kind, and more particularly should be so constituted as to keep open the road for the talented few to develop and use their unusual talents. If under the im- petus of a short-sighted response to numbers in a democracy, or in a revolt against the oppression of rulers, economic, social and political systems are directed only towards fruits for the many, the result will be a deteriorating mess of mediocrity. The great artist, the inventor, the skilled surgeon, the exceptional scientist, the ingenious engineer, the keen financier, the gifted production manager, the designer, the crafts- man, the scholar, each should find his path blocked by no insurmount- able artificial obstacles, no excessive man-made handicaps, and each should have before him the fullest of incentives. 18 Many units of the press approved this, of course. Typical was The New Hampshire Morning Union (Manchester), April 6, 1949: “History has proven this statement true again and again. . . . “This issue is not something that applies only to Communism. We see it in the steady movement toward socialization and government control today right here in the United States. The scales are being set against individual freedom and in- itiative, and unless the American people awake they will be destroyed. “The steady march of socialism leads only to one goal—government absolutism and the stultification of freedom. Here is the real issue of the next 50 years. If we believe with Stassen that the inherent right of liberty is correct as to the nature of man, our supreme task is to protect and defend it.” A number of papers said that these remarks of Stassen's were the first by an important Republican leader since Mr. Hoover's in 1932 which categorically de- nied the virtues of New Deal economy and which refrained from promising the same general benefits only at a lower cost in taxes. 434 Store of Future The unfolding genius of each of these in a desirable system will in turn yield great dividends to the many, yes, to all. The general attitude of the economic total-socialists of “bringing it to the people,” can clearly be overdone. As Toynbee reports, all of history shows that civilizations may deteriorate or abort or ossify when they meet enervating, dissipating conditions, or when they encounter ad- versity too extreme to surmount. There is every indication, from the ancient Egyptian civilization of 6,000 years ago down to modern West- ern civilization, that a challenge of sufficient nature, but not obliterating in its weight, leads to the most significant development and response. Do not the studies of individual human nature indicate a similar rule? The capacities, of course, are varied, but in relationship to potentiality, a challenge of some adversity and stimulus, not stifling in amount, de- velops stronger personality, a happier individual, than does either crushed subservience or blissful lassitude. To me this means that at- tempts to establish a breakfast-in-bed economy for the citizens, is a sad mistake both for the people and for the nation. Our unending effort should be to ease those overwhelming burdens which are beyond the capacity of individual man to bear, but we must leave the major normal provision for man's own livelihood and future up to him, himself. In our economic relationships with those who are of the third major conceptual stream, that of indifference and mysticism, we should seek to stimulate, and to contribute toward, the improvement of the very low standards of living in these areas, and at the same time to demon- strate, and lead toward, a higher appraisal of human life. Too often has the Western world been willing to profit by that low appraisal of native human life in the exploitation of colonial resources, instead of demon- strating a higher value for life. You know, there is a small grain of truth in the fictional story of the American investor in dependent-area re- sources who plaintively exclaimed, “I’m perfectly willing to educate my native workers, but I am afraid that the first lesson learned will be to demand a raise in wages.” The Dutch in the East Indies, the French in Indo-China are at this time particularly subject to censure for exploita- tion practices. All of us need to think through our basic policy in de- pendent areas in the Near East, in Africa and in Asia, and harmonize those policies with our fundamental doctrine of the nature of man. A greater portion of the returns from the resources of these territories should be retained there for direct and constructive purpose, utilizing the superb experience of Western civilization, for the advancement of the native peoples, for their education, their health, for increase of their Harold Stassen 435 production of goods, and of the general raising of their standards of living. You will note I have listed education as the first of the various contributions which I urge toward these dependent people. I know that some will say, pointing to the near starvation of many millions in Asia, that food, food sufficient to place them above the miserable subsistence level, should have top and almost exclusive priority. But I submit that if only the supply of food is raised without an advance in education in its broadest cultural sense, without instilling a higher morality, and without an elevated emancipated status for women,” the only result of more food will be a larger population, a larger population to exist at the same level of destitution and misery. If man is to make a significant ascent, the cultural, educational, ethical side must be lifted at the same time that the food and material production totals are increased.* This requires the development by Western nations, with the aid of the Trusteeship portions of the United Nations Charter, of a world-wide code of conduct for capital abroad. Excessive risks for this capital must at the same time be underwritten by society as a whole, to remove the need or excuse for excessive profit and exploitation.” In a very brief space of time there have come major indications of an amazing development flowing out of the independence of Israel, not only affecting the growth of resources and advancing conditions of living, not only in the new nation, but in addition causing a construc- tive stirring in neighboring Arab states. Someone could well say that there cannot be a bright prospect for world peace whatever happens in these issues and programs we have been discussing and for progress of mankind unless a mechanism of government is developed on a world level to administer the natural rights of man, to adjudicate differences between peoples, to stabilize and police world situations. And of course this objection is right. And it is constructive to urge this necessity. But as we analyze the three philosophies I have described, it must appear crystal clear that no major portion of the world that follows the materialistic concept of the nature of man can be included, or will permit itself to be included, in a world administrative machinery unless that apparatus be one dom- inated by a concept of force. Furthermore, in all major component * Eleanor Roosevelt, speaking at the 75th Anniversary Convocation of Smith College on October 20, reported Prime Minister Nehru as stating that India would advance in just the measure that it succeeded in improving the status of its women. * On this point, see both Chapters Iv and v, and in particular the remarks of Notestein and Tizard. But see also Contreras, page 263. 16 See the proposals of Ryckmans to the same effect, page 149. 436 Store of Future parts, unless there is the concept of a higher justice, of natural rights of man, with the self-restraint and the self-discipline that come with it, it is difficult to see how a world structure for administration over all men can be successfully maintained. This means that we had better develop the lesser agencies and commissions and courts and arbitration systems and the regional approach in the Atlantic community in Europe, in the broader community of those who move in our philosophic stream, and make an effort to expand this similar concept to other parts of the world. And as a part of this growth we should note the vital necessity for a currency, or medium of exchange, which with reasonable speed and stable convertibility could be the helpful agent for the movement of goods and services between peoples. There must be unceasing con- centration upon this major task in the Atlantic community and beyond. It may well be found, with the internal problems that exist as to all national currencies, that an impelling need exists for the establishment of a Bank of the Atlantic. Such a Bank of the Atlantic may well find that it needs to issue an appropriate currency, backed in part by gold, available for those many circumstances in which direct exchange of na- tional currencies is no longer feasible. The United Nations Charter has within itself the means for strength- ening and developing its provisions in all essential respects on the world level. Our government and other governments should appoint commis- sions to address themselves to the many complicated and difficult prob- lems that will be involved in establishing a minimum of effective gov- ernment at a future time at a world level. Obviously in its present form, riddled with vetoes and weakened by lack of police power, the United Nations is sadly inadequate to meet its own high purposes. But I would nevertheless caution that we must not underestimate its value, even in its present weak form. Without such an organization, limited though it be, so clear an understanding of the devious and dis- torted and dangerous policies of the Politburo of Russia could not have been acquired so quickly by the overwhelming majorities of the peoples of the world. It is a result of the Town Hall of the world. Without it economic recovery from the damage of war could not have moved forward as rapidly as it has. Without it Israel today would not be a free and developing state, substantially at peace. Without it we already would have lost the lingering hope of peace with freedom and justice on the earth! Harold Stassen 437 Each session of the United Nations and each of its committees and bodies should be looked upon as an opportunity for a serious, thought- ful, informative discussion of these subjects. And clearly our whole education in the years ahead must convey to our youth an understanding of each of these philosophies, of their mani- festations, their meanings, their mechanisms. This can best occur through the development of general education conducted with true academic freedom. We should not attempt to indoctrinate our youth with narrow zeal for America as it is, but rather to open the avenues for personal growth, develop the broad understanding of our basic con- cepts, instill a deep appreciation of the progress our country has made in relationship to those truths, and of the progress others have made, and encourage a determination to use the avenues of peaceful change through democracy for constantly improving our America and the lot of all mankind. On that road lies, for our youth, the noncorroding, in- telligent, effective, satisfying love of America, which we all want our young men and young women to possess. Ladies and Gentlemen, of course, we have not attained the ideals marked out by this warm humanitarian philosophy. For true ideals, springing from a great philosophy, are like the stars in the heavens. You cannot ever reach them with your hands, but if you understand them and see their location, they will guide you aright. Such ideals are as valuable as aids to navigation through the social, economic and political troubles of the day, as are the stars in the heavens for navigation over the sea, or through the air, or across the desert. As Browning wrote so optimistically, so beautifully, Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for? 17 We seek for mankind a better life, a more fruitful life, a happier life. An ever deeper understanding of our dynamic philosophy of life, with an unending determination and unfaltering courage to apply it, can lead, yes, I believe will lead, to a brilliant half century now opening before mankind. :: :k >k :}: :}; Mr. Stassen's address completed the last formal event on the Con- vocation program. But there were still a few friendly gestures to per- form. Accordingly, Dr. Compton came again to the rostrum and said: 17 See Robert Browning's, “Andrea del Sarto,” lines 97 and 98. 438 Store of Future “President Stassen, we thank you very much for bringing to us in this closing session of our Convocation such a message of optimism and in- spiration, for you have given us some great challenges, you have set us some great goals, and to men of courage and good will a challenge and a goal is an inspiration to accomplishment. “And now I am going to call on two of my associates to express the feelings of appreciation on the part of our student body and of our ad- ministration to the great statesman from overseas who has visited us on this occasion. I’ll call first on Mr. Kirchner for a presentation from our student body, and then on President Killian for a presentation from our administration.” Mr. Churchill, President Killian and student Otto Kirchner rose to- gether and met at the rostrum. Mr. Kirchner spoke first, holding for- ward as he did the gold key of M.I.T., “Mr. Churchill, the students of M.I.T. would like to extend to you an expression of good will and fellowship as a participant in our Mid-Cen- tury Convocation. In commemoration of this event, a golden key has been specially poured bearing the likeness of our M.I.T. beaver. So, on behalf of the undergraduate subcommittee for the Convocation and the M.I.T. student body, I should like to extend this gold key to you, sir, in remembrance of an occasion which to us will always have a deep and lasting significance.” Before Mr. Churchill replied, President Killian in turn conferred his award in the following words: “Mr. Churchill, you have made a scholarly contribution to the M.I.T. Convocation. More, by your moral force and by your eloquence, you have lifted up our hearts. “We are precluded by policy at M.I.T. from awarding honorary de- grees. Instead, we would like to invite you to be an honorary member of the company of scholars which is M.I.T.” “Mr. Churchill, this appointment as Honorary Lecturer involves no responsibilities or no duties on your part save one—that you permit it to remind you for all time of our delight in having you here and of our appreciation for your contribution to the Convocation. And now may I read the appointment itself. “The Corporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology hereby appoints as Honorary Lecturer 18 Even this honor broke all precedents established over the 88 years of the Institute’s existence. Honorary Lecturer 439 WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL Warrior, statesman, student, and maker of history, defender of democ- racy, who, in two wars has steadily upheld the cause of the free peoples, and who, in his finest hour, so behaved that his name stands engrossed on the tablets of mankind as the twentieth century symbol of resistance to oppression.’” Mr. Churchill, whose honors would, of course, fill many trunks, seemed nonetheless moved. He examined the key and studied the parch- ment. Then he said: “I am off duty tonight. My task was accomplished as well as it lay in my power last night, and tonight I am to receive and have received kindly tokens that at any rate all friendly relations were not at an end. “I have listened with very great pleasure to the thoughtful and power- ful address to which we have listened from President Stassen and I cannot conceal from you that I found myself in agreement with it on very many points of substance and on almost all points of sentiment. “Now on this occasion I have to thank you for two gifts, two presen- tations, which I value very greatly. The first is that I am an honorary lecturer of M.I.T., which means that I can come here whenever I choose and lecture you on any matter which may excite my interest. The second is the presentation to me from the student body by Mr. Kirchner of this golden key. May it always be the means of giving me the feeling and the faith that I have the key to American hearts. “If that should be so and if I may feel that in our own small island across the ocean we have reached conclusions which are in broad har- mony with those of the great republic, we may indeed face the future with confidence and with hope. “And for my part, I have the strongest feeling of gratitude for all the manifestations of kindliness and friendship which I have received. “I carry away from this great gathering sentiments which will enable me for the rest of my life to view in a totally different light the Boston Tea Party, of which I heard in my youth. “And let me here express from the bottom of my heart the gratitude of the British people to the valiant, generous people of the United States for all the part that they are playing in the future world. Let me give my assurance to this great audience, one of the finest I have ever ad- dressed, that without their aid, without their guidance and strength, all the struggles that our soldiers and sailors have made in the war might well be cast away, but that persistency along the lines which 440 Store of Future they have adopted will carry us, may well carry us, through the dangers which lie ahead and may possibly avert from humanity the fearful curse of another war. “I thank you all for the kindness which you have shown me. I don't need a microphone to tell you how deep and great is my regard for my motherland, and I will carry an inspiration from this great gathering back to Britain and I trust, indeed, that we may continue to march shoulder to shoulder along the path of truth, of justice, and of honor.” This concluded Mr. Churchill's remarks. But then in a final Church- illian gesture he turned again and, looking at Major Santelmann, said: “I have one more favor to ask. I should not like to leave here without listening to the United States Marine Hymn . . . if I may, with your permission.”” The band struck up the famous air, played perhaps with as great vigor as it had ever summoned to the playing. Mr. Churchill sang lust- ily, “From the Halls of Montezuma . . . they will find the streets are guarded by United States Marines.” Dr. Compton came again to the rostrum, and said: “We opened this Convocation yesterday afternoon with an Invoca- tion. We will close it with a Benediction. I call on Dean Everett Baker to pronounce it.” As the benediction, Dean Baker said: “God of our fathers, unconquerable urge in men for freedom, spirit prompting man's unending search for truth, the power in men to reason, to seek, to find and ne'er to yield, may what we have said here and what we have thought here in these days and hours together, bind us into one community of hope who shall think and strive and toil in such patterns that work of more noble worth may yet be done. It is not too late to seek a newer world. Our purpose holds to dare and to do, to alter and effect, to recreate ourselves and the common life of men and nations after goals of good beheld in every mount of vision. For all that we have here gained that others through us may benefit, for new images of 19 Behind Churchill's request lay a human-interest story. When plans were being laid, the Chairman had cabled Churchill asking him to name any music he would especially like to have the Marine Band play. One of the few pieces named was the Marine Hymn. Major Santelmann, the conductor, had complied with all the rest of the requests but had told the Chairman that he could not play the Hymn on this occasion as it would seem presumptuous to the audience. Church- ill learned of this only as he sat next to the Chairman on the platform, Friday evening. When he also learned the reason, he began gesturing to Major Santel- mann. The conductor surely understood what was in Churchill's mind, but re- mained poker-faced. Finally, Churchill said, “Well, I can arrange it.” This was the way he arranged it. Postlude 441 hope, for all our relations of privilege and of duty, for the grand con- cerns of all our days and years, we speak our thanks. May the work of our hands be informed by these purposes of our hearts and kindly deeds speak forth the light within. Amen.” The Mid-Century Convocation was at an end. There remained the culminating Inauguration on the following day. CHA PTE R X The Obligations and Ideals of an Institute of Technology ABITS die hard. M.I.T. men are used to moving through their Hbuildings ever under cover and only the newer graduates are used to grass and rhododendrons. These daily habits are be- lieved by most to have assisted materially in the close coöperation which exists between departments, and this is good. But they have also influenced the habits of celebrations. Until the Rockwell Cage was completed, in 1948, there was no place on the Institute grounds where a large assemblage could be held un- der cover even on a temporary basis. For many years, therefore, the commencement exercises, for example, were held in Symphony Hall, well along Massachusetts Avenue, over the Charles River in Boston, too far away from M.I.T. for an academic procession to march." Facul- 1 Members of the Class of 1923 will well recall, however, how they marched in academic garb all the way from M.I.T. to Symphony Hall on the occasion of their graduation and the Inauguration of President Samuel W. Stratton. There have been other notable outdoor pageants at M.I.T. but not many. When the Institute moved from Boston to Cambridge in 1916, for example, there were pageants and parades in high style, including a great barge, the Bucentaur, which anchored in the Charles River basin after a rough passage from Manchester. The barge had been built in W. B. Calderwood’s Manchester shipyard and was towed on its two-hour maiden voyage to Boston. [The Bucentaur was a reproduction of the vessel in which the Doges of Venice were accustomed to sail on the Adriatic for the annual ceremony of “Wedding the Sea.” For these occasions the state galley, which later acquired the name of Bucentaur, was a barge richly decorated with sculptures of gold and silver. The last one, built in 1729, was used till 1789 when it was destroyed by the French for the gold contained in the elaborate sculptures.] On Tuesday evening, June 13—the second day of the 1916 Alumni dedication re- union—the Bucentaur with the President, the faculty and Institute records aboard, set sail from the Boston side of the Charles and with due ceremony arrived at the new buildings on the Cambridge bank. A three-day reunion concluded on Wednesday, June 14, with a Dedication in the Great Court and addresses by President Maclaurin, Governor McCall and President Lowell of Harvard and the address of the day by Henry Cabot Lodge, Senior Senator from Massachusetts. That evening there was a banquet at Symphony Hall. “Price $6.00; balcony 442 Prelude 443 ties and trustees robed a few feet from the platform and reached the stage without panoply or pomp. Only the recession went down the aisle and was visible to the audience. This was convenient and comfortable, if less impressive and pleasurable than an outdoor affair. But many people at M.I.T. had for years longed to use the Great Court for its larger meetings; experience at other institutions showed that this could not safely be undertaken until there was an indoor al- ternative for the days when the heavens let down. Now there was such an alternative. - Nonetheless risks which might be taken in June in Boston become greater, too great, if they have to be taken in April. The weather then can be cold or windy as well as wet; it may even snow. The Inaugura- tion of President Killian had to be held indoors and in the Cage. The only question was whether the procession should be out-of-doors, should form in the main buildings and advance across Massachusetts Avenue, or should form in tents near the Cage and, following the M.I.T. habit, proceed under cover of canvas all the way to the hall. This was the subject of substantial debate.” In the long run the romantics won. The weather was to be risked. A robing tent was to be provided by funds, some of which might other- wise have gone into insurance premiums; and if the weather were foul the procession could march under cover. In the event, the romantics proved right, as is so often the case. It did not rain. The sky was high and sunny. A slight wind blew to whip the gowns of the marchers. It was warm enough. Nature smiled on the Convocation and Inauguration to the end. The Inauguration Committee had arranged a somewhat complicated assembly procedure in the interest of allowing the Senior Class, which also marched in the procession, to see some of the color of the parade. These complications did not confuse. What the public saw was a single t portico of the Rogers Building which faces Massachusetts Avenue, crossing Massachusetts Avenue, and proceeding on a diagonal walk to the Rockwell Cage. The order of march was that common to such ceremonies. Many foreign delegates added the color which goes with their unusual gowns but the hoods ~~~~~~~~4 or ~~~~~~~~~ ſ--~~~~ +/-, - *** * are JL VV-V-2 ºl\-Will W->ll lº-el 51115 Jill V1.1.1 Cliº, 5* V. Cl seats for women and other guests $1.00. Balcony seats wired for telephone. Speaking, marvellous demonstration of trans-continental telephone service . . .” was the way the souvenir program described the climax of the 1916 celebrations. [In the Ziegfeld Follies, 1915, the feature song was “Hello, Frisco, Hello,” ED.] * Faculties are not different from other humans. Sometimes the opinions held in matters of this sort are more vigorous than those in what would appear to be more important matters. 444 Inauguration of the American delegates were brilliant enough. It was a long and handsome procession. There are those who argue that a modern institution of technology should abandon its medieval ceremonial garb. There are others who feel that it is seldom enough anywhere, let alone in an institution of science and engineering, that one has any tangible reminders of the connections to the past. The history of academic garb is long and honorable. The costumes must have caused some to reflect on the sig- nificance of a seven-hundred-year continuum, reaching from Dr. Bruno Rossi, representing the University of Padua (1222), Sir Richard Living- stone of Oxford University (1249), Professor John Fleetwood Baker of Cambridge University (1850), Francis C. Coulter for Dublin Univer- sity (1591), and President James Bryant Conant of Harvard University (1686), to the President of an important new addition to the Boston educational family, Abram Leon Sachar of Brandeis University (1948). Of all the distinguished guests of the preceding two days, only one had departed. Winston Churchill had left the night before and just as the procession began its march was boarding the Queen Mary for re- turn to his duties in the United Kingdom. The Rockwell Cage managed to look very different from its appear- ance on Convocation days. The great platform was now peopled with delegates from 171 universities and colleges and 41 learned societies and associations, and with the entire faculty of M.I.T. Before this mass of gowned and hooded scholars were six chairs for those who were to bring greetings, and others for the Chief Marshal, for a minister of the gospel, for the Chairman of M.I.T.’s Corporation and for the man who was to be inducted as M.I.T.'s tenth president. In the back of the hall, the Concert Band of the Massachusetts In- stitute of Technology, led by John Dean Corley, Jr., played the proces- sional.” The delegates, faculty and speakers took their seats. The Na- tional Anthem was played. Charles George Dandrow, member of the class of 1922, President of the Alumni Association, Chief Marshal of * The musical program: Chorale Wachet auf Bach Suite from Royal Fireworks Music Handel Overture Bourrée Siciliano Allegro Chorale from Act 1, Die Meistersinger Wagner Processionals: Military March Beethoven Pomp and Circumstance No. 4 Elgar Recessional: Crown Imperial Walton Karl Compton 445 the day, called the assembly to order. The Reverend William Brooks Rice, Minister of the Unitarian Society of Wellesley Hills, delivered the Invocation. Dr. Karl Taylor Compton, Chairman of the Corporation, came to the lectern and spoke as follows: KARL TAYLOR COMPTON It is my great privilege to welcome you on behalf of the Corporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. By your presence you honor us. Your presence and friendly interest are more than a symbol of our common faith in the great values of scientific progress and sound education; they are a positive source of encouragement and inspira- tion to this institution, and especially to the man who today assumes the principal responsibility for its active leadership. During the past two days we have had laid before us a most exciting analysis of the achievements, the trends and the unsolved problems which face our civilization at this mid-century. I use the word “excit- ing” advisedly, for it is the nature of men of intelligence and goodwill to become stimulated to greater accomplishment when they can see a need, an objective and some promising path toward accomplishment. Over and beyond the many and varied features of the world at the mid-century, which have been so ably outlined for us, there is one common factor which seems to me to stand out as an inevitable con- clusion. It is that our educational institutions are faced as never be- fore with opportunities so great that the very fate of mankind will de- pend on the effectiveness with which they can meet this challenge. It is also clear that neither material progress alone, nor spiritual uplift alone, can suffice: both are essential and both must be wedded to- gether. Some educational institutions may wisely emphasize the mate- rial and others the spiritual, but all must give attention to both if life is to be possible and at the same time worth living. Tho ran corn c. ſov. 4-lair ow-a < zarz ~lan v. A c ox-- ~~~~4-7 l-arov, or ~~~~ novo •l. Jill W. J. W. Cº. ºO WJ.L.Li X Ji. WJ.L. W.J.M. lº Cº., Q. V V v.l. W.J.V./C.J. e - M. C. V. Ull. OVW-el.V.' [. JW-2 W->\_W.L.Li \-21), J.J.L. 1 W.M.L. W. W.2% W.1.1.1 T plex by the growth of population and the increasing interdependence of its parts, ever greater wisdom is necessary at every level. Less and less will mere intuition and offhand judgments suffice; more and more will profound knowledge, far-sighted analysis and skillful operation be required. Wrong decisions may become more catastrophic in their con- sequences, and mistakes arising from ignorance, or from lack of skill or foresight, may be just as disastrous as actions with subversive intent. On the positive side, there are opportunities as never before for con- structive leadership in every area of the natural and social sciences, business administration, labor relations, politics and statesmanship. 446 Inauguration Into such a world we move at the mid-century. These problems and opportunities are the environment with which our educational institu- tions must react usefully if they are to survive, for educational institu- tions are no exception to the basic law of evolution. To them as to all other human contrivances applies the principle enunciated three hundred and fifty years ago by Francis Bacon, when he said that that which man alters not for the better, time, the great innovator, alters for the worse.* Established as an educational institution for the advancement of science and its practical applications, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has never swerved from this objective, but it has had the strength and flexibility continuously to adapt its procedures and vary its emphasis to meet the changing needs and opportunities within this broad charter. And implicit in the purpose to serve society through the advancement and practical applications of science are the inspira- tion, guidance and training of young men and women to carry on this mission. Their abilities, their character, their ideals are the most im- portant products of classroom and research laboratory alike, of faculty contact and student environment. In passing on the responsibility of leadership to its new president, we of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology face the future with confidence and well-founded faith. May I be permitted for a moment to * “. . . Surely every Medicine is an Innovation; And he that will not apply New Remedies, must expect New Evils: For Time is the greatest Innovatour: And if Time, of course, alter Things to the worse, and Wisedome and Counsell shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the End? It is true, that what is setled by Custome, though it be not good, yet at least it is fit. And those Things, which have long gone together, are as it were confederate within them- selves: whereas New Things peece not so well; But though they helpe by their utility, yet they trouble, by their Inconformity. Besides, they are like Strangers; more Admired, and lesse Favoured. All this is true, if Time stood still; which contrariwise moveth so round, that a Froward Retention of Custome, is as tur- bulent a Thing, as an Innovation: And they that Reverence too much Old Times, are but a Scorne to the New. It were good therefore, that Men in their Innova- tions, would follow the Example of Time it selfe; which indeed Innovateth greatly, but quietly, & by degrees, scarce to be perceived: For otherwise, what- soever is New, is unlooked for; And ever it mends Some, and paires Other: And he that is holpen, takes it for a Fortune, and thanks the Time; And he that is hurt, for a wrong, and imputeth it to the Author. It is good also, not to try Experiments in States; Except the Necessity be Urgent, or the utility Evident: And will to beware, that it be the Reformation, that draweth on the Change; And not the desire of Change, that pretendeth the Reformation. . . .” [“Of Innova- tions”; The Essayes of Counsels Civill and Morall of Francis Lord Verulam Viscount St. Alban (Bacon), from the Shakespeare Head edition of The Cresset Press, London, 1928, page 63.] Karl Compton 447 explain this confidence and faith on the basis of my personal ex- perience? When I joined this institution in 1930 I was greatly impressed by its record of accomplishment in technological education and by the re- markable performance of its alumni in the technological professions, in business and industry. I was impressed by the competence of its staff, by the efficiency and objectivity of their performance, by their spirit of loyalty and coöperation, by their quick personal friendships to me and my family. And as I came to know the alumni, and especially the members of the Corporation, I found in them these same precious qualities. The intervening years have been full of emergencies and problems: first the great depression; then the slow recovery; then the great World War; and then the period of reconversion to peace; and now the thres- hold of a new era. Through these vicissitudes the institution has weathered its difficulties and has exploited its new opportunities and has come through stronger than ever before. I am convinced that this successful record is due to several factors. One of these is the complete devotion of administration and staff to their respective duties. Another is the unswerving decision to place service to the public ahead of personal or institutional gain. Above all, there has been clearly proven the essential value of the Institute's pur- pose and performance. I shall be forever grateful for having had the opportunity to be as- sociated with such fine colleagues in such challenging endeavor as has marked the years since 1980. The personal associations and achieve- ments have been rich rewards for all work and worry. These things I mention in part as a public tribute to the Corporation, Faculty, Alumni and friends to whom I owe so much. Among them all, Dr. Killian has been closest in this team. Unfailing in good judg- ment, tireless and efficient in work, skillful in administration, completely loyal and unselfish, and above all, wholly devoted to the Institute and to its ideals of service to the nation and to youth, he assumes office with a very great asset: the intimate acquaintance and the complete respect, confidence and affection of his colleagues. All these things are the reasons for our confidence and faith as we of M.I.T. face the future; we have faith in the social importance of the Institute's objectives; we have faith in the men and the man who will be responsible for its performance; we have confidence in our re- solve to give them the backing required for the job ahead. 448 Inauguration And now I shall proceed, on behalf of the Corporation and as its chairman, to induct into office Dr. James Rhyne Killian, Jr.," as the tenth president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. >k :k >k >k >k Following the induction, James Rhyne Killian, Jr., delivered the Presidential Address. JAMES RHYNE KILLIAN, JR. One of my pleasantest recreations, which I share with my family, is mountain hiking, the climbing of the gentler, more ladylike mountains that one can find in New England. Today, as I stand at the base camp of the Institute's presidency, a rugged mountain but shining, I well remember the observation of George Meredith that in mountain climb- ing every step is a debate between what you are and what you might become. This bracing challenge of the mountain climber heightens my appreciation for the gracious welcome and the good wishes of this great assembly. I also recall the Biblical injunction, “Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off.” “I am sure, however, that you will forgive me a special privilege today if I boast about the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I am proud to express my faith in its mission and in its future. I am proud of my colleagues on the Corporation and on the Faculty. My pride in each of these is but a measure of my respect and my affection for its students, those who are here now in the fullness of youth and those who once were here and now are alumni, forty thousand strong. All these, working together, have been the weavers of brilliant strands of high spirit, high achieve- ment and high ideals, which make up the rich fabric of this institution. To return to my mountain metaphor, no one remains at Technology very long without sensing altitude, the invigorating winds which blow from all quarters, the energizing sunshine of discussion and discovery, the long view. In the administration of this institution I am also proud to be the partner of my predecessor and continuing chief, Karl Compton. He has brought to this institution a heightened concept of public service, a rare unity of purpose and spirit, and a prestige never before equaled. It might be said that Richard Maclaurin brought the Institute its Au- * For a brief biography of Killian, see Biographical Notes, page 520. * I Kings, xx, 11. James Killian 449 gustan age; if so, then Karl Compton has made his presidency its Olympian age. And here may I inject another personal note. If I have any special qualifications for the Institute's presidency, these are largely attribut- able to two men: Vannevar Bush and Karl Compton. Dr. Bush, when he was Vice President and Dean of Engineering, first provided an in- experienced youth new occasions for new duties, and Karl Compton, always the ideal teacher, by example and by selflessness provided an unequaled opportunity for me to practice and acquire some of the methods and the ideals which have made him a great educational ad- ministrator. During the Convocation of the past two days, we have been review- ing the sweep of world problems through a wide-angle lens. Today with the sirens muted, I would like to narrow the field and focus on the obligations and ideals of an institute of technology at this mid- century point. What can an institute of technology do in the second half of the century to advance human welfare, security and peace? How may it best administer to the human spirit? For this purpose, I need first of all to define an institute of tech- nology, and this I can best do by describing the concepts which brought the Massachusetts Institute of Technology into being. M.I.T. opened its doors at the close of the Civil War," at a time when Ameri- can business enterprise and technology were being released for a triumphant sweep across the continent. America needed specialists who could apply scientific principles to industrial processes and who could provide the complex managerial skill to control machine proc- esses. The colleges of that day were not prepared to, or else did not, train these specialists, and so a new power appeared in the educational world, the institutes of technology and then the Land-Grant colleges sired by the Morrill Act.” M.I.T. was one of these institutions. Its = ~!--,-,-,-, aſ 24++ -a++,-,-, }, a 4 .*. º. ** --~~~~~ ::= -4 1-2-ſ---~ +1-2, 1- c.4 +-->44 -2-4------> SCIICIIIC U-1 CU1 ULCal UlOLE Lld Ul IJUCLl Ull d. VV Ll UiO, U U U21U.L C ULIU, lalS L 1111u-celluuly point by William Barton Rogers, professor of natural philosophy at the University of Virginia. Rogers' plan advanced four fundamental prin- ciples, and I would like to enumerate these. First he emphasized the importance of being useful. He had no sympathy with the then prevailing point of view that the practical pro- fessions lacked dignity.” He stressed that vocational studies provide 7 Founded in 1861, it was unable to operate until the fall of 1865; the first class graduated in 1868. 8 For other references to the Morrill Act, see pages 828 and 883. 9 A view which has lost its strength today. See Chapter VII. 450 Inauguration students the inner satisfaction of being able to do something useful and to do it well. He was one of the earliest advocates of what Presi- dent Conant has described as the philosophy of the modern Ameri- can university, “a philosophy hostile to the supremacy of a few tradi- tional vocations, a philosophy moving toward the social equality of all useful labor.”” Next Rogers stressed the educational gain to be derived from build- ing a college program around a professional objective. He recognized that the discipline, the thoroughness and the motivation inherent in the engineering program have great educational value. Rogers' next principle, that of learning by doing, he expressed through the laboratory method of instruction. This idea was not original with him, but in the new Institute he gave it its first extensive, systematic application. In his educational thinking, Rogers always stressed method; he had faith in the scientific method, in the spirit of science and its search for truth. This led him to foresee the far-reaching effects on higher education of the spirit and methods of scientific re- search, the concept which holds that learning thrives best in an atmos- phere not of imitativeness, but of creativeness. And finally, Rogers was single-minded in his belief that learning principles is more important than learning facts. “We believe,” he said, “that the most truly practical education, even in an industrial point of view, is one founded on a thorough knowledge of scientific laws and principles, and which unites with . . . close observation and exact reasoning,” and note this, “a large general cultivation.” ” These concepts of Rogers, later enriched by Francis Amasa Walker, led to the growth of a special type of educational institution, which can be defined as a university polarized around science, engineering and the arts. We might call it a university limited in its objectives but unlimited in the breadth and the thoroughness with which it pursues these objectives. These concepts explain why an institute of technology, as I define it, includes an undergraduate school and a graduate school as coequal parts of a homogeneous faculty. Out of Rogers' plan has evolved a *James Bryant Conant, Education in a Divided World (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1948), page 163. * Objects and Plan of an Institute of Technology, Prepared by Direction of the Committee of Associated Institutions of Science and Arts (Boston, John Wilson and Son, 1860), page 28. The Plan was presented by Professor William B. Rogers at a meeting of “. . . manufacturers, merchants, mechanics, agriculturists, and other friends of enlightened industry in the Commonwealth . . .” interested in the establishment of an Institute of Technology, on October 5, 1860. James Killian 451 school of engineering and applied science working in close association with a school of basic science, each complementary and both enriched by the social and esthetic values of architecture and the humanities. I have reviewed these evolving principles of our founder so that I might today reaffirm them. I believe in them and I propose in the years ahead that we hold fast to them. And now what of the future? The development of an institution, I suggest, is like the printing of a colored print. The first printing lays down the design, as did Rogers for M.I.T. Successive printings create new values, increase the depth, fill in the colors. How may we con- tinue to enrich the design of our institutes of technology so that they may reflect the changing values and needs of our free society? We are faced, I suggest, with three imperatives. First, we must con- tinue the creative contributions which science and engineering can make to modern life. Second, we must educate for professional and social responsibility. Third, we must maintain the freedom and in- dependence of our institutions. Let me take these in order. In his classic report on a national program for science,” Dr. Bush described science as the endless frontier. The primary obligation of our institutes of technology will continue to be the education of men and the conduct of research to keep this frontier endless. As Dr. Compton so convincingly stated on Thursday, new wealth, in the form of new processes, new products and even new industries, is created in the laboratory. We must stress again, however, how im- portant this function is to our prosperity. In our dynamic economy we must constantly create more jobs for more people. We must steadily increase our output per man-hour if we are to have better and cheaper consumer goods along with higher wages.” We must also recognize that science is a national resource out of which we can and must bring replacements and substitutes for de- pleted natural resources. In fact, one of the major responsibilities of science and technology in the years ahead will be the conservation of natural resources and the replacement of scarce materials by equally good or better substitutes. Basic science, applied science and technology are vital factors in meeting all of these requirements of a prosperous economy. * Vannevar Bush, Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Develop- ment, Science, The Endless Frontier; A Report to the President; OSRD (Wash- ington, D. C., U. S. Government Printing Office, 1945). ** Note the analysis of this problem provided by Flanders, page 284. 452 Inauguration They are likewise essential to the maintenance of health. The dis- ease-destroying powers of penicillin were discovered in a university laboratory, and industry mobilized its engineering and technological skills to make it rapidly available to all of our people. Nuclear science has already been put to work in dramatic and effective ways to cure and detect disease. Through such typical procedures, the basic scien- tists and their colleagues, the doctors and engineers, are giving our people a more buoyant health, greater life expectancy, better defenses against disease. In the schools where such men are trained we must be relentless in increasing their capacity to achieve these goals. Maintenance of the endless frontier is likewise essential to national security. A healthy people, a prosperous economy and adequate mat- ural resources are our chief defensive lines, but one of America's greatest sources of strength, we must always remember, is its un- equaled industrial capacity. Our schools of science and engineering, educating men for the refinement and management of this productive machine, have a major responsibility in helping to make sure that America can always be, if need be, the arsenal of democracy. We must also be prepared with the men who can outwit any enemy in the design of weapons and countermeasures. In speaking of the British scientists in the Battle of Britain, Mr. Churchill observes that “Unless British science had proved superior to German, . . . we might well have been defeated, and, being defeated, destroyed.” “He might later have said the same of American science and our own war effort. We must continue to educate the imaginative and audacious minds that created the O.S.R.D.” and mustered the democratic ranks of American scientists into invincible battalions, such as our own Radia- tion Laboratory here in Cambridge. We must be able again to beat an enemy to the draw, as we did in developing the atomic bomb.18 *Winston S. Churchill, Their Finest Hour (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1949), pages 381–882. * The Office of Scientific Research and Development was created by executive action by President Roosevelt, June 28, 1941. Dr. Vannevar Bush was its Director throughout the war. For a full history of its organization and accomplishment see the volumes published by Little, Brown and Company and in particular Irwin Stewart's Organizing Scientific Research for War, OSRD series–Science in World War II (Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1948). *This single line in Killian's address drew the biggest headlines. The emphasis on the disastrous is again exemplified here, as it was in the treatment of several other speeches—see, for example, pages 6 and 67. The headlines are typified by the following: Boston Evening American (Mass.), April 2, “M.I.T. Chief Weighs Scientific War Aid.” The Boston Post (Mass.), April 8, “Need Science to Outwit Enemy—New Presi- James Killian 453 Our schools of science and engineering, if they are strong, are a powerful fleet in being a striking force that can be thrown into action instantly if needed. We must be sure to have in these institutions this kind of reserve strength—and we must strive unremittingly to prevent it ever having to be used for war. The maintenance of the endless frontier also provides the promise that our research and our technology will contribute to human wel- fare far beyond the boundaries of our own country. Great reaches of the world are still undeveloped. A majority of the people of the world, as we heard yesterday, lives in a state of poverty and even of chronic starvation, judged by modern nutritional standards. I believe that science can accept Mr. Churchill's challenge of Thursday night and do a great deal to prevent and eliminate starvation in the world. The endless resources of science and technology combined with imagina- tive free enterprise in partnership with government can raise the world's standard of living. Our institutes of technology have a major part to play in educating the men who can harness the energy and who have the vision to put it to work for the peoples of the world. This is another way by which science and technology can remove the economic barriers to world government. I review these fundamental contributions of science to national and international welfare to emphasize that we need more and not less science and technology. All the silly talk about a science holiday is as dangerous as the talk some years ago about economic maturity. Science and technology, under enlightened direction, are essential to health, prosperity and security. In addition both of them give you and me more freedom to be socially responsible citizens, to be good neighbors, to pursue the good life, to seek ways of making it unnecessary ever again to divert science away from its normal peaceful objectives. I would also emphasize the need in America for superlative achieve- ment in basic science, as distinct from applied science. Before the war dent of M.I.T. Warns Technical Schools Safeguard Arsenal of Democracy.” The New York Times, April 3, “Dr. Killian Urges We Outwit Enemy’—Taking Office as President of M.I.T., He Calls Weapons ‘Must in Our Planning.” Boston Traveler (Mass.), April 2, “Killian Pledges M.I.T. to Defend U. S.— “We Must Be Able to Beat an Enemy to the Draw!’” Boston Sunday Herald (Mass.), April 3, “Killian Warns Enemies of U. S.– ‘Beat Foes to Draw’ His M.I.T. Pledge.” Almost unique among the headline treatment was that of The Christian Science Monitor (Boston, Mass.), for April 2, “New M.I.T. Head Demands Technological Freedom. . . .” The more important statement at the end of the next paragraph was largely overlooked in the scareheads although not, of course, in the texts of the more sober newspapers. 454 Inauguration a majority of the fundamental advances in science came from Europe, while we were content largely to apply and develop these fundamental concepts. America itself must develop the men who can make funda- mental, creative contributions, and we must find the educational means of doing so. A special responsibility lies upon our institutes of tech- nology not to neglect basic science. Not only do they need it as an essential partner of engineering; they need to cultivate science for its own special values, its disinterested search for truth, its creative- ness, its readiness to acknowledge error and accept new ideas.” Our flourishing graduate schools are our surest means of furthering this objective. At M.I.T. one ventures the hope that we might make a further contribution by a more formal recognition and support of postdoctoral study. This whole range of responsibilities for the public welfare which rests upon the team of science and engineering must guide us in all of our activities at this institution. We also believe that this team is made stronger by a third member, social science, including manage- ment, which has taken its place as a professional field in its own right at M.I.T. The combination of the engineer, the economist, the regional planner, the architect and the sociologist provides a task force of ex- ceptional power for the beneficent management of social forces. This combination of professions acting through industry and government can insure that science and technology work with maximum efficiency for social ends. We propose to maintain here at this institution an insti- tute of technology creatively active in social technology. Second on my list of obligations to be met by an institute of tech- nology is the obligation to achieve a better synthesis between profes- sional education and general education. In the second half of the twentieth century the need for the “large general cultivation” of which Rogers spoke will have a commanding urgency. No college, in a world of turmoil as we have today, can shirk the responsibility of preparing a man to be a citizen as well as to make a living. As we stand at the mid-century point, the responsibili- ties of the professional men, especially the scientists and the engineers, have a new and awesome measure. The late Mr. Justice Holmes once pointed up this problem of the specialist when he argued that lawyers should be civilized. “Perhaps in America . . . we need specialists,” he remarked, “even more than 17 For further discussion of this problem, see Compton, page 30, and Thomas, page 347. James Killian 455 we do civilized men. Civilized men who are nothing else are a little apt to think that they cannot breathe the American atmosphere,” he noted. “But if a man is a specialist, it is most desirable that he should also be civilized; that he should have laid in the outline of the other sciences, as well as the light and shade of his own; that he should be reasonable, and see things in their proportion. Nay, more, that he should be passionate, as well as reasonable—that he should be able not only to explain, but to feel; that the ardors of intellectual pursuit should be relieved by the charms of art, should be succeeded by the joy of life become an end in itself.”” To this prescription of Holmes for the professional man, we need to add another basic ingredient—that of a broader understanding of social forces—the new social mind called for by Henry Adams.” The specialist must shun the view, that is sometimes common, that lop- sidedness is laudable; he must be politically and morally responsible; he must test his actions by their human impact. I speak not only of the scientists and engineers but also of the lawyers and physicians and businessmen, specialists all. The institutes of technology thus are not unique in having to meet these demands of the specialist-in-training. In the past two decades, the universities and liberal arts colleges have all been struggling with the need to provide a common core of studies which will contribute toward a man's effectiveness as an individual and as a citizen, regard- less of his occupation. The old concept of the liberal arts as an orna- ment or as the prerogative of a special class has given way to pro- grams in the humanities and social sciences helpful in developing a sense of values pertinent to the society in which we live. In rounding out their programs, the liberal arts colleges have recog- nized the educational value of the discipline, rigor and motivation in- herent in the engineering curriculum, and they have sought to find equivalents. In turn the engineering colleges, while prizing and pre- serving these advantages, have been adopting into their curriculum more of the common core studies recognized in the liberal arts col- leges. Thus the two programs have benefited one from another. In 1944 a committee of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education published a notable report on engineering education after 18 Oliver Wendell Holmes, Collected Legal Papers (New York, Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1921), pages 47–48. From “The Use of Law Schools,” an oration before the Harvard Law School Association at Cambridge (Mass.), November 5, 1886, on the 250th Anniversary of Harvard University. 19 The keynote of the Convocation—see page 5 and footnote 10. 456 Inauguration the war.” This report advocated that engineering schools devote at least twenty per cent of their undergraduate curricula to subjects in the humanities and the social sciences, and that these subjects be pre- sented with as much vigor and integration as the professional subjects in engineering. I submit that we must go further than this recommendation if we are to educate engineers of breadth and judgment—professional men who have the background, understanding and public spirit to be leaders in their professions, their neighborhoods and the nation.” To be sure of educating such men, we must have the strongest possible program in general education, but we must not expect general education to do the whole job. The teaching of our professional subjects must com- prehend the broader view. Night before last when I was returning with Mr. Churchill from the Garden to his hotel, he leaned over to me and said, “As you advance science at your great institution, don't neglect the humanities,” and I told him, as I tell you today, that we have not and will not.” Along with more general education in the engineering curriculum, we should have less and less specialization in undergraduate engineer- 20 “Report of Committee on Engineering Education After the War,” Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 34, No. 9, May, 1944, pages 589–613. 21 Though this statement did not catch so many headlines, it was praised as typical of Killian's long-standing and well-known position and of the directions of the Convocation. For example, said the Buffalo Courier-Express (Buffalo, N. Y.), in an editorial for March 29, 1949 (preceding the address but based on previous statements by Killian): “The new M.I.T. president may be on the way to closing the gap between the technical sciences and the social sciences. In the new world confronting America today, it is essential that technically trained men have a sound appreciation of civilization, its origin and its progress, and it is equally true that men educated in the liberal arts must put proper emphasis on science and its significance and the problems it creates.” ?? Churchill's compliment to Dr. Compton on “maintaining a Dean of Humani- ties” (see page 60) naturally drew national and international attention to the fact that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has a Division of Hu- manities. But this is no new thing. The first Dean of Humanities at the Institute was Edwin S. Burdell, 1987–88, and he was succeeded by Robert G. Caldwell, 1989–1948. There has been some sort of humanities program at M.I.T. since the inauguration of the Institute, but this has been deepened and strengthened on both the curricular and the extra-curricular side under the influence of Dr. Compton and his successor, Dr. Killian. Today M.I.T. seeks to strengthen the vigor and depth of this part of its work far beyond what would have been con- sidered “practical” twenty years ago, and this, rather than novelty, is the signifi- cance of having the Dean of Humanities be the Chairman of the Convocation. Note in this connection Churchill's comments, page 61. James Killian 457 ing subjects, while at the same time preserving the motivation that comes from having specific courses of study, such as chemical engineer- ing or civil engineering. What the engineering schools are trying to do is to push into the graduate years some of the more specialized work and to include in the undergraduate subjects a less empirical but more basic content of engineering science. Undergraduate engineering programs must provide a general education with the emphasis on sci- ence and engineering, rather than a specialized training with a gesture toward general education. Education is to be found not only in the classroom and the labora- tory but in the experience of living with one's fellows, in an environ- ment stimulating to intellectual activity and conducive to the develop- ment of community responsibility. We want to carry further the devel- opment of an environment at M.I.T. which performs in the broadest sense an educational function itself, not in a passive way but in a dynamic way. The whole concept of living facilities, activities and atmosphere must be skillfully arranged to provide the kind of environ- ment that contributes to the development of leadership, breadth and standards of taste and judgment among our students—to give them the fullest possible opportunity to acquire, in a phrase of Sir Richard Livingstone's, a sense of the first-rate. As we seek to broaden the education of the specialist, we must be careful to avoid overscheduling or overcramming him. Institutes of technology have always been proud of their reputation for requiring hard work of their students. I hope that they will not lose that reputa- tion. But students need not only to meet rigorous requirements; they also need opportunities to reflect, to develop the intellectual maturity that comes only from self-education under adequate stimulus. The students who are studying to be professional men need time to be re- sourceful, to develop judgment, to acquire a broad margin to their life. They need time to avoid what Veblen called “trained incapacity.” We must also be sure that the exceptional student has exceptional opportunities to proceed at his own pace and in his own way. Herbert Hoover has wisely observed that in our preoccupation in America with the common man we should not forget that our advancement depends upon the uncommon man. This is particularly true in education. We must find better ways of encouraging the exceptional student and the genius. We must provide a clear field for the fleet runner, for minds “forever voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.” As Newton's statue was to Wordsworth in the ancient Cambridge, 458 Inauguration I hope that M.I.T. may stand as a “marble index” of these minds.” I have spoken of the opportunity to think in terms of world needs in an institute of technology. This opportunity arises naturally out of the internationalism of science and out of the scientific tradition of un- conditional coöperation among scholars. International amity has long been the hallmark of science, and I suggest this example can be a powerful agent in promoting peace among nations. This internationalism has been taken up with enthusiasm by stu- dents. The summer program for foreign students which our own stu- dents here at M.I.T. initiated and managed so successfully last sum- mer and which is now spreading across the country, is a fine example. You often hear that American students take no interest in shaping and influencing great affairs. The current student experiments in promoting international goodwill stand as a shining refutation. Here at M.I.T. we have students from fifty-three foreign countries. Ambitious youth from the world over are turning to American in- stitutions to learn useful professions in an atmosphere benign to learn- ing and to the spirit of world citizenship. We have in this spirit of our educational institutions an exportable commodity that can contribute importantly to world prosperity and to world amity. As we minister to these students from all over the world, we have a responsibility to offer them an education that is free of petty parochialism and that leads both to professional competence and to moral responsibility. Third in my list of imperatives, our privately endowed institutes of technology, along with all endowed universities, have an obligation to be free, both in financial support and in teaching. The American people are faced with critical decisions regarding the support of their colleges and universities. The endowed institutions are being squeezed by the effects of in- flation on the one hand and the decline in investment income on the other. More disastrous than either of these is the decline in donations. Recent studies indicate that private contributions to our colleges per student enrolled, adjusted for changes in purchasing power, have been declining for a number of years, despite the fact that the total dollars contributed reached a maximum in 1948. The symptoms of this malady are crystal clear. The tuitions of our private colleges are being forced * William Wordsworth, The Prelude Book III, “Residence at Cambridge,” line 60. . . . Where the statue stood Of Newton, with his prism and silent face, The marble index of a mind forever Voyaging through strange seas of thought alone. James Killian 459 up and up; in some cases their standards are dropping. In an effort to increase investment income, the investment committees of a few are resorting to expedients which may endanger the whole tax-exempt principle. The state institutions also have an acute problem. They must provide for a steadily increasing college population. The President's Commis- sion on Higher Education advocates an enlargement of post-high- school study from its present total of 2,400,000 students to 4,600,000 students by 1960. Whether or not we have so large an increase in the next decade, we must plan on providing increased opportunities for post-high-school studies; and publicly supported institutions, as the President's Commis- sion concluded, must take most of the increase. Can they do this with- out Federal aid? The President's Commission did not think so. It ad- vocated direct Federal subsidy to publicly supported institutions. On the assumption that the Federal Government could not subsidize private institutions without exercising control, the Commission would have all the direct Federal subsidy go to the state institutions. In the light of this conclusion, one is prompted to ask: Why also does not Federal subsidy of state institutions carry the threat of Federal con- trol to those institutions?” In this situation lie the critical issues which must be met in the years ahead, and the wisdom with which we meet them may well determine the future effectiveness of our universities. May we in the colleges govern our approach to these issues by the best interests of our society and not by selfishly institutional considera- tions. I do believe that our private institutions, particularly, have an ob- ligation to keep themselves strong and independent, not for selfish reasons but for reasons of high educational policy. It has been said many times, but should be said again, that our public institutions bene- fit from the freedom, flexibility and independence of the private in- stitutions. The strength of our university system lies in its diversity and its lack of centralization. The destruction of the private institutions would help to destroy this diversity. Our institutes of technology, because of their close relationship both to government and to industry, have a special obligation to maintain their independence. As a believer in free enterprise, I believe that free enterprise must help to maintain independent institutions. An institute of technology, serving and strengthening a prosperous economy, de- * This whole problem is discussed extensively in Chapter viii. 460 Inauguration serves enough support from free enterprise to insure its own inde- pendence—an independence that rests upon support so diversified that no encroachment upon the institution autonomy is possible. If they are to remain strong, the privately endowed institutions must of necessity try to avoid covering the waterfront in their programs. They must concentrate their resources so that what they do is done well. This calls for more coöperation among institutions, and a willing- ness to allocate more and duplicate less in the field they cover. Al- ready, some of our alert liberal arts colleges are beginning to exchange staff members and to pool teaching resources. The future of the private institution also demands restraint in num- bers of students admitted. They should not try to compete with the state-supported institutions in enrollments. They must have the cour- age to place quality above quantity whenever they have to make that decision, to recognize their special function as pace-setters in our edu- cational system. Even so, they will need imagination and determination to compete. Another obligation to be independent lies on all of our institutes of higher learning. In a period of armed truce, the fundamental principle of academic freedom is subject to stresses which we have not met be- fore. One of the gravest dangers of the present cold war is the danger that it will force America to relinquish or distort or weaken some of its basic civil rights. I hope that this does not happen either to our country or to our colleges. The university, more than any other institution, resolves the dichot- omy between the individual and the institutionalized aspects of mod- ern life. It is an environment where the dignity of man is more im- portant than the pomp of organization. It is the sanctuary of the free mind, and the mind which is not free profanes it. We must hope that the cold war may not diminish the opportunity to be free, either on the part of the educational institution or on the part of the scholar himself.” To curtail freedom in our institutes of technology would be to run counter to the spirit of science, which thrives best in an atmosphere of * The risks are real, of course, as any reader of the public print knows. It becomes increasingly hard to work out techniques for retaining this two-way freedom. The problem would be simpler if the newspapers would refrain from playing up and quoting the one or two intellectual Communists on a faculty while ignoring the fact that there are, on the same faculty, hundreds, often of greater importance, who think the other way. This seems to reflect a conviction of the press that bad news is always more salable than good. For further discussion, see pages 408 and 413–415. James Killian 461 freedom practiced with responsibility—the responsibility of a company of scholars governing themselves. I have suggested, in summary, that an institute of technology must function as a university polarized around science, engineering and so- cial technology. It has an inherent obligation to be of service to in- dustry, to government and to society generally. Its base must be a strong undergraduate school, working in partnership with a powerful graduate school. It has a continuing obligation to maintain the endless frontier of engineering and science. To meet the present needs of society it has an obligation to educate men of professional competence who also have a cultural reach beyond the techniques of their pro- fessions. And to these obligations I have added the special obligation of the privately endowed institute to maintain its independence. I have faith that we can accomplish these objectives at M.I.T. Alfred North Whitehead once happily said that “education is dis- cipline for the adventure of life; research is intellectual adventure; and the universities should be homes of adventure shared in common by young and old.” This is our goal. With an outstanding faculty of creative scholars and with a superbly able student body, there are no limits to the adven- tures we may share, here at M.I.T. It is my hope that in the years ahead we may also achieve the imaginative administration and the noble environment to give our faculty and students opportunities to contribute their full potential to the prosperity and to the peace of the world. In the faith that we can attain these ideals, we move confidently into the second half of the century. :k >}: :k :k :k At the close of Mr. Killian's address, Dr. Compton introduced in turn six who came to bring felicitations and greetings: Sir Richard Livingstone of Oxford University, for the Old World; James Bryant Conant of Harvard University, for the educational institutions of America; Governor Paul Andrew Dever for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; David Allen Shepard, 1926, for the Alumni; John Thomas Toohy for the undergraduates; George Russell Harrison, Dean of Science, for the F aculty of M.I.T. * A. N. Whitehead, The Aims of Education (New York, The Macmillan Com- pany, 1929), page 147. 462 Inauguration Each spoke gracefully and with friendliness; * what everyone felt was summarized by Sir Richard Livingstone: “. . . We are saluting a foundation which has played a great part in the scientific progress and technological achievement of America, and which is famous far beyond its own home. The mystic initials M.I.T. need no explaining to anyone, anywhere, who is concerned with higher education. “Your Institute is a seat of learning and instruction of which the United States is justly proud, and to which we in other countries owe our debt for the ready welcome which you give to our students, and the generosity with which you put at their disposal your knowledge and teaching, your equipment and techniques. But if we look beyond this place and moment, beyond Cambridge and the year 1949, and try to conceive the significance of M.I.T. in that adventure of humanity which is called civilization, we see something more. “In Vergil's Aeneid,” Jupiter says to the Roman people: His ego nec metas rerum nec tempora pono; Imperium sine fine dedi. For them I set no boundaries of circumstance or time, I have given them an empire without limits. “There are other empires than that of which Vergil was thinking; and we may transfer his words to a different and more enduring king- dom, with which you are concerned—the kingdom of knowledge. That empire, indeed, has no boundaries of circumstance or time. Its pur- pose is the mastery of Nature's secrets and the control of her forces for the good of mankind. It recognizes no distinctions of race or coun- try. It is a commonwealth, taking that word in its literal meaning: for in it the good of one is the good of all. In the spirit that rules it we divine the shape of things to come—a world in which conflict will be replaced by coöperation. “So, looking, as I said, beyond Cambridge and this year of grace, we see and salute in your Institute a foremost leader in extending the empire of knowledge; we congratulate you on the great part you have played, and are playing, in its extension; and we wish you continuing success and prosperity in your great work under your new president.” >k :k >k :k >k * Full texts of the remarks are provided in Inauguration of James Rhyne Kil- lian, Jr. (Cambridge, Mass., The Technology Press of M.I.T., 1949). 28 Book I, 278–9. Postlude 463 The band played the recessional; the president, chairman, delegates, faculty, students and marshals left the hall. President Killian and Dr. Compton stopped briefly at the colonnade in Eastman Court to pay greetings to the hundreds who, unable to be seated in the Rockwell Cage, had gathered there to hear the proceedings from loudspeakers. Save for receptions and parties and long-deferred sleep, the three days were at an end. Another milestone had been set in the history of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Appendices APPENDIx A Journalistic Comment on “Thought Control” 465 APPENDIX B Alsopian Interpretation of the Churchill Address 468 APPENDIx C General Comment on the Churchill Address 470 APPENDIx D On Whites and Blacks 477 APPENDIx E Science as a Way of Life 482 APPENDIx F Specialization in British Universities 486 APPENDIx G Jaime Torres Bodet on Adult Education 489 APPENDIx H British Comments on State Financing of Universities 494 APPENDIX I Academic Freedom and American Political Mores 497 APPENDIX J An American Answers a Russian Diatribe 499 APPENDIX K Notes on the History of the Relations Between State and University 502 APPENDIX L Press Comment on the Stassen China Plan 506 Sk Appendix A JOURNALISTIC COMMENT ON “THOUGHT CONTROL” (See footnote 12, Chapter I) Syndicated humorists had an even better time with this idea than head- line writers. For instance, H. I. Phillips in his column “The Once- over” had a good deal of fun with the topic “Science and Thought Control.” This column appeared widely; it is quoted here from the Philadelphia News for April 6, 1949. After citing the pertinent sen- tence from Burchard, Phillips went on as follows: “There goes that gooseflesh creeping up our spine again! “Say it ain’t so, Dr. Burchard! Tell us you don't really mean that the lab- oratory will find a way to throw a switch and make a man's thoughts come out the designated slot! Admit you are not serious in contemplating a day when a button may turn a yes man into a no man, nice as it might be to see in converting Gromyko—presto!—from a no man into a yes man! [Hormones might—see Compton, page 24. Columnists perhaps also rely on headlines and not on texts. ED.] “Or is it to be done by rays? Turned by Joe Stalin onto President Truman, might they halt Harry in the middle of a stern ‘we intend to stand by the democratic-loving nations to the bitter end’ and bring forth an abrupt cry, ‘Hooray for the Kremlin!’ “Do you see a time when the Thirteen Men of Moscow, giving uproarious approval to a Pravda editorial denouncing America, may, under a magic ray in the hands of Uncle Sam, suddenly glow with anger and order the Pravda editorial writer shot at once? “Is the time near when Vishinsky, loaded with expletives and rising to ex- coriate the democracies, will, due to a current, a ray or an isotope, break into a broad smile and say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I am just a Happiness Boy. There is nothing in this world like friendship. See what the boys in the back room will have!’” Other, less facetious journalists seemed frankly shocked. For example, The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 4, 1949, said: “We don’t yet know if the atomic bomb, already achieved by scientific in- quiry will spell the end of civilization as we know it. Thought control, with- out question, would. Dr. Burchard's speculative foray beyond the horizons of present knowledge emphasizes the world's most desperate need—that man's moral progress catch up with his scientific advances before it is too late.” A syndicated editorial appearing in, for example, the Lawrence (Mass.) Eagle, and the Daily Hampshire Gazette (Northampton, Mass.), respec- tively on April 26 and April 22, said of thought control, “This may not be so far away, either. Hitler did it with no mean success, and the Russian Com- munists are masters of the art. Occasionally there have been indications of 465 466 Appendix A attempts to accomplish this in the United States also. It will be a sad day if that comes about.” t As is so often the case, it remained for The New York Times to provide the definitive and balanced comment. In “Topics of The Times” for Friday, April 22, 1949, this great newspaper said: “A scanning of the public prints discloses that references to thought control’ appear to be becoming more frequent. Those who are moved to mention the subject seem to be in agree- ment that it is a topic to be treated with respect, if not awe, but they ap- parently are not wholly in accord as to the direction from which thought control, on totalitarian lines, may be expected to come—if, that is, it indeed is coming. “Princeton University's president, Dr. Harold W. Dodds, speaking the other day at the 200th anniversary celebration of the founding of Washing- ton and Lee University, pictured our Federal Government as threatening the imposition of thought control indirectly by means of the promotion of a mass—or mediocre"—college education program for the millions at the ex- pense of the cause of liberal education and intellectual competence. “Some days previously at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Mid-Century Convocation, Dr. John Ely Burchard, M.I.T. Dean of Humani- ties, peering into the future, ventured the observation that ‘ability to control man's thoughts with precision is by no means out of the question’ and went on to ask if there does not exist risk that in the growth of large organizations, and especially of government, the true free spirit of inquiry . . . will be diminished, or even extinguished altogether?” In which case, it may be as- sumed, a fertile field for thought control would thereby be opened to those who might wish to make use of it. Also speaking at M.I.T., Dr. Jacques Maritain, Professor of Philosophy at Princeton, warned that ‘the human per- son is threatened today with all-pervading slavery, not through the fault of science but through that of the enlarged power granted by science and technology (that is, by reason mastering natural phenomena) to human fool- ishness.’ “In addition Prof. Norbert Wiener’s [Professor of Mathematics at M.I.T. ED.] book Cybernetics, subtitled Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, has attracted wide attention, stimulating quite a few ani- mals to ponder on what might happen were they to make machines surpass- ing, in thinking capacity, the best animal brains. “The over-all impression obtaining following a perusal of current allusions to thought control is that the animals are fascinated by thought control's pos- sible development but are repelled instinctively by its probable conse- quences. There is nothing new about thought control per se; it may occur in some degree when two men in a wilderness reach a fork in a trail and debate which path is the right one for them to follow. What is new are the large mechanisms now available for experimentation. It is the possibility of thought control—in Dr. Burchard's words—with precision’ that is now giving man pause. “It is disturbing to observe there apparently are a large number of ani- mals—or people, perhaps we had better say—who have failed to perceive that as soon as there is established a control there must be some one to de- termine how that control is to be applied; that is, in thought control it must Appendix A 467 be decided what is to be thought, and how much. This is nowhere more evident than in Russia, where all machinery for propaganda is directed to- ward controlling the thought, and hence behavior, of great masses of people. Behind control, if control is to be effective, there must be force. “The British government has been experimenting, in a small way, with a kind of thought control through the Central Office of Information, which, since the war, with a staff of 1,700 writers, publicists and campaign organ- izers, has been seeking to arouse interest in Britain's economic battle. That interest has been stimulated is evident from favorable public response and from criticism aimed at the program from Conservatives who accuse the C.O.I. of spending public money to control men's minds' and of telling Britons ‘what to think, what to say, what to do.’ To encourage men to think more about, and to take more interest in, government is good, but in leading them to think there lurks always the temptation on the part of the thought- stirrer to shape minds according to his own pattern. “The animals are as yet, fortunately, in control of the machines. This corner leans, at this point, toward an optimistic view of the problem, and for two reasons. First, it is not easy to measure how thoroughly thought is being controlled; there is the possibility that there will be enough persons with resistant brains eventually to break through the bands of regimentation and wreck the controls. Secondly, only when the divine spark flickers out in men everywhere will thought control be triumphant and unchallenged. As long as that spark glows man stubbornly will keep at bay what Dr. Maritain calls ‘all-pervading slavery. It is well we remember, however, that the spark in many places is none too bright. We know why this is so, and if we fail to profit by our knowledge we deserve the worst.” In point of fact, only a handful of newspapers looked at the address as a whole. These would include the Boston Herald, Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune and The Evening Star (Washington, D. C.). Said The Evening Star in an editorial on April 4, “For his own part, Dr. Burchard has not come forward with answers. By implication, however, he seems to have placed himself in that growing company of savants who shudder at what may happen in the world of to- morrow if man becomes much more godless than he is now. What this sug- gests, of course, is that humanity, if it is not to be swept away in the fury of its own passions by the annihilating power of its own works, must somehow get back to its ancient spiritual moorings and conduct itself as a race high above the level of the jungle and only a little lower than the angels.” Holyoke Transcript Telegram (Mass.), April 1, 1949, in an editorial, “Science with a Conscience,” referred to the Burchard remark and Churchill's reaction to it (for which see pages 60–62) and also to the other questions considered at the Convocation, and assessing the prophecy and the questions correctly, concluded: “The great thing, and source of our hope, is that these questions are being raised within the scientific fratermity. We might call it science with a conscience. To find this attitude in what many consider the world's finest technical institution is about the best assurance we can have that scientists are not blindly leading us into a Frankenstein existence. Mr. Churchill complimented M.I.T. for having a Dean of Humanities at all, and that compliment can be expanded into an appreciation of everything being done at M.I.T. to find out where science is taking us.” Appendix B ALSOPIAN INTERPRETATION OF THE CHURCHILL ADDRESS (See footnote 53, Chapter II) This interpretation of the Churchill speech by Joseph and Stewart Alsop appeared in their syndicated column “Matter of Fact.” The New York Herald Tribune, April 4, 1949. “Mr. Churchill’s Riddle” “It is not often that Winston Churchill speaks in riddles. He did not do so at Fulton, where his plain words about plain facts sent the woolly minded into agonies of wishful revulsion. But at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology last week, he chose to wrap up the hard, terrible kernel of his mean- ing in such a way that it has actually escaped attention. “Perhaps he chose to do this because what he was really saying was so ter- rible, so unpalatable, that even he did not believe the time had come to use plain words again. But Mr. Churchill being Mr. Churchill, it is none the less important to extract this kernel of his meaning from its rich philosophical wrappings. “The significant passages of the great M.I.T. speech came at the close. In a relentlessly marshaled series of judgments, Mr. Churchill broke down the world problem as follows: “First: the Soviet Union now confronts us with ‘something quite as wicked but in some ways more formidable than Hitler.” The Soviet government is ‘pursuing imperialist expansion as no Czar or Kaiser ever did. “Second: only the deterrent of the atomic bomb in the hands of the United States’ holds the Soviet Union in check at present. If it had not been for this deterrent, ‘Europe would have been communized and London under bombardment some time ago.” “Third: ‘We have certainly not an unlimited period of time before a settle- ment should be achieved. The utmost vigilance should be practiced. But I do not think myself that violent or precipitate action should be taken now.’ “Fourth: it is worth watching and waiting for a while, because something may yet occur to change the course of history, as the death of Ghenghis Khan caused the sudden retreat of the Mongol hordes, at the very instant when all Europe lay open to their conquest. “What is notable about this series of judgments is how much Mr. Church- ill preferred merely to imply. What did he mean by denying that we had an unlimited period of time before a settlement should be achieved? To what was he referring when he said he did not ‘think violent or precipitate action should be taken now, with sharp emphasis on the ‘now’? At what was he hinting, in his brilliant historical reminiscence of the death of Ghenghis 468 Appendix B 469 Khan? Here is the knot of the riddle, which can be unravelled in only one way. “Paraphrasing Mr. Churchill is a bold enterprise. Yet his meaning becomes obvious at once, if simple positive statements are substituted for his sur- charged double negatives. Do this, beginning with the second of the four judgments above, and the following emerges: “‘Because of the deterrent of the atomic bomb in the hands of the United States, we are safe for the present, if we practice the utmost vigilance. But there is a limit to this period of safety. Thereafter a settlement should be achieved. This may require violent and precipitate action. And it is worth putting off this action, because the death of Stalin or some other unforeseen event may shortly unleash an inner convulsion in the Soviet Union, which will suspend Russian imperialism and cause the Soviet power to contract within Russia's former borders.” “There is here no straining of Mr. Churchill's actual words, except by crudely mentioning the death of Stalin, so clearly pointed to by the Ghenghis Khan parallel. There is here, also, a bleak statement of two simple alter- natives. “In Mr. Churchill's opinion, it is apparent that we have only two ways to survival. Either Russia will change radically and soon. Or when the ‘not unlimited period’ of our safety begins to run out, we must force a preventive crisis, leading if need be to preventive war, in order to secure a settlement with the Kremlin. When this will be necessary is suggested by his emphasis on the temporary American monopoly on atomic energy. In short, there must be a showdown before the Kremlin possesses a people's democratic atomic bomb. “Here is the first serious, public suggestion—dim and roundabout to be sure—that preventive action may ultimately be necessary to counter the Soviet menace. Coming from any one but the greatest living figure of the West, so startling a suggestion might be ignored. But tens of millions of men have perished, the very foundations of civilization have been shaken, because Mr. Churchill's warnings were too blithely dismissed on a previous occasion. This speech, so generally regarded as no more than the peaceful rich expression of an old leader's philosophy, may later seem as definite a turning point as the all too prophetic speech at Fulton.” (Copyright, 1949, New York Herald Tribune Inc.) Appendix C GENERAL COMMENT ON THE CHURCHILL ADDRESS (See footnote 62, Chapter II) British comment did not differ in principle from that in the American press although there was perhaps a greater sense of the political impli- cations. Just as in America, Churchill's references to the protection afforded by the atomic bomb tended to capture the headlines, though often the comment within the headlines was more restrained on this score than it was in America. The next most generally noticeable point had to do with the relevance of what Mr. Churchill said to the signing of the North Atlantic Pact which was to take place within a day or two after the address. The relation of these two events was more fre- quently stressed in the British press than it was in the American. In general, as in America, the press without regard to its local politics applauded the principles of the address. The most common adjective used for it was the word “sombre” and though this word was used very frequently, almost with spontaneous universality, nonetheless it was almost at once qualified with the idea that the speech was one of optimism and of peace if people would only be guided by its prin- ciples. One striking thing about the British commentary as contrasted with the American was the amount of independent editorial comment. This served but to highlight the point that British journalism may not have gone so far as American in using syndicated columnists, to say nothing of syndicated editorials. Thus very few editorials were to be found which used exactly the same words whereas many were to be found which said exactly the same thing. Full texts were carried in papers corresponding to those which carried the full text in America, such papers, for example, as the Manchester Guardian, The Times, or the Daily Mail, the Dublin Evening Mail, which in general used the Reuter's dispatch, the South Wales Argus of Newport, the Halifax Courier, the Northern Echo of Darlington, the Coventry Evening Telegraph and the Yorkshire Evening Press of York. These are but examples of many which said much the same thing and in general re- echoed Churchill's sentiments about both the atomic bomb and the North Atlantic Pact. It was to be expected in Great Britain that there would be numerous allusions to the local political situation, but in 470 Appendix C 471 general it was hard to tell by the press comments whether the paper was a Labor paper or a Conservative paper. Both praised Churchill, both praised Bevin, both praised Churchill's attitude toward Bevin, and both in general approved of the policies proposed by Churchill and made reference to the remarkable foresight with which he had pre- dicted three years ago in Fulton, Missouri. Among all this political discussion the things Churchill said about humanism tended to be lost so far as the general public was concerned, but they were picked up by a few journalists and emphasized to the exclusion of the atomic bomb and the political picture and these commentaries have been noted earlier. The almost universal flavor of the commentary is best obtained quickly from a few staccato quotations: Daily Echo (Dorset, England), April 1, 1949, referred to it as one of the three outstanding speeches delivered by Churchill since the war. The Evening News (London, England), April 1, 1949, “The prophet grows in stature and demands the earnest attention of everybody.” Leicester Mercury (England), April 1, 1949, “In utterances such as these we listen with undiminished respect and with gratitude that there is a man alive who can state the truth and the spirit so difficult for Mr. Everyman to express. News Chronicle (London, England), April 1, 1949, “The truth of Mr. Churchill's thesis is hardly in doubt, but it takes a great man to state it, and to state it so well.” Lancashire Evening Post (Preston, England), April 1, 1949, “Two years had to pass before Churchill's speech at Fulton had its confirmation in events. Mr. Bevin acted on its advice long before the Government as a body agreed to follow Churchill's lead. My feeling is that the Boston speech will not need anything as long to be taken into full account.” Oldham Evening Chronicle (Lancashire, England), April 1, 1949, “Mr. Churchill is the greatest internationalist of this or any other century. Last night's speech at Boston, Massachusetts, put the final seal to his world Statesmanship. . . . “. . . when we hear his assurance that we will win through against all the efforts of our adversaries by building up forces against a potential ag- gressor, we find a new confidence and a new hope.” Manchester Guardian (England), April 1, 1949, “Mr. Churchill's Boston speech was in the great tradition.” Daily Graphic (London, England), April 1, 1949, “He spoke as one who sees the events of to-day in the perspective of centuries. “That capacity is a weakness in the day-to-day battle of domestic politics. It is the secret of his strength as a world figure and an interpreter of world affairs.” 472 Appendix C Daily Record (Glasgow, Scotland), April 1, 1949, “Last night again he spoke in the U.S.A., and his Boston speech marks him as being still the world's most realistic and far-seeing statesman. . . . “The torch which Mr. Churchill held aloft at Boston kindles no passions save those for the peace and well-being of all nations.” The Observer (London, England), April 3, 1949, “It did not launch a new proposition on the waters of world politics. But with its breadth of vision and clarity of focus, its perspective, proportion and justice of ap- praisal, its human and humorous warmth, its force of conviction and ex- hilarating pith of expression, it must have clarified and fortified the minds of millions.” West Lancashire Evening Gazette (Blackpool, England), April 1, 1949, “Once again the best-known voice in history encircles the globe. Once again the message is of warning and of hope. Once again, there will be violent re- action from the forces of tyranny. But the prevailing response from the free nations is one of admiration and deep respect.” Alistair Cooke in the Manchester Guardian Weekly (England), April 7, 1949, “If there was nothing very new in this, it was probably the most thoughtful and the most magnanimously expressed of any Churchill speech since the worst days of the war.” Lancashire Evening Post (Preston, England), April 1, 1949, “This speech was in the great tradition of his previous utterances: timely, bold, imagina- tive and wise.” Evening Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent, England), April 12, 1949, Observer's Commentary: “Mr. Churchill, who is described as at the very peak of his grandeur in the United States, delivered a veritable mountain-top speech at Boston. His earlier Fulton speech has been vindicated by time, bombarded though it was with criticism. His Boston oration will have a bold page in history side by side with the North Atlantic Pact.” Otago Daily Times (New Zealand), April 4, 1949, “In his speech at Bos- ton Mr. Churchill again showed the breadth of his vision and the range of his alert and analytical mind. . . . “History has proved the folly of ignoring his warnings, and unless the democracies accept his adjuration to fortify themselves in defence of their freedom they will surely risk the loss not only of peace but of their own identities.” The Sydney Morning Herald (N.S.W., Australia), April 2, 1949, “. . . his speech in Boston on Thursday night may be compared in its historic con- tent only with that made in Fulton, Missouri, in March, 1946. Then, as this week, he spoke not merely to an American audience but, through it, to the democratic peoples of the world. . . . “It is important to remember the Fulton speech, for that at Boston was its sequel and the two are closely complementary. Both present Mr. Church- ill not only at his full stature, but also in his true post-war role as an inter- national statesman and counsellor—the possessor of a sturdy wisdom and Appendix C 473 brilliant prescience too often obscured by lesser issues in British party pol- itics.” The West Australian (Perth, Australia), April 4, 1949, “. . . in its con- text and timing the speech was invested with unusual significance.” Dominion (Wellington, New Zealand), April 4, 1949, “. . . his spirit is still an inspiration to all who love liberty.” The Sun News-Pictorial (Melbourne, Australia), April 2, 1949, “Mr. Churchill has again taken his place in history with his widely-acclaimed speech in Boston.” Nor was the American press less complimentary. The tenor was gen- erally quite the same, though fewer excerpts will be provided here. New York World-Telegram, April 1, 1949, “Winston Churchill last night was the great statesman speaking at his best.” The New York Times, April 1, 1949, “It is not necessary to agree with every word and emphasis of the panoramic picture of the 20th Century which he presents. But there can be little quarrel either with his analysis of the world situation or with the remedies he recommends.” The Sun (New York), April 1, 1949, “Again Great Britain's wartime Prime Minister has shown himself not only a master of the neatly turned phrase but a keen diagnostician of the world's ills.” The Christian Science Monitor (Boston, Mass.), April 1, 1949, “. . . The speech was an authentic Churchill product. “It had the sweep and movement of history, the majestic march of elo- quence, the sparkle of ironic wit, and the sage counsel of statemanship. And if there was nothing startling, there was the consistent projection of a firm philosophy. Out of history's lessons Mr. Churchill distilled wise guid- ance for the future.” The Atlanta Journal (Georgia), April 1, 1949, “This Boston speech is worthy of the record of one whose statesmanly wisdom and courage have turned events in the darkest crises of our age and his prophetic vision has been so often fulfilled.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri), April 1, 1949, “It was a fine address. We only wish it could be read by every last Russian as a lesson in the decency and fairness of Western civilization—and as light on the tyranny to which the Russian people are being subjected.” Miami Daily News (Florida), April 1, 1949, “Now he wields the word, as he does the pen, with the depth of perception of an Olympian, with a sure-footed grasp and experience without parallel in our times.” The Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville, Florida), April 1, 1949, “The fact that nearly all Mr. Churchill previously forecast has come to pass is the reason why the world should ponder well his remarks.” The Minneapolis Tribune (Minnesota), April 2, 1949, by editorial writer Carroll Binder: “No contemporary Western statesman has such long intimate acquaintance with Soviet theory and practice as Mr. Churchill. This familiar- 474 Appendix C ity, with his proved devotion to free institutions, gives unique authoritative- ness to his pronouncements.” Indianapolis News (Indiana), April 1, 1949. “The speech was no clarion call to action, but a solemn challenge for the free people of the world to assume greater responsibility over their destiny.” An occasional columnist in America on the adverse side or an edi- torial writer on the favorable side put the case with such skill as to warrant longer quotation. Against Churchill was Frank Kingdon, who, it will be recalled, had feared the worst before Churchill delivered his address. After the address had been given, the same columnist in the same column dated April 3, 1949, in the New York Post wrote as follows: “Winston Churchill's central theme was that 13 men in the Kremlin are plotting to become the rulers of the world. Crediting them with unre- lieved cynicism, he announced that they seek naked power for themselves, and that this is the sum of all their ambition. He gave them credit for in- telligence, but asserted that it was devoted to this one single aim. “I think this explains much in Churchill himself. No one not himself sus- ceptible to the seduction of power could accredit such total cynicism to others. No one not convinced of this central conspiracy of 18 men could at- tribute all the world’s division to this single cause. “In his own bones Churchill knows that a man might be tempted to do anything for power. He believes that the 13 in the Kremlin have fallen for the temptation and are driven by the single purpose to get absolute power over all their fellows. This makes his position simple and his view uncom- plicated. They and anything they uphold must be opposed at every turn even if this leads to a world conflict. “If we agree with his premise, I see no way of escaping his conclusions. He thinks of Stalin as in another day many of us thought of Hitler. As we then decided that Hitler must be stopped at all costs, so he is firmly con- vinced that the 18 of Moscow must be stopped. This makes every word he says consistent but does not make them necessarily true or wise. “His most terrible indictment of Moscow was that the only reason Rus- sian armies are not now occupying Western Europe and threatening London is that the U.S. has the bomb. The people listening to him applauded this remark. I thought their applause more terrifying even than his assertion. If what he said is true there remains no alternative for the future but war. To applaud what he said meant that his audience had already in their hearts abandoned hope for peace. His appeal to violence released their inner emo- tional acceptance of violence as the only answer. “It is true that he said that war is not inevitable. How little he believes this was revealed by the way his mind went woolly trying to support it. He practically said that history has a way of producing accidents that help, and perhaps one will come our way in time to save our skins. I have seldom heard so unimpressive an example from an intelligent man as that of the Appendix C 475 end of the Mongol threat to Europe because the Khan chose conveniently to die at a decisive moment. He was arguing what he did not believe at this point and gulped for wind. “The true logic of his position is that war is inevitable. He may be right about the 13 of the Politburo. In case he is, we have to be strong enough to give them pause. “He may be wrong, and if he is, it is a most tragic error in the world's calculation. For fear he may be, we have the solemn obligation to search day in and out, and without relaxation, for some may yet find enough agree- ment with Russia to make war impossible. “MARCELLA SAYS; M.I.T. did not teach Churchill that higher mathe- matics does not stop with division.” (Quotations from Kingdon's column “To Be Frank” are Copyrighted, 1949, by The New York Post Corp.) Especially good analyses were provided in Great Britain by The Belfast Telegraph (Northern Ireland), April 1, 1949. Under the head- ing “World Crisis: Mr. Churchill”: - “It was said during war that Mr. Churchill's speeches were like battles won. The simile holds. Out of the fog of peace he comes magnificently, just as magnificently as he led his people out of the valley of the shadow. Since those days he has known bitter disappointments. Rejected as Prime Min- ister, reviled by men who are still jealous of his gifts, hated even by partisans stuffed with prejudice and misinformation, he has a robustness of mind and character which insulates him from the petty and mean. A speech like that he delivered at Boston on Thursday exhibits his greatness, so that the or- dinary people say: “There is nobody like him.’ It is true that out of office he speaks at an advantage. But that is a small matter beside advantages which are native and constant—unrivalled experience in political affairs, breadth of mind, vision, mastery of the penetrating phrase and choice of the time to use it. These belong to the man and are a standing rebuke to those who con- tended once that he was not the sort of Prime Minister to make a good peace. The irony of the situation (Mr. Churchill probably smiles at the thought at times) is that out of office he has prepared the way for statesmen on both sides of the Atlantic, worked up the peoples’ minds to acceptance of policies of mutual advantage. From Zurich in Switzerland to Fulton in Missouri and now Boston, Massachusetts, he has made the rough places plain so that what Hazlitt wrote of Chatham is eminently true of Winston Church- ill: ‘He spoke as a man should speak, because he felt as a man should feel in such circumstances! . . . “This speech was in the Churchill tradition, sombre and heartening. It contained no easy promises, but trusted to peoples’ intelligence to judge the issue when it was put plainly and eloquently to them. Of responsible freedom he remains the chief champion in this century and much will depend on the response to his words, for a speech depends on the audience as well as the speaker. Will the free world respond and act? Mindful of the revilings of this 476 Appendix C great man by some of his own countrymen down to this very day, it is im- possible to be sure. Whatever befall, the bearing of Winston Churchill in crisis will abide as emotions of character always do. His battle honours in the cold war are Zurich, Fulton and Boston, and they point the way ahead as no one else's have done. Hazlitt might indeed have been writing of him: ‘He did not stand up to make a vain display of his talents, but to discharge a duty, to maintain that cause which lay nearest his heart.’” Appendix D ON WHITES AND BLACKS ALBERT SCHWEITZER AND PIERRE RYCKMANs (See footnote 22, Chapter IV) Significant comments on the cited problem have been provided by Albert Schweitzer in Zwischen Wasser und Urwald translated by C. T. Campion as On the Edge of the Primeval Forest (New York, The Mac- millan Company, 1948). Passages from this work are quoted by Schweitzer in Aus Meinem Leben und Denken, translated, also by Campion, as Out of My Life and Thought (New York, Henry Holt and Company, 1933) in the chapter “The Book of African Reminiscences.” The passages quoted by Schweitzer which are relevant to the pres- ent discussion will be found on pages 222–228 of the latter cited book. Excerpts: “Have we white people the right to impose our rule on primitive and semi-primitive peoples—my experience has been gathered among such only? No, if we only want to rule over them and draw material advantage from their country. Yes, if we seriously desire to educate them and help them to attain to a condition of well-being. If there were any sort of possibility that these peoples could live really by and for themselves, we could leave them to themselves. But as things are, the world trade which has reached them is a fact against which both we and they are powerless. They have already through it lost their freedom. . . . In view of the state of things produced by world trade there can be no question with these peoples of real independence, but only whether it is better for them to be delivered over to the mercies, tender or otherwise, of rapacious native tyrants or to be governed by officials of European states.” In this connection see Pierre Ryckmans, La Politique Coloniale (Louvain, Editions Rex, 1934), page 18, where he says: “Ceux qui peignent complaisamment le triste tableau de l'oppression du noir par le blanc, oublient trop souvent de tracer en parallèle le tableau– oraiment hideux celui-ld—du noir tyrannisé par le noir. Les indigènes souf- fraient avant notre venue. Patients et longanimes, resignés et passifs, ils souffraient. Ils n'en Souffraient pas moins si leurs plaintes ne parvenaient pas à l'Europe. Du Soudan au Cap, de Zanzibar a l'Atlantique, l'histoire de l'Afrique pendant le siècle qui précéda la conquête n'est qu'une suite de noms de tyrans. Chaka et Dingaan, Lobengula, Mirambo, Msiri, Mtesa, Béhanzin, Rabah, Ahmadou, Samory, Rumaliza—d'un bout de l'Afrique noire a l'autre, des despotes Sanguinaires massacraient, pillaient, réduisaient des 477 478 Appendix D peuples entiers à l'esclavage; presque partout la conquête européenne fut d'abord une libération. Les remous violents des migrations n'ont été apaisés que par l'occupation blanche. Et même dans la paix, quel cauchemar de terreurs que la pauvre vie précaire des noirs! Peur de leurs semblables; peur des esprits malfaisants; peur de toutes les forces inconnues auxquelles sans défense ils se sentaient livrés . . .. On voyait mourir des êtres chers, et l'on soupçonnait un ennemi ignoré; le féticheur dirigeait les soupçons, armait la vengeance: chaque deuil engendrait un meurtre et chaque meurtre ap- pelait un talion . . . " ". . .. Les colonisateurs ont la partie belle. S'ils le veulent, ils peuvent mériter mieux que le pardon: d'éternelles actions de grâces, une impérissable gratitude." Schweitzer continues : "That of those who were commissioned to carry out in our name the seizure of our colonial territories many were guilty of injustice, violence, and cruelty as bad as those of the native chiefs, and so brought on our heads a load of guilt, is only too true. Nor of the sins committed against the natives to-day must anything be suppressed or whitewashed. But willingness to give these primitive and semi-primitive people of our colonies an independ- ence which would inevitably end in enslavement to their fellows, is no way of making up for our failure to treat them properly. Our only possible course is to exercise for the benefit of the natives the power we actually possess, and thus provide a moral justification for it. Even the hitherto pre- vailing 'imperialism' can plead that it has some qualities of ethical value. . . ." In this connection, see Ryckmans, La Politique Coloniale, pages 9-11, where he says: "La colonisation moderne s'impose à nous avant tout comme un fait. Légitime ou non, elle existe, il faut en tenir compte. Les premiers Capétiens furent-ils ou non des usurpateursP La Belgique avait-elle le droit d'annexer le CongoP Questions aussi oiseuses l'une que l'autre quand on se place sur le terrain de l'action. Car si même on devait conclure à l'injustice de la conquête, la question intéressante à résoudre serait celle de savoir comment réparer. Proposer l'évacuation est pur verbiage. Mais même si on pouvait l'envisager sérieusement, la proposition ne devrait pas être faite-parce que l'évacuation ne réparerait rien. Nous n'abandonnerions aujourd'hui les noirs à eux-mêmes que pour les livrer à une effroyable anarchie, les replonger dans une barbarie pire que celle où nous les avons trouvés. Le devoir de réparation, s'il existe, ne peut être rempli qu'en assurant aux indigènes des compensations adé- quates à la perte de leur souveraineté. "Mais ces compensations-là, nous les devons aux noirs de toute manière, même si nous croyons la colonisation pleinement légitimée par la solidarité humaine." . . . ". . . Que la colonisation soit injuste en soi et qu'il s'agisse de mériter le pardon d'un tort que nous ne pouvons plus défaire, ou qu'elle soit légitime et Appendix D 479 qu'il sagisse d'obtenir quittance d'une indemnité dont nous nous recon- naissons débiteurs, nos devoirs sont les mémes dans l'une et l'autre hypothèse: les Congolais doivent étre les premiers à benéficier de notre présence au Congo. Nous avons l'obligation stricte de garantir aux indigènes une somme de bienfaits telle que les maux inhérents à l'occupation européenne soient largement compensés.” Schweitzer continues: “What so-called self-government means for primitive and semi-primitive peoples can be gathered from the fact that in the Black Republic of Liberia, domestic slavery and what is far worse, the compulsory shipment of labour- ers to other countries, have continued down to our own day. They were both abolished on October 1st, 1930—on paper. “The tragic fact is that the interests of colonization and those of civiliza- tion do not always run parallel, but are often in direct opposition to each other. The best thing for primitive peoples would be that, in such seclu- Sion from world trade as is possible, and under an intelligent administration, they should rise by slow development from being nomads and semi-nomads to be agriculturists and artisans, permanently settled on the soil. That, how- ever, is rendered impossible by the fact that these peoples themselves will not let themselves be withheld from the chance of earning money by selling goods to world trade, just as on the other hand world trade will not abstain from purchasing native products from them and depositing manufactured goods in exchange. Thus it becomes very hard to carry to completion a colonization which means at the same time true civilization. . . . “Whenever the timber trade is good, permanent famine reigns in the Ogowe region, because the natives neglect the making of new plantations in order to fell as many trees as possible. In the swamps and the forest in which they find this work they live on imported rice and imported preserved foods, which they purchase with the proceeds of their labour. “Colonization, then, in the sense of civilization, means trying to ensure that among the primitive and semi-primitive peoples who are in danger in this way, only so much labour-power is allowed to be engaged for the export trade as is not needed for home industry and for that proportion of their agriculture which produces the foodstuffs needed at home. The more thinly any colony is populated, the more difficult it is to reconcile the interests of a sound development of the country with those of world trade. A rising export trade does not always prove that a colony is making progress; it may also mean that it is on the way to ruin. . . . “Nor must it be thought that the native can be trained to labour by re- quiring him to pay ever-increasing taxes. He is indeed obliged to work to obtain the money needed for such taxes, but this concealed forced labour will not, any more than the unconcealed, change him from an indolent to an industrious man. Injustice cannot produce a moral result. “In every colony in the world the taxes are to-day already so high that they can only with difficulty be paid by the population. Colonies everywhere have, for want of thought, been burdened with loans the interest on which can hardly be raised. 480 Appendix D "The problems of native education are mixed up with economic and social problems, and are not less complicated than the latter. "Agriculture and handicraft are the foundations of civilization. Only where that foundation exists are the conditions given for the formation and per- sistence of a stratum of population which can occupy itself with commercial and intellectual pursuits. But with the natives in the colonies-and they themselves demand it-we proceed as if not agriculture and handicraft, but reading and writing were the beginnings of civilization. From schools which are mere copies of those of Europe they are turned out as 'educated,' persons, that is, who think themselves superior to manual work, and want to follow only commercial or intellectual callings. All those who are unable to secure acceptable employment in the offices of the business houses or of the Government sit about as idlers or grumblers. It is the misfortune of all colonies-and not only of those with primitive or semi-primitive popula- tions!-that those who go through the schools are mostly lost to agriculture and handicraft instead of contributing to their development." See Ryckmans, La Politique Coloniale, pages 103-104, where he says: "L'enseignement livresque n'a pas fort bonne presse en Afrique. On l'accuse de faire des vaniteux, des déclassés prétentieux et éternellement mécontents. Il y a du vrai dans cette accusation-bien que certains voient une 'prétention dans le désir d'un noir d'être considéré comme autre chose qu'un vulgaire outil. Pour la plupart des indigènes, l'école n'est que l'antichambre du bureau, du magasin, du secrétariat; le premier pas dans une carrière qui doit lui permettre de vivre sans travailler de ses mains-et si possible aux dépens de ses congénères. A quoi servirait d'ailleurs de savoir lire, écrire et même compter si ce n'est à devenir greffier, ou instituteur; ou a défaut de débouché dans les carrières cléricales vite encombrées, secrétaire d'un chef, factotum d'un notable, vague interprète, agent d'affaires pour les rapports avec le blanc-parasite en un motP C'est très exact. Mais cette situation est due non pas à l'instruction, mais au défaut d'instruction. Savoir griffonner et déchiffrer des billets n'est une supériorité sociale que dans un pays d'illettrés, comme l'écriture n'est une science inutile pour le commun que là où les autres gens du commun ne savent pas lire. Quand tous les indigènes auront fait un rudiment d'école primaire, cette petite instruction ne déclassera plus personne. Il s'agit donc là d'une simple crise de croissance qui se résoudra d'elle-même. De même se résoudra la question des programmes. Tant que la fréquentation des classes est le privilège d'une rare élite, l'attrait de l'école réside dans les perspectives de carrière qu'elle offre. Les noirs veulent de 'écriture, de la lecture, du calcul, du français, de la science livresque qui les distingue de leurs congénères; surtout, pas de travaux manuels, pas d'agricul- ture, rien qui leur rappelle l'existence à laquelle ils rêvent d'échapper. Mais à mesure que s'étendent les bienfaits de l'instruction, les indigènes compren- nent mieux son but de perfectionnement pour la masse, dans le cadre de vie de la masse, ils se rendent compte du bénéfice que leur procurera un en- seignement agricole adapté aux conditions locales et acceptent de rester pay- sans tout en sachant l'alphabet." Appendix D 481 Schweitzer continues: “This change of class, from lower to higher, produces thoroughly un- healthy economic and social conditions. Proper colonization means educat- ing the natives in such a way that they are not alienated from agriculture and handicraft but attracted to them. Intellectual learning should in every colonial school be accompanied by the acquisition of every kind of manual skill. For their civilization it is more important that the natives should learn to burn bricks, to build, to saw logs into planks, to be ready with hammer, plane, and chisel, than that they should be brilliant at reading and writing, and even be able to calculate with a + b and x + y. . . .” “Finally, let me urge that whatever benefit we confer upon the peoples of our colonies is not beneficence but atonement for the terrible sufferings which we white people have been bringing upon them ever since the day on which the first of our ships found its way to their shores. Colonial prob- lems, as they exist today, cannot be solved by political measures alone. A new element must be introduced; white and coloured must meet in an atmosphere of the ethical spirit. Then only will mutual understanding be possible. “To work for the creation of that spirit means helping to make the course of world politics rich in blessings for the future.” Appendix E SCIENCE AS A WAY OF LIFE J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER (See footnote 22, Chapter V) A quotation from the Second Arthur Dehon Little Memorial Lecture, given at M.I.T. in 1947 by J. Robert Oppenheimer. The true responsibility of a scientist, as we all know, is to the integrity and vigor of his science. And because most scientists, like all men of learn- ing, tend in part also to be teachers, they have a responsibility for the com- munication of the truths they have found. This is at least a collective if not an individual responsibility. That we should see in this any insurance that the fruits of science will be used for man’s benefit, or denied to man when they make for his distress or destruction, would be a tragic naivete. There is another side of the coin. This is the question of whether there are elements in the way of life of the scientist which need not be restricted to the professional, and which have hope in them for bringing dignity and courage and serenity to other men. Science is not all of the life of reason; it is a part of it. As such, what can it mean to man? Perhaps it would be well to emphasize that I am talking neither of wis- dom, nor of an élite of scientists, but precisely of the kind of work and thought, of action and discipline, that makes up the everyday professional life of the scientist. It is not of any general insight into human affairs that I am talking. It is not the kind of thing we recognize in our greatest states- men, after long service devoted to practical affairs and to the public interest. It is something very much more homely and robust than that. It has in it the kind of beauty that is inseparable from craftsmanship and form, but that has in it also the vigor which we rightly associate with the simple ordered lives of artisans or of farmers, that we rightly associate with lives to which limitations of scope, and traditional ways, have given robustness and structure. Even less would it be right to interpret the question of what there is in the ways of science which may be of general value to mankind in terms of the creation of an élite. The study of physics, and I think my colleagues in the other sciences will let me speak for them too, does not make philosopher- kings. It has not, until now, made kings. It almost never makes fit philoso- phers—so rarely that they must be counted as exceptions. If the professional pursuit of science makes good scientists, if it makes men with a certain serenity in their lives, who yield perhaps a little more slowly than others to the natural corruptions of their time, it is doing a great deal, and all that we may rightly ask of it. For if Plato believed that in the study of geometry, a man might prepare himself for wisdom and responsibility in the world of men, it was precisely because he thought so hopefully that the understand- 482 Appendix E 483 ing of men could be patterned after the understanding of geometry. If we believe that today, it is in a much more recondite sense, and a much more cautious one. Where then is the point? For one thing it is to describe some of the fea- tures of the professional life of the scientist, which make of it one of the great phenomena of the contemporary world. Here again, I would like to speak of physics; but I have enough friends in the other sciences to know how close their experience is to ours. And I know too that despite profound differences in method and technique, differences which surely are an ap- propriate reflection of the difference in the areas of the world under study, what I would say of physics will seem familiar to workers in other disparate fields, such as mathematics, or biology. What are some of these points? There is, in the first instance, a total lack of authoritarianism, which is hard to comprehend or to admit unless one has lived with it. This is accomplished by one of the most exacting of intel- lectual disciplines. In physics the worker learns the possibility of error very early. He learns that there are ways to correct his mistakes; he learns the futility of trying to conceal them. For it is not a field in which error awaits death and subsequent generations for verdict—the next issue of the journals will take care of it. The refinement of techniques for the prompt discovery of error serves as well as any other as a hallmark of what we mean by science. In any case, it is an area of collective effort, in which there is a clear and well-defined community whose canons of taste and order simplify the life of the practitioner. It is a field in which the technique of experiment has given an almost perfect harmony to the balance between thought and action. In it we learn so frequently that we could almost become accustomed to it, how vast is the novelty of the world, and how much even the physical world transcends in delicacy and in balance the limits of man's prior imaginings. We learn that views may be useful and inspiring although they are not com- plete. We come to have a great caution in all assertions of totality, of finality or absoluteness. In this field quite ordinary men, using what are in the last analysis only the tools which are generally available in our society, manage to unfold for themselves and all others who wish to learn, the rich story of one aspect of the physical world, and of man's experience. We learn to throw away those instruments of action and those modes of description which are not appropriate to the reality we are trying to discern, and in this most painful discipline, find ourselves modest before the world. The question which is so much in our mind is whether a comparable ex- perience, a comparable discipline, a comparable community of interest, can in any way be available to mankind at large. I suppose that all the pro- fessional scientists together number some one one-hundredth of a per cent of the men of the world—even this will define rather generously what we mean by scientists. Scientists as professionals are, I suppose, rather sure to constitute a small part of our people. Clearly, if we raise at all this question which I have raised, it must be in the hope that there are other areas of human experience that may be discovered or invented or cultivated, and to which the qualities which dis- 484 Appendix E tinguish scientific life may be congenial and appropriate. It is natural that serious scientists, knowing of their own experience something of the qual- ity of their profession, should just today be concerned about its possible extension. For it is a time when the destruction and the evil of the last quarter century make men everywhere eager to seek all that can contribute to their intellectual life, some of the order and freedom and purpose which we conceive the great days of the past to have. Of all intellectual activity, science alone has flourished in the last centuries, science alone has turned out to have the kind of universality among men which the times require. I shall be disputed in this; but it is near to truth. If one looks at past history, one may derive some encouragement for the hope that science, as one of the forms of reason, will nourish all of its forms. One may note how integral the love and cultivation of science was with the whole awakening of the human spirit which characterized the Renaissance. Or one may look at the late seventeenth and eighteenth cen- turies in France and England, and see what pleasure and what stimulation the men of that time derived from the growth of physics, astronomy and mathematics. What perhaps characterizes these periods of the past, which we must be careful not to make more heroic because of their remoteness, was that there were many men who were able to combine in their own lives the ac- tivities of a scientist with activities of art and learning and politics, and were able to carry over from the one into the others this combination of courage and modesty which is the lesson that science always tries to teach to anyone who practices it. And here we come to a point we touched earlier. It is very different to hear the results of science, as they may be descriptively or even analytically taught in a class or in a book or in the popular talk of the time; it is very different to hear these and to participate even in a modest way in the actual attainment of new knowledge. For it is just characteristic of all work in scientific fields that there is no authority to whom to refer, no one to give canon, no one to blame if the picture does not make sense. Clearly these circumstances pose a question of great difficulty in the field of education. For if there is any truth in the views that I have outlined, there is all the difference in the world between hearing about science or its results, and sharing in the experience of the scientist himself and of that of the scientific community. We all know that an awareness of this, and an awareness of the value of science as method, rather than science as doctrine, underlies the practices of teaching to scientist and layman alike. For surely the whole notion of incorporating a laboratory in a high school or college is a deference to the belief that not only what the scientist finds but how he finds it is worth learning and teaching and worth living through. Yet there is something fake about all this. No one who has had to do with elementary instruction can have escaped a sense of artificiality in the way in which students are led, by the calculations of their instructors, to follow paths which will tell them something about the physical world. Precisely that groping for what is the appropriate experiment, what are the appropri- ate terms in which to view subtle or complex phenomena, which are the substance of scientific effort, almost inevitably are distilled out of it by the Appendix E 485 natural patterns of pedagogy. The teaching of science to laymen is not wholly a loss; and here perhaps physics is an atypically bad example. But surely they are rare men who, entering upon a life in which science plays no direct part, remember from their early courses in physics what science is like or what it is good for. The teaching of science is at its best when it is most like an apprenticeship. . . . Thus it would seem at least doubtful that the spiritual fruits of science could be made generally available, either by the communication of its re- sults, or by the study of its history, or by the necessarily somewhat artificial reénactment of its procedures. Rather it would seem that there are general features of the scientists’ work the direct experience of which in any con- text could contribute more to this end. All of us, I suppose, would list such features and find it hard to define the words which we found it necessary to use in our lists. But on a few, a common experience may enable us to talk in concert. In the first instance the work of science is coöperative; a scientist takes his colleagues as judges, competitors and collaborators. That does not mean, of course, that he loves his colleagues; but it gives him a way of living with them which would be not without its use in the contemporary world. The work of science is disciplined, in that its essential inventiveness is most of all dedicated to means for promptly revealing error. One may think of the rigors of mathematics, and the virtuosity of physical experiment as two ex- amples. Science is disciplined in its rejection of questions that cannot be answered, and in its grinding pursuit of methods for answering all that can. Science is always limited, and is in a profound sense unmetaphysical, in that it necessarily bases itself upon the broad ground of common human experience, tries to refine it within narrow areas where progress seems pos- sible and exploration fruitful. Science is novelty, and change. When it closes it dies. . . . These qualities constitute a way of life which of course does not make wise men from foolish, or good men from wicked, but which has its beauty and which seems singularly suited to man's estate on earth. Appendix F SPECIALIZATION IN BRITISH UNIVERSITIES SIR ERNEST BARKER (See footnote 10, Chapter VII) This comment on specialization in British Universities by Sir Ernest Barker is taken from his informative little book published for the Brit- ish Council, British Universities (London, New York, Toronto, Long- mans, Green and Co., Ltd., 1946), pages 18–19. There is an uneasy stirring in British Universities about the general system of Honours specialisation, and about the wisdom of a policy which permits degrees to be taken in the one subject of Chemistry, or Botany, or French, or whatever else it may be. This uneasy stirring reflects itself in a demand for what is called “synthesis”; for some integration of studies; for some attempt to give a general outlook on life, and not merely a dry if accurate knowledge of a single specialty. One of the most interesting schemes of synthesis is that suggested in a report which has been prepared by a committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science—a committee which contained, in addition to its British members, a number of professors and scholars drawn from Allied countries. Three proposals are contained in this scheme. The first is the institution of a new general degree course, both Honours and Pass, in “Philosophy Natural and Human”—a general course which would give a syn- thetic view of the modern world against a background of natural science, and which might (it is incidentally suggested) be regularly taken by intending teachers before they proceeded to their special course of pedagogical train- ing. The second proposal in the scheme is that students of science and tech- nology should be compelled to take, concurrently with their scientific or tech- nological studies, some additional courses (provided partly in lectures and partly in discussion classes) in the general field of sociology and citizenship, with a view to broadening and humanising the range of their scientific out- look. [This is essentially the present American system. It would be hard to defend the assertion that American scientists and engineers are more socially minded or better prepared to assume social responsibility than their British colleagues. ED.] The third proposal is that all students alike (but it would be students on the “Arts” side who would be more particularly affected) should be offered courses—which they would not, however, be compelled to take—on the essential methods and the main results of modern science, alike in its application to nature and in its application to the mind of man and the study of human society. This is a scheme of synthesis which may be said to come from the side of “Science.” Schemes of a similar nature are also being canvassed on the “Arts” side; and they are canvassed there with all the more zest because the profes- sors on this side—concerned as they are with the great studies of philosophy, 486 Appendix F 487 history, and literature—are naturally impelled to think that it is their particu- lar function to provide the broad and general outlook which such studies are calculated to give. A dictum of a professor of literature deserves to be quoted for the light which it throws on the aspirations which are now stirring on the “Arts” side. “What matters in the Arts faculties,” he writes, “is that a subject should be continually thought out afresh (1) in terms of contemporary exist- ence and (2) by the help of the light thrown upon it by other branches of contemporary knowledge.” Later in the same book (pages 23–25) Barker defines the three duties of a modern University as owed to a modern democratic so- ciety. One is to discover and train a sufficient intellectual elite. Of this he says: . . . The British Universities do tolerably well in discovering the elite (which is not to say that they might not possibly discover a still wider elite . . .); but it is not so clear that the British Universities do equally well in giving to the members of the elite which they discover the training which will suit them best for the part which they will have to play in the life of contemporary society. Their Honours courses are too highly specialised; and they are too much aimed (consciously or unconsciously) at producing teach- ers of a single subject, or scholars in a single subject, rather than men of a general culture and a general outlook on life. This is not true of the classical “Greats” course or the modern “Greats” course at Oxford, or of similar courses which have been constructed in other universities; but it is true of too many of the courses, and of much of the teaching in those courses. The votary of pure scholarship may argue that any knowledge is a good thing, and that any depth of knowledge can only be attained by the good old way of steady industry in a single field; and there is some weight in this argu- ment. Sciolism may easily be the penalty of a course intended to produce a general culture; and a little knowledge, however widely diffused, is still a dangerous thing. But the argument of the votary of pure scholarship is not in the end conclusive. Men do not learn for the sake of learning, but to do some good by their learning. The old prayer still recited in the old Universi- ties—“that there may never be wanting a supply of persons duly qualified to serve God both in Church and State”—was a noble expression of this truth. To serve is the end of learning; and a narrow learning is a narrow service. The second purpose, according to Barker, is to maintain for the community a standard of culture which will include the great rules of taste and truth —the rules of a true appreciation of beauty and of a genuine devotion to science in the highest sense of that word. . . . He continues: Here, again, there ought to be an institution which can maintain the perennial standards of a just aesthetic criticism. Plato criticised democracy 488 Appendix F for being a chaos of political and artistic license. Our modern democracy may not be immune from similar criticism, unless it has some ark of stand- ards. And it is difficult to see where that ark can rest, so far as Great Britain is concerned, elsewhere than on the Universities. This is one reason the more why British Universities should seek to correct a specialism which is sometimes narrow and too often arid. Only if they seek to make that cor- rection can they maintain, or help to maintain, the general standards of taste and truth. Only if they seek to give their students some general culture, and a general outlook on life, can they do that part of their duty which con- sists in upholding the general standards of culture. The third purpose of the University, as here defined, is that of the advancement of knowledge and the promotion of research; about this point nothing involving specialization, pro or con, is said. Appendix G JAIME TORRES BODET ON ADULT EDUCATION (See footnote 56, Chapter VII) These are excerpts from the address of Jaime Torres Bodet, Director- General UNESCO, at Kronberg Castle, Denmark, June 16, 1949, as published in School and Society for October 1, 1949. Adult education is one of the most important questions of our day and one likely to have the most far-reaching consequences. Even before the 1989 war, its importance was recognized by educationists, by many agri- cultural, industrial, and academic associations, and even by certain govern- ments. Extensive programs of popular education were indeed worked out; in some countries on account of the political requirements of the totalitarian regimes; in others as a result of that desire for emancipation which does honour to democracy. . . . The fascist regimes, both German and Italian, exploited the most personal and therefore the most inviolable of the assets usually possessed by adults: the short time, after their day's work in the fields or the workshop is done, when they are free to think. By seizing upon this modest possession, those regimes managed to change rest into meetings, amusement into hypnotism, education into propaganda, and propaganda into drill. . . . The aim of our conference is entirely different, for we are convinced that to educate is to liberate. We hope for no better result from our work than the awakening in the consciousness of every adult of an awareness both of his personal responsibility and of his intellectual and moral fellow- ship with the whole of mankind. This conference is the first international meeting held since the end of the war to consider the question with which we are concerned. For long years, countries found themselves forced to teach their men and women the most painful lesson that the adult can learn of life: the lesson of fear in the midst of deadly danger. Hardly had the hostilities ended than UNESCO was established, and proclaimed from the beginning that the defenses of peace must be constructed in the minds of men. . . . No moment could be more auspicious or more solemn. I find a symbolic significance in the fact that this assembly is meeting today at Elsinore, in the castle of Hamlet, the Prince of eternal doubt. Like Hamlet, the world of today is forever wondering: “To be or not to be.’ From one point of view, the possibility of war inevitably brings with it the extolling of hatred, the use of science to destroy life, the justification of the priority of might over right. On the other hand, the need to build the peace is equally plain and ineluctable. The possibility of war and the need for peace, continually and simultaneously present in our minds, thus produce the most dramatic state of anxiety. Material progress gives the onlooker the impression that, if the sense of moral obligation were, unfortunately, to disappear, sloth would in- 489 490 Appendix G sidiously lead men to the conclusion that it is easier to let another war break out than to build a just peace. For war, like any other barbarism, produces a brutal simplification. But does not suicide also produce a simplification— and that final? International co-operation, which was insured during the war by military alliances, has now reappeared, with the return of peace, as an ideal which cannot be attained without a very delicate adjustment of conflicting and controversial aspirations. Now that the danger of their all disappearing to- gether has subsided, the nations are wondering how they can manage to live together. This phenomenon, so obvious on the international level, is also visible, on the national level, within each country. The fear of death is a more effective cement than hope for joining wills together. We all fear in the same way. But we do not all hope in the same way. We must realize one thing: peace demands more skill, more imagination, and also more heroism than do battles. In time of war, imagination and skill are, of course, indis- pensable to the general staffs for the winning of victory. Strategy requires many years of preparation and all sorts of detailed and specialized studies. But the soldiers, unknown martyrs, unfortunately learn with the greatest care the technique of killing and the art of dying. In peacetime, on the other hand, we ought all to feel that we have equal responsibilities and equal duties. War is thought out by the leaders and car- ried out by their subordinates. But to make peace, all men must unite. May I quote once more Shakespeare's well-known words, which are as apt here: “To be or not to be.” But to be is nothing in itself, because at any given moment everyone is only what he aspires to be. From the day of our birth, we are a mere project, a living project; life lies before us like a program. The child is an anticipation of the youth; the youth is an antici- pation of the adult. And the adult—what, in reality, is he? Of what future development are we, all of us, the mere anticipation? This question involves everything in our personal equation that is most intimate and inexpressible. That is why we cannot answer it in general terms. That is why the part of education to which you are dedicated is so delicate; if you are to do it justice, you cannot merely be satisfied to resort to the usual educational methods, for it is partly compensation and partly supplement—partly the development of an apprenticeship and partly (why deny it?) re-education. Suppose we have a group of adults to educate—workers or peasants, craftsmen, bureaucrats, or soldiers. With any ideal group with which we have to deal, what should be the problem of prime concern to us? Dif- ferences of temperament, as with children? Differences of vocation, as with young people? Certainly, temperament and vocation are factors that no teacher, lecturer, or artist approaching an adult public should ignore. But what he should have in mind before all else is the spiritual loneliness in which each member of his audience is always living. Rarely has this loneliness been so formidable, so complete, and so unrecognized as in the world of today. The child lives within its childishness as in a protective atmosphere. The youth comes to know himself more with every adventure in which his feelings or his intellect are involved, and rejoices, sometimes even in spite of sorrow, in his discovery of himself. But the adult has no Appendix G 491 place of refuge. Cut off from others of his generation by the relentless uniqueness of his destiny, and from his own conscience by his fear of seeing himself in it as he really is, stripped of all gloss or illusion, the adult has only two courses open to him—either to remain himself, isolating himself from the multitude, or to give up his individuality and to submit to the im- personal will of the masses. Even for the genius, absolute loneliness is a termless punishment. What then shall we say of the absolute loneliness of the ordinary man? Yet his merging in the mass would mean no less than a cruel renunciation of his very nature as a man. In face of this loneliness or this renunciation, adult education should be based on the idea that necessarily underlies every international institution— the brotherhood of human destiny. At bottom, it is a question not so much of teaching the adult such and such an art or such and such a science, as of instructing him in a much vaster subject, which we foolishly imagine he has already mastered—life itself. Bent over the soil for hours every day, pounded from morning to night by the mechanical rhythm of industrial mass-production, the average adult of our time rarely seems to be in any position to appreciate the life going on around him and to grasp the truth about his fellows. Nothing, however, is more untrue than to believe that man is by nature man's enemy. On the contrary, sociability is, of all human instincts, the most widespread and ineradicable. But it has to be admitted that the eco- nomic organization of society creates too often conditions of life which weaken the fraternal instinct. In a world where material interests have be- come the mainspring of action, and where economic success is the measur- ing rod of values, individuals, classes, nations act as enemies or rivals rather than as partners: so that it is seldom that man has been lonelier, poorer, and more unhappy. At the same time, a conception not less destructive of human community has taken place in minds, the conception of a culture whose goals were no longer grandeur and strength, simplicity of impulse and breadth of vision, but were, also, the difficult, the precious, the exceptional, the arbitrary, and the refined. This created a gulf between the ordinary people and the intel- lectuals, whose affectation and overnicety became more and more foreign to the crowd. . . . But a culture must be judged, not by the distance separating it from the people that produced it, but by the strength and depth of its roots. In the last resort, our civilization will be judged according to the services it has rendered to man, the extent to which it has made him conscious of his rights, and the way in which it has taught him to co-operate with all his fellow-men in an atmosphere of peace, which can only be insured through intelligence guided by the sense of justice and faith sustained by beauty, truth, and virtue. When you are discussing adult education, you are in fact discussing no less a matter than the future of our civilization. Do we want to educate people for obedience? Do we want to educate them for responsibility? Are we going to educate the masses as if they were a uniform conglomeration in which individuals are swallowed up? Or are we going to educate them as a group of living beings in which the freedom of the individual conscience 492 Appendix G to develop is not restricted by the group mind? Do we claim to relieve man's isolation by accustoming him to blind submission to the will of the herd? Or do we wish to bring him to take a conscious part in a culture which, while having regard for his personality, will inspire in him a sincere desire to be one with all his fellows? If we decide in favor of education for responsibility, we shall have chosen the more difficult but, as I believe, the only true road. There is no better remedy for the terror of solitude than the principle of the universal re- sponsibility of man on earth. “Each of us is responsible for everything to everyone else,” is one of Dostoyevsky's most profoundly penetrating re- marks. Let us make no mistake. If we choose education for responsibility, we automatically demand a culture based upon the sense of responsibility. Such a choice involves more than what we have to discuss at this con- ference; it calls for efforts from others than teachers alone. All forms of human activity are concerned—politics and economics as well as science and art. When the people agitate for better organization of work, a fairer dis- tribution of property, and equality of opportunity, they are, of course, strug- gling for the improvement of their material living conditions. But we are conscious that they are also putting forward, albeit in other terms, a concept of humanism which will give fresh life to culture. When I say humanism, I am not using the word in the narrow sense which has been given to it by the most uncompromising individualists, but in the far wider, philosophical and philological, sense which comes from its derivation; I am using it with reference to the reconciliation of man and humanity. Man is primarily a social being; he cannot therefore be considered apart from the community to which he owes his upbringing. Now, in the present day, whether he likes it or not, the community is worldwide. It therefore imposes, and will continue to impose, ever widening duties. The contrast between the number and extent of such duties, on the one hand, and the misunderstanding and hatred we see, on the other, are so cruel that pessi- mism would be justified, if there were not to be seen amid the chaos one gleam of hope—the hope that at last a living culture will be established in which the masses can have a share although the rights of the individual are not abated, and in which, similarly, the individual will not appear as the selfish beneficiary of an inheritance which he receives as a free gift and uses irresponsibly, but as the essential instrument of the moral solidarity of mankind. World-wide aims and freedom in the means of obtaining them seem to me to constitute the two guiding rules in any action to foster, by universal education, a type of culture in which the motive principle is personal re- sponsibility. The development of the first stage of industrial expansion was facilitated by primary education for the masses. We must not forget that fact. It is par- ticularly significant, as adult education—which only the most favored coun- tries are as yet entitled to distinguish from primary education—is still to- day, over most of the world, at the stage of heroic literacy campaigns. An- other reason for remembering it is that there are still people who wonder whether primary education for the proletariat is dangerous. And above all, we must remember it because the real danger would be to limit our train- Appendix G 493 ing of the peoples of the future to the imparting of the rudimentary knowl- edge implied in the teaching of reading and writing. In the present-day world, technical skills are becoming highly complex, and the desire for universality grows ever more urgent. Civilization can only progress if the masses are trained systematically and coherently for the task before them. That is the ultimate aim of adult education. . . . Appendix H BRITISH COMMENTS ON STATE FINANCING OF UNIVERSITIES SIR WALTER MOBERLY (See footnote 3, Chapter VIII) In a BBC broadcast “The State and the Universities,” reproduced in London Calling, the Overseas Journal of the British Broadcasting Cor- poration, September 2, 1948, Sir Walter Moberly said: Universities are powerful and influential corporations, and they perform a function of high public importance. In all countries, the Supreme political authority must, and does, exercise some measure of supervision over them. But a high degree of autonomy is necessary to the universities if they are to function properly, and whatever threatens this autonomy must be resisted— whether it be political interference, or an administrative passion for stand- ardising, or a flattering demand for services. In the United Kingdom, the relations between the State and the universi- ties have been happy, and there is the minimum of State supervision and control. These are exercised either through the granting of charters which confer status and degree-giving powers; or by royal commissions of investi- gation; or, again, by the control of certain university appointments; and, lastly, by financial grants. Now, he who pays the piper calls the tune—so it is said—and, where the State subsidises universities on a large scale, it may attach conditions to its grants. Hence, there is a burning question: is acceptance of substantial financial support compatible with autonomy? Here the United Kingdom is a crucial instance. By 1952, the total grants from the State to British universities will be six times greater than in 1938; yet the State is satisfied that the money is being properly spent and the universities have not sacrificed their independence. How has this been achieved? It has been achieved through the medium of the University Grants Com- mittee which is attached to the Treasury and not, as you might expect, to the Ministry of Education. This committee is appointed by the Government, but its members have always been academic rather than official. The air they breathe, the thoughts they think, the values to which they pay al- legiance are not those of Whitehall, but are those of the university world which is their spiritual home. The University Grants Committee has manifold contacts with the uni- versities at all levels—formal discussions with staff, students, and govern- ing bodies, and so on, to discover needs and policies. But, more important still, perhaps, there are the friendly relations which exist between the heads of the universities and the committee's officers. 494 Appendix H 495 The financial grants are made for periods of five years; and for the most part are given in aid of a university's general programme rather than ear- marked for a particular purpose. The universities have ample opportunities of fathering informally the views of the University Grants Committee on their projects, and these views may, and do, influence them; but they do not dominate them. With the great increase in the amount of grants, and the growing experi- ence of the committee, its functions have somewhat expanded. For instance, it is a sort of clearing-house for information, letting one university know the plans or problems of some other university. The committee can give guid- ance on public needs, such as the need for a larger output of particular kinds of graduates. And it acts as what I might call a gadfly—a stimulating influence, inciting the universities to plan for themselves, more fully, per- haps, than they might otherwise do. Thus, the relation between the University Grants Committee and the universities is essentially one of partnership. I am not in a position to say whether this system of ours—this partnership between the University Grants Committee and the universities—is exportable; but I can say something about the conditions which have made such a partnership possible in the United Kingdom. First of all, there is the national tradition which abhors regimentation and favours guilds and voluntary societies. Then there is the high prestige which universities enjoy in the public mind, both in England and Scotland. There is the understanding good will of ministers and senior civil servants, gen- erally university men themselves, and there is the important fact that the universities and their grants have been kept out of party politics; they have never yet become the object of party controversy. Also it has been possible to find for membership of the University Grants Committee persons who command the confidence both of the universities and of the Treasury, persons in whose impartiality and understanding the universities have been prepared to trust. And another important condition has been our habit of not pushing theories to their logical conclusion. Is not the relation between the several parts of the British Empire a standing wit- ness to this? What guarantee is there that the universities will continue to be autono- mous and free from State interference? The answer is, of course, that there is no formal guarantee. The mechanism exists by which the State could, if it were so minded, put irresistible financial pressure on the universities. The basis of confidence is not that it cannot, but that it will not want to do so. It rests not on law, but on convention. There are really two conditions. On the one hand, public opinion, min- isters, and officials must continue to value universities and to understand in broad outline what their purpose is and what are the conditions of their working. On the other hand, universities, on their side, must be responsive to the needs of the nation, and be quick to put their own houses in order, so that they may rise to the height of the times. Sir Walter Moberly taught for fifteen years at Oxford before he became Chairman of the University Grants Committee. He might be 496 Appendix H prejudiced. But similar evidence comes from Sir Ernest Barker in British Universities (cited previously in Chapter vil, and Appendix F, page 486): Autonomous in their government, the universities are also responsible for the management of their own finances. Their income amounted, before the war, to something over £6,000,000. Endowments, donations, and subscrip- tions provided nearly a sixth of this amount: the fees paid by students for instruction and examination provided almost exactly a third: a little over a third came from parliamentary grants, made through a committee of the Treasury which is called the University Grants Committee; and almost ex- actly a tenth was derived from grants made by local education authorities. It will be noticed that the central State and the local authorities furnish nearly one-half of the income of British Universities. It will also be noticed that the central State, acting through the University Grants Committee, con- tributes as much as a third. But neither the central State nor the local au- thorities claim any measure of control as the price of their grants. In par- ticular the University Grants Committee, which is drawn from old or present members of the Universities, has steadily pursued a generous policy, and given to Universities the honour of its trust—a trust which, it may safely be said, has been abundantly justified. It has not only trusted the Universities, during the past, with the expenditure of £2,000,000 per annum; it has also recently decided to trust them for the next two years with the expenditure of £4,000,000 per annum, to meet the new demands of growth and recon- struction: and it is also contemplating the provision, over and above this annual income, of a capital sum for buildings and other forms of expansion which may amount to as much as nearly £20,000,000. Appendix I ACADEMIC FREEDOM AND AMERICAN POLITICAL MORES ROBERT M. HuTCHINS (See footnote 28, Chapter VIII) A quotation from The State of The University 1929–1949. The prerequisites for getting good men are academic freedom, good sal- aries, good living conditions, and time for research. In spite of all the pres- Sures of the last twenty years, the Board of Trustees (Chicago) has stood firmly for the right of the professor to investigate and teach according to his conscience, and it has stood with equal firmness for his right as a citizen to do and say whatever other citizens may legally do and say. . . . There is no necessary conflict between the independence of uni- versities and state control. In Scandinavia and Holland, for example, we do not expect the universities to be exposed to political risks and to have to change their policies when the government of the day is replaced by an- other. In England, where the dependence of the universities upon the state is growing every year, we do not expect Oxford and Cambridge to take orders from the party in power. The reason we do not is that in England, as in Scandinavia and Holland, the tradition of academic freedom is long and well established. The independence of the universities is in those coun- tries regarded as vital to the progress of the state. The universities are not thought of as having any relation to political patronage. Nor are they thought of as service stations erected to meet the real or imagined needs of the strongest pressure groups in the community. They are thought of as inde- pendent centers of thought and criticism. It cannot be claimed that the tradition of academic freedom is well estab- lished in this country. If one legislature is convinced of its value, it may be followed by another of the opposite opinion. One governor may be well disposed. The next may be hostile. The service-station conception means not so much that the university serves the state as that it serves any group in the state that has the votes. In this country the independent universities have to set the standard by which the others are judged. They, at least, if they do not measure up to their own ideals, have only themselves to blame. In the atmosphere in which education operates in this country they have a hard enough time. Twice during the last twenty years the University of Chicago has been investigated by the legislature of Illinois on the ground that something subversive was going on here. On each occasion the charges evaporated. On each occasion the Board of Trustees demonstrated the value of the independent university. Such a university can take the long view. If a pub- lic university does not yield to pressure, it must face the possibility that its 497 498 Appendix I appropriations will be drastically reduced and its administration forced out of office. The tradition of academic freedom in the United States is primarily intrusted to the independent universities. A university must stand for something, and that must be something other than what vocal minorities, or majorities, demand at the moment. Universi- ties are the home of the life of the mind. They are intellectual centers. One of the most difficult tasks of university administration is to make clear to the public the necessity of such centers if society is to have any vitality. The price that must be paid for social vitality is the toleration, and even the en- couragement, of independent thought and criticism. Appendix J AN AMERICAN ANSWERS A RUSSIAN DIATRIBE (See footnote 28, Chapter VIII) Bryn J. Hovde attended the World Congress of Intellectuals, Breslau, August 25–28, 1948. Hoping for an approach to world peace through international communication, he was appalled by the opening speeches of the Russian conferees. As a result he made a notable statement about America. The following is quoted from the Saturday Review of Litera- ture, November 18, 1948. After the first speech, by the Soviet novelist Fadiejew, a speech which for vituperation was never excelled and which set the tone of the Congress, I got busy and wrote an answer, a tough one. But when the translating sec- tion got hold of it my request for a speaking spot was postponed and post- poned. By badgering I finally got the floor at the last moment of discussion. No speaker at the Congress got a colder reception. Only a handful of Ameri- cans and Britons clapped, and one nice guy from Ceylon. Speaking was like throwing flat stones on an icy lake. Salient passages from Hovde's speech follow: I have come to this conference in the hope that intelligent participants from many lands, meeting under the rules of free speech and fair play, with an earnest desire to learn from one another, might discuss the cause of war and the foundations of culture and of freedom. In such discussion it is my belief that we should all find so much understanding of one another's prob- lems and good intentions that for us at least, and through us for our peoples, the will to avert the next war would be forever fixed. That is why Mr. Fadiejew's address yesterday, and to some extent those of others, were very sad to hear. Mr. Fadiejew did not assume the possibil- ity of peace; he assumed the probability, if not the actual existence, of war between the USSR and the U.S. He gave unstinting praise to the USSR and utterly condemned the U.S. and Great Britain. If made by a responsible member of a government, this was the kind of speech that would be made to give propaganda-justification to a premeditated military attack. The worst of it is that Mr. Fadiejew appears actually to believe the com- pletely wrong picture he painted. His particular kind of “science” compels him to believe it, no matter what experience and facts may stand in the way. In my country we come to different conclusions, and we keep them tentative, because we follow no superrevelations or any party line, but search for the facts and make them teach us the truth. The plain truth is that we are far from perfect on either side. Lest I seem ungracious, and even as unrealistic as Mr. Fadiejew, let me list what a great many of my countrymen freely admit as our faults. We have not yet 499 500 Appendix J overcome a deeply ingrained prejudice against religious and racial differ- ences, even though such prejudice has disappeared from our national stat- utes. We still have to establish perfect equality in civil rights as we prac- tise them. We have made good progress in recent years and we shall finish the job, for many of us in all political parties are wholly devoted to it, even though the war scare has set us back slightly. We have not yet completed the building of a truly adequate social security system, though here too all the world knows that we have gained much ground. We should certainly be doing ourselves what we are directly or indirectly urging other countries to do, namely get our inflation under control. In the field of foreign policy there are many Americans, if not a majority, who feel that some serious mistakes have been made. On the central issue of aid to the countries which have suffered so much from the war, there are those who think that our government has been too niggardly, as well as those who think that it has been so generous as to endanger our own econ- omy. And remember that when Secretary Marshall made his offer more than a year ago it was not limited to the so-called Western states of Europe. Quite naturally, we do not in the United States think that everything is perfect in the Soviet Union, either. We would not for one moment tolerate the stultifying control of opinion and of the means of expression, that we know to be the basis of political power in the USSR. We want no secret police knocking at our doors. We want no labor camps for political prisoners. We cannot imagine how science and research and art can produce truth and beauty if, as in the Soviet Union, they are compressed within the confines of any one ideology. In a free society the prevailing ideology will naturally affect the sciences, research, and the arts, but there will be free rebels also to correct and to improve. We Americans think further that, since tempta- tions to imperialism go historically with wealth and power, the Soviet Union is no more immune than we ourselves. If we want peace rather than war, both our two states must resist that temptation. When it comes to demand- ing her own way in the world we Americans do not believe the Soviet Union takes a back seat to anybody. Finally, what every thoughtful American re- grets bitterly in the Soviet system is its determination to exclude its own people from free contact with the rest of the world. We regret it particularly because it has the effect of impelling us upon the same wrong course. Let me state what I feel sure the scientists and writers of my country would fully approve as a constructive program for peace: 1. That every human being is free to seek the truth and to express the truth as he may understand it. 2. That every human being has an everlasting right to personal safety for himself and his family, equal to that of every other person. 3. That individuals have the right to organize with others to promote their common purposes, except by overt actions of violence. 4. That the right to self-government belongs to every people and that it must be shared by every part and group. 5. That peoples and their governments have the right to be immune from the efforts of others to undermine or subvert their chosen governmental forms and institutions, whether by propaganda, infiltration, or direct inter- ference. Appendix J 501 6. That, since civilization and the arts of peace are the monopoly of no one culture but the product of all cultures in continuous relationship, the plurality of cultures within and between nations must be protected. 7. That in the interest of enduring peace every nation, large as well as Small, must surrender to a world organization so much of its national sov- ereignty as may be necessary. 8. That science, the arts of expression, and learning must be free and their products freely exchangeable. Appendix K NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF THE RELATIONS BETWEEN STATE AND UNIVERSITY JoHN DALE RUSSELL (See footnotes 8 and 50, Chapter VIII) In his prepared address, John Dale Russell had an extended portrayal of the evolution of State-University relations. Time did not permit him to deliver it all. Some of it is reproduced here. For a long, long time in human history education was strictly a private affair. It was as much a commercial enterprise as any other form of trade. Those who had a stock of knowledge and wisdom purveyed it for a price. People who could not afford to pay the price or who did not appreciate the advantages of education, got along without it. No social group was con- cerned with the maintenance of provisions for schooling, or with efforts to induce young people to take advantage of opportunities for education. This condition persisted throughout the history of Western civilization until some Seven or eight hundred years ago. Beginning in the twelfth century A.D. a new idea emerged. The provision of education began more and more to be considered an obligation of certain social groups, rather than an enterprise to be left exclusively to private en- terprise. It was at this time that the modern institutionalized form of edu- cation first appeared. The universities founded in Western Europe in that period are the direct and immediate ancestors of every institution of higher education extant in the Western world today. The idea of education as the obligation of a social group, and as an enter- prise subject to definite social control, emerged slowly. The development from an independent, free-lance sort of teaching into an organized body of teachers and students, which came to be known as university, was doubtless influenced by the then prevalent form of social organization, known as the guild. Very early the universities developed the guild form of control. The other major social organization of that day, the church, also from the outset had a pronounced interest in the maintenance and control of in- stitutionalized education. The church had a dual interest in the newly de- veloping university. Because it absorbed a large share of the product of the education, it wanted to have something to say about the nature of the preparation that was given. The church was also interested in an adequate supply of capable men for its service, and so threw its influence into the maintenance of facilities and into efforts to recruit and attract the best talent. Soon after the early universities were organized, a third force developed, which also tended to eliminate much of the “private enterprise” character of education. Philanthropists became interested in the universities. They be- gan to provide funds, especially for buildings, for scholarships and for en- 502 Appendix K 503 dowments. Quite early these gifts carried with them certain restrictions, more or less in perpetuity, which limited the subsequent freedom of action of the institutions in the expenditure of the income, or of the capital of the funds. The effects of all three of these early types of social control—the guild of scholars, the church, and the philanthropist—persist today and are clearly identifiable in the pattern of higher education in the United States. By the time of the American Revolution, these were the major forces controlling higher education, and their influence had to a large extent taken higher education completely out of the field of private enterprise. The emergence of the modern State could not fail to have its effect on the control of education. At first the State participated almost exclusively from the point of view of a philanthropist. Monarchs, as a gesture of princely generosity, made grants of public funds for the founding or the maintenance of educational institutions. They generally attached no more conditions to these grants than were customary in the case of other philanthropic gifts. This attitude carried over into the democratic States, but it is now being largely subordinated to other points of view in the relation between govern- ment and education. A few of these other points of view may be stated specifically. This review is roughly in the order of their emergence in the pattern of State relations to higher education in the United States. When the American colonies gained their independence and were organ- ized as sovereign states, there were only nine institutions of higher educa- tion in what is now the United States. Five of the thirteen colonies had no college within their own borders. Four of these new states soon took legisla- tive action to assist in setting up an institution of higher education. These institutions are frequently referred to as the first “state” universities. But they were not state universities in the modern sense of the term. They were essentially privately controlled institutions, receiving encouragement and, from time to time, some financial support from public sources. They were universities “in” states, rather than universities “of” states. The motive which led the states to develop these early institutions seems to have been the desire to provide advantages to their citizens, comparable to those offered in other states. It was the idea of self sufficiency, inherent in the concept of sovereignty, that led the four states before 1800 to provide sup- port for the new institutions of higher learning within their own borders. A second idea, which early led the states to develop and maintain insti- tutions of higher education, was the necessity for the wide diffusion of edu- cation in the successful operation of a democratic form of government. This was recognized clearly by the founding fathers. Their ideas of the kind of education that was necessary embraced the whole range of instruction from the elementary schools through the universities. Provisions for education in the constitutions of the states admitted to the Union in the early part of the nineteenth century clearly reflect this concern. It has long remained the basic cornerstone on which the system of public education is founded. A third idea that motivated the states, to provide facilities for education, was the realization of the need for well prepared personnel in certain spe- cific occupations. The early forms of higher education, as has already been pointed out, served an occupational purpose chiefly in the ecclesiastical 504 Appendix K field. With that purpose, the American states, by constitution, could not be concerned. Other occupations such as law and medicine, for which prepara- tion was offered in institutions of higher education, were considered chiefly as private enterprises, and so the states could not justify the support and control of education for the benefit of such profession. A little over a hundred years ago the idea developed that advanced preparation was needed for school teaching. Since the lower schools were by that time largely operated under public control, it was logical to assume that the states should provide the training necessary for school teachers. There were thus established a number of institutions, known as normal schools, which were operated directly by the states. These later expanded their programs to a degree granting level, and became known as teachers' colleges. Many of them have added other functions besides teacher educa- tion and have become general colleges or state universities. With the gradual extension of the general welfare functions of the gov- ernment, it became necessary to extend the provisions of state educational systems to include preparation for many types of occupations that operate broadly in the public interest. Thus at present, there is no hesitation in justifying expenditure of State money for the maintenance of schools of agriculture, or schools of engineering, or schools of commerce and busi- ness administration, or almost any other type of occupational preparation. Presumably the production of well-trained personnel in almost any field of human activity contributes to economic production or to the maintenance of satisfactory standards of living, and thus is justifiable as serving the pub- lic welfare function of the government. A fourth major idea has led the government into regulatory activities in education. As a part of its police power, the State must protect its citizens against fraud and other forms of injury to their rights by unscrupulous entrepreneurs. When higher education affected only a small number of people, the pressure for this type of protection was unimportant. Caveat emptor was the rule in education, as in most other buyer-seller relationships. Gradually the State has assumed more and more responsibility for pro- tecting its citizens against unworthy enterprises operating in the field of education, just as it has in many other fields. Much of this control in the field of education is exercised through the power of licensure for the prac- tice of the various professions, a power that is easily extended to reach into the approval of educational programs of institutions in which applicants for licensure may be prepared. The states today vary greatly in the extent to which they exercise their police power for the control of the quality of education. In some states al- most no control is exercised and diploma mills can flourish with relatively little hindrance. In other states, the right to open a new institution is sub- ject to careful inspection and the continued operation of all institutions is under some direct supervision of state officials. In no state, however, is the protection of students against unsound and fraudulent educational enter- prises as thorough as their protection against impure food and drugs, or fraudulent investment schemes, or dishonest banking practices, or many other situations which would seem to be of considerably less social sig- nificance than education. Appendix K 505 Finally, there has developed a fifth major reason for the participation of the State in the provision of educational services. Increasingly, society has realized its obligation, through the State, to provide for equalization of op- portunities of young people to achieve in accordance with their capacities. Talents are not distributed in our population exactly in accordance with economic status. The concept of democracy that insists upon equal oppor- tunity for development, therefore, requires provision for education that frees an individual from limits imposed by his economic circumstances. The concept of the obligation of the State for the equalization of educa- tional opportunities is the last to emerge of the five I have mentioned. It is perhaps not yet fully accepted. It is closely related to the needs of the democratic State for a supply of well-educated persons and for a supply of well-trained workers in all occupations, but it approaches the problem, not from the point of view of the needs of society, but from the point of view of the obligations of society to the individuals composing it. A more nearly universal recognition of the obligation of the State to provide educational services, as a form of equalizing opportunity, may be expected if the present trend in attitudes toward democracy continues in the United States. The five factors mentioned above have been operating during the past 160 years to bring government into more and more active participation in higher education in the United States. The activities of government have in the main operated to extend higher education, rather than to disturb the operation of institutions set up under non-governmental control. A single exception is the exercise of police power for the control of quality by the State. In that operation the State has probably done less to invade the pri- vate control of education, than it has to invade the private control of manu- facturing, commerce, and industry in general. Furthermore, the police ac- tivities of the government have served to strengthen the position of all legitimate privately controlled institutions and to protect them against un- scrupulous competitors. Appendix L PRESS COMMENT ON THE STASSEN CHINA PLAN (See footnote 10, Chapter IX) The following excerpts from the press comment on the Stassen China Plan indicate the major reactions to the Stassen proposal (page 480). Ivan H. Peterman, writing in The Philadelphia Inquirer (Penn.), April 4, quoted Mr. Churchill as saying of the proposal, on his departure from the United States, “This should be looked into, but we must be careful not to spread our resources too thin.” The Haverhill Gazette (Mass.), April 7, under the heading “More Noble Than Practical,” said: “The logic of the proposal is irresistible. “If the Marshall Plan identifies a sound principle to prevent the con- quest of Europe by Russian Communism, it identifies a sound principle for prevention of similar conquest in Asia. “Europe, however, possesses a requirement for successful application that is lacking in Asia. This is responsible government. “The time for application of the principle to China—principal victim of Russian aggression in Asia—passed almost with the end of the war. And it may be said that, by European measure, there has not been for many years a responsible government in China. “Stassen recognizes this fact and proposes that the principle of the Marshall Plan be applied to Asia on a provincial basis. . . . “It must be admitted, we think, that the facts as we know them do not encourage acceptance of his opinion [i.e., that a stand can be taken against Russian aggression with American help. ED.]. “A divided India is struggling with the terrible problems of independence. Burma is in a state of revolution. The British and the French cling pre- cariously to the vestiges of empire in South Asia. Indonesia continues in turmoil. There is nowhere on a national scale strong government as we recognize it. “On the provincial scale in China, government does not offer a promising basis for resistance to Russia. The only strong government in China today is Communist. The only reason the expansion of this government has stopped is its lack of administrative abilities to handle the tasks involved in the extension of power that military strength makes possible. “These depressing facts do not persuade us to dismiss the Stassen pro- posal as too impractical for consideration. . . . The opportunities for it, we think, should be promptly explored. The alternative to this course is con- cession of Asia to Russia—which Washington for too long has seemed will- ing to accept.” 506 Appendix L 507 The Lawrence Tribune (Mass.), April 6, felt that most Americans would approve the purposes of the Stassen proposal but be opposed to pouring more money “down a bottomless drain.” It pointed out that Churchill too, had called the China situation the worst disaster since the victory; it paraphrased Field Marshal Jan Christiaan Smuts, who on the same night as the Stassen address had said in Johannesburg that “perhaps the greatest tragedy before the world in the near future will occur in a widespread Communist-inspired revolution in Asia, where he described the outlook as pitiable.” The editorial went on: “Under the circumstances, the prospects of the MacArthur Plan pro- posed by Stassen becoming a reality are not at all favorable. In fact, Sen- ator Pat McCarran of Nevada declared within the past two weeks that the U. S. State Department had decided to let China go without any effort to put props under the falling Nationalist Government. He said that this was the department's general policy set forth in a report to the Senate foreign relations committee in connection with McCarran's bill to give a $1,500,- 000,000 credit to China. The Nevada Senator expressed his understanding that the State Department has decided there is little chance of the National- ist Government making a comeback. This is not surprising, because it is a rather generally held opinion.” The Lewiston Sun (Maine), April 4, pointed out the same difficul- ties, adding, “Leaving aside the fact that few if any holders of American private capital would be willing to invest in an area so basically insecure, there is a vast difference in furnishing economic aid to a highly industrialized, relatively stable area like western Europe and carrying out the same project in a half- colonial, half-free region that depends mostly for its livelihood on primitive agriculture and exploitation of natural resources. “Stassen's intentions are of the finest; he sees plainly the danger in ex- pansive Communism, and the threat that might be posed to our security if the Reds should gain all of China, French Indo-China, Siam, Malaya and Burma. There may well be benefit in the strategic placement of small-scale economic aid, but accompanying it should come a settlement of the political questions used by Communists in southeast Asia to fan hatred against us. “That will require long consultations between this country, Britain, France and the Netherlands, and possibly India and Burma. Were that to be done, the peoples of southeast Asia might be attracted to our side. But just now political independence is as important to them as the prospect of better living conditions.” In this connection the reader will recall the statements of Mudaliar, and of Prime Minister Nehru who on his recent visit to the United States certainly adopted a neutral position as between Russia and the West. 508 Appendix L. One of the most interesting comments upon the suggestion was pro- vided by Stassen himself. The Evening Bulletin (Philadelphia, Penn.), April 4, commenting on the address, said that if Stassen had a plan to make a billion dollars work effectively to stave off the advances of Communism in China, his Boston address had not disclosed it. Stassen replied with an extended letter which was quoted in full in the same newspaper. Save for the initial remarks, this reply is included in full here: “China is, of course, an important part of Asia. But it represents less than half the population and less than one-third of the resources of Asia. India, Burma, Malaya, Japan, the Philippines, the Western Pacific Islands, together having a population of six hundred million people, are also involved. “At the present time the United States has no policy, and no plan, with reference to this entire, vast, crucial area of the world. It is the area in which the most active Communist offensive is being waged, of both the hot and the cold, the above ground and the underground, variety. It borders on the Pacific Ocean which reaches to our shores in the same way that the Atlantic does. “I do urge that the United States, at an early date, establish a plan for Asia, and place it in the hands of able men who know Asia. I agree that it is complex. I have not intended to convey any impression that it is a simple question. I do not claim to be an expert upon Asia, but may I at the same time say that my recommendations are not the result of a casual evening's conversation. I have been a student of Asia for the past 25 years, since my undergraduate days at the University of Minnesota, when I studied under one of the most distinguished American-Asiatic scholars, Professor Harold Quigley. Throughout the major portion of the war I followed all the news of Asia, through the secret and top secret intelligence reports of Admiral Halsey's command, as a part of my duties upon his staff. I have conferred with many of the leading impartial students of Asia in this country, and some of those abroad, over a period of years. “Permit me to say categorically, that the actions of our government in Asia since the end of the war have been contrary to the judgment, the ad- vice, and the counsel of the overwhelming majority of the best informed, impartial students of that portion of the world. “Obviously, China looms large in American-Asiatic policy and Asiatic planning. But even as to China, there is widespread misinformation. It is spoken of now as a hopeless situation, as one in which it is too late to do anything, as one in which we must wait for the dust to settle before we act. It may be hopeless in China. It may be too late for the immediate situa- tion in China. I do not think so. But clearly, in any event, it must never be considered too late anywhere in the world to begin an opposition to the cruel, ruthless obliteration of all freedom and independence and of all com- munication with the rest of the world which so definitely characterizes the Communist dictatorship approach. Our historic policy of the open door set forth in 1899, and confirmed in the Nine-Power Treaty of 1922, and our Appendix L 509 basic philosophy strongly point out the error of recent American neglect of Asia. “It is not generally realized, but it is a fact, that with all of the successes of the Communist armies, they still have not occupied as much of China as the Japanese did at the high point of their successes during the war. Yet China then held on for years. Specifically, the Japanese overran and held for some time large portions of the provinces of Hunan, Kwangsi, Kwan- tung and Fukien, and the areas of Hong Kong and Canton, none of which have as yet been penetrated by the Communist armies. “There is a ridge of mountains some distance south of the Yangtze River —the Nanling, Tayuling and Wuyi Shan Mountains—which makes a very natural defense line. South and west of this line over a hundred million Chinese people and over one-half of Chinese territory are to be found, free of Communist armies. This territory includes some of the richest farm lands of China, some of the best ports for access to the sea, and some of the most advanced of China's people. In addition to this, Formosa is a part of China which has not been occupied by Chinese Communists and which they can- not very well attack without sea power or air power. Formosa has on it very important air bases, half way between Japan and the Philippines, and cov- ering the Straits to the South China Sea and the Yellow Sea. “I specifically stated in my M.I.T. address that the Asia Aid Program should not contemplate any substantial payments to any central govern- ment. It must be a decentralized, flexible, ingenious approach under direct American supervision. We might in part utilize some of the able Chinese- American engineers and financiers who have been citizens of this country for three or four generations, as a part of the administrative approach. If the line along the mountains holds [it did not. ED.] we can at comparatively small cost deliver to the farmers of South China the vitally needed simple farm implements and the machinery for developing fertilizers which can greatly increase the rice yield of the southland. Other portions of the Asia Aid Program should assist in improving transportation in China and Burma, in extending engineering aid to the hydroelectric and reclamation develop- ments on the rivers of India, in reconstruction in the Philippines, and in co- ordination with the recovery of Japan. “Some means for the exchange of goods between these countries, with their extremely inflated currency problems, should be established. “It is not necessary that there be a complete, detailed plan for every move before the decision definitely to initiate and carry out a plan for Asia be made. The Marshall Plan in its original concept was nebulous. Its early structure was greatly changed during the debates and then again in its ac- tual administration. But the basic rightness of a broad, American economic approach to all of Europe was so right that the endeavors to implement it, with all the limitations, have been the most significant single right thing we have done since the end of the war. “The failure to have a similar, co-ordinated, elementary approach toward Asia has been our most tragic failure since the end of the war. Asia is dif- ferent and therefore it cannot be a direct counterpart. That is why I sug- gested the name ‘MacArthur Plan’—to use the appealing, respected name of that great hero of the Pacific, as the label by which the unfolding, evolving, 510 Appendix L developing American approach to Asia may be carried to the many peoples and many lands of that vast section of the world. “Certainly the problem is difficult. Certainly it is complex. But is it an American policy to surrender abjectly in the face of difficulty or adversity? Dare we ever say that it is too late to oppose dictatorship and Communism anywhere in the world? If we do not succeed in holding a line in China, must not then a new line be held in India and Burma and the Pacific Islands, and the Philippines? If all or a portion of these go must we not still hold a new line somewhere? It is late, but we must act as early as possible. “Furthermore, the action must not be negative in character. We must look toward that long, slow, rebuilding process, and toward the interrelated educational, cultural, religious, and production problems which together, and only together, can slowly raise the standards of living of the millions of people in that portion of the world. We must be forthright in our insistence upon a revision of some of the colonial policies of European nations in Asia. As I further said in my M.I.T. address . . .” [Stassen here quoted the para- graphs on the Dutch and French colonial efforts in the East Indies and Indo- china. ED.] “We are today the most productive and most powerful nation in the world. We have in our hands the defense and the expansion of the precious concept of the individual freedom of man. We must move. We must act. We must have faith.” There were some journalists who approved the Stassen proposals. Notable among these was George Sokolsky of King Features Syndi- cate who wrote under the title “Stassen Makes Sense.” As quoted in the Waterbury Republican (Conn.), April 15, Sokolsky said that there were many notable speeches at M.I.T., most of them overshadowed by Churchill's personality. Stassen's address was one of those which to Sokolsky seemed underplayed. After quoting the paragraphs about bolstering the southern half of China, Sokolsky says: “The argument usually made by the State Department is that it is im- possible to support a government ridden by graft. It is the same kind of argument as justified the support of Red fascism to the tune of 11 billion dollars and the rejection of Spanish fascism. It is the same kind of argument which makes it right to support British imperialism in the Middle East, but to oppose Dutch imperialism in Indonesia. In a word, it is a fatuous argu- ment unrelated to reality. “After all, the so-called corruption of the Nationalist Government is a question of the form and character of government. Are we to enforce our concepts of government upon other peoples? We provide Marshall Plan Aid to imperialist Holland, to Socialistic England, to France whose eco- nomic and political system is beyond description in accurate terms. “Nor is the argument sound that we need only aid Europe and that there can be security for us in an Asia completely under Russian control. I sug- gested to Winston Churchill recently that Soviet Russia will raise at least 40 divisions among the Chinese to police the satellite countries in Europe. Appendix L 511 He pooh-poohed the suggestion, yet nothing is more likely. For some of the Russian satellites and puppets are becoming recalcitrant and it is sound policy for the Kremlin to use Asiatics to keep Europeans in line. Lenin did it when he employed Mongols and Buriats in the early days of the Revolu- tion to keep Russians in line. . . . “One of our major difficulties in the pursuit of policy is that the American people have not yet caught up with the role that we actually have assumed in the world. Whether the people approve of that role is another matter. Whether they would have approved of it, had they known the truth, while it was in the making at a dozen international conferences is neither here nor there. The historic fact is that the United States has, since 1939, become a vast empire. “Such a position involves a universal program and policy. The Monroe Doctrine and the Open Door Policy in China seemed at one time permanent, but they were at most regional programs. ‘Freedom of the seas' came closest to a universal policy. Otherwise, we pursued hit-and-miss relationships, gen- erally, but not always, following Great Britain. Our new situation and the decay of the British Empire force upon us a new role for which we are not ready. Lacking this, we suffered so severe a defeat in China.” Biographical Notes EveRETT MooRE BAKER, D.D., was born in Newtonville, Massachusetts, in 1901, and was educated successively at Phillips Exeter Academy, Dartmouth College where he took his baccalaureate and Harvard Divinity School where he completed his preparation for the ministry. Ordained to the ministry in the Unitarian Church in 1929, he has held the well-known pastorates of the Westminster Church in Providence, Rhode Island, and later the First Church in Cleveland, Ohio. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the American Unitarian Association for many years and while a vice-president of that central executive body of Unitarian churches in the United States and Canada he directed the publishing and fund-raising programs of the denomination, as well as the general administrative work. He was elected President of the General Alumni Association of Dartmouth College in 1948. He has been Dean of Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1947, and his program of enriched student life and his influence toward added amenity on the campus have borne notable fruit in two short years. JAMES MADISON BARKER, engineer and businessman, was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in 1886. Graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1907, he worked for the American Bridge Company, the Canadian Pacific Railway, the Bureau of Engineering Statistics, and E. A. Tucker Company until 1914, when he became instructor at both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for one year and assistant professor at the Institute for the next four. In 1920 he joined the First National Bank of Boston, and was for eight years the manager of the Buenos Aires branch of that institution. In 1928 he became associated with Sears, Roebuck and Company where he remained until 1940, suc- cessively as a regional manager, Eastern vice-president, retail administrative vice-president and finally, as vice-president, treasurer and comptroller. He is a director of Sears, Roebuck and Company, Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company, the Milwaukee Railroad, the Harris Trust and Savings Bank, the Allstate Insurance Company (and Chairman of the Board of the last- named); a trustee of Northwestern University, the Newberry Library and the Museum of Science and Industry of Chicago; a Life Member of the Corporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During 1948 and 1949, he was the economic member of the Overseas Consultants, Incor- porated, Mission to Iran in connection with the setting up of Iran's Seven Year Plan, and in 1949 headed an economic mission to Turkey for the Inter- national Bank. He has an honorary D.Sc. from Middlebury College. BERNARD MANNES BARUCH, one of the most famous of America's elder statesmen, was born in 1870 and took his bachelor's degree from the Col- lege of the City of New York in 1889. A member of the New York Stock Exchange for many years, he began his long career of distinguished service to the nation more than thirty years ago when Woodrow Wilson made him a 513 514 Biographical Notes member of the Advisory Commission of the Council of National Defense, the commissioner in charge of raw materials for the War Industries Board, of which he became chairman in 1918, and member of the commission in charge of all purchases for the Allies of World War I. He served on many commissions dealing with the peace negotiations following that war. A mem- ber of several national commissions during the interlude between wars, he returned to active national service in 1948 when he became adviser to James F. Byrnes, the War Mobilization Director, head of the fact-finding committee on synthetic rubber appointed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, author of a report to President Roosevelt and Mr. Byrnes on War and Post- war Plans prepared in 1944. Most recently he was United States representa- tive on the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission in 1946. Mr. Baruch was selected to introduce Mr. Churchill as much because of his own dis- tinction as because he was Mr. Churchill's great friend in America. LAIRD BELL, attorney, a distinguished member of the bar from Chicago, Illinois, was born in Winona, Minnesota, in 1883. He was educated at St. Paul's School, at Harvard College where he received his baccalaureate and at the University of Chicago where he earned the degree of Juris Doctor. He has practiced law in Chicago for upwards of thirty years. A past Presi- dent of the Harvard Alumni Association, he is now a member of the Board of Overseers of Harvard University. Long a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Chicago and of Carleton College in Min- nesota, he is now chairman of both of these boards. He was Chairman of the National Navy Price Adjustment Board in 1944 and served in the Military Government in Germany in 1945. He has given much thought to the question to be discussed by his panel and has delivered notable ad- dresses on the subject. RICHARD MERVIN BISSELL, JR., economist, was born in Hartford, Connecti- cut, in 1909. Professor Bissell was educated at Groton and at Yale Univer- sity. At Yale, where he majored in history, he obtained his baccalaureate and doctoral degree. He has also studied at the London School of Eco- nomics. In 1941 Professor Bissell came from the Yale faculty to the Massa- chusetts Institute of Technology as an Associate Professor. Before reporting for his work at the Institute, he was drafted for duty as an economic analyst in the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. In subsequent tasks he acted as Director of Requirements for the War Shipping Administration, sit- ting in on the planning at Quebec, Yalta and Potsdam, and at the end of the War he became Deputy Director of the Office of War Mobilization and Re- sources. Four years and five months after he joined the Institute Faculty he taught his first economics class here in October, 1946. The following summer he was called back by Averell Harriman as Executive Secretary of the Presi- dent's Committee on Foreign Aid and is now Assistant Administrator of the Economic Coöperation Administration where he acts as key economic policy man for Paul G. Hoffman, Chief of E.C.A. Not yet 40, he carries the responsibility for evaluating the requests for United States aid from sixteen European nations with a mass population exceeding 270 millions. He be- came a full Professor of Economics at the Institute in 1948. Biographical Notes 515 JULIUS SEELYE BIxLER, philosopher, was born in New London, Connecticut, in 1894. Following his graduation from Amherst College in 1916, Dr. Bixler instructed in Latin and English in the American College, Madura, India, before returning to Amherst for his master's degree. From 1920–22 he lectured on philosophy at the American College in Beirut and then returned to study at the Union Theological Seminary, at Harvard University, at the University of Freiburg and at Yale University. He obtained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from Yale in 1924. Lecturer on religion and Biblical literature at Smith College and later Bussey Professor of Theology at Har- vard University, he received the degrees of Doctor of Divinity from Am- herst in 1939; L.H.D. Union College, 1947; LL.D. Brown University and University of Maine, 1948; D.C.L. Acadia University, 1949. Acting Dean of the Harvard Divinity School in 1937 and 1940, he has been President of Colby College since 1942. Dr. Bixler is the author of many books on philosophy including Religion for Free Minds, Religion in the Philosophy of William James and Conversations with an Unrepentant Liberal. PERCY WILLIAMS BRIDGMAN, physicist, was born in Cambridge in 1882, and his entire career as student and as teacher has been spent at Harvard University. Bachelor of Arts in 1904, Master of Arts in 1905, Doctor of Philosophy in 1908, D.Sc., he has taught and carried on research continu- ously at Harvard for the past 40 years, having been Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy since 1926. His investigations have centered upon phenomena accompanying high pressure and in particular the effect of high pressures upon matter. For this work he has received the Rumford Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Cresson Medal of the Franklin Institute, the Rozeboom Medal of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Amsterdam, the Comstock Prize of the National Academy of Sciences, the Research Corporation Award, culminating most recently in the Nobel Prize in Physics (1946). Professor Bridgman has done distinguished thinking beyond his specialization and has published such works as The Logic of Modern Physics and The Intelligent Individual and Society. DoucLAss VINCENT BROwn, economist, was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsyl- vania, in 1904, and took his Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees at Harvard University. He left a position as assistant professor of medical economics at the Harvard Medical School in 1988 to assume a comparable academic rank at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology, where he became Professor of Industrial Relations in 1943 and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Industrial Management in 1946, which post he now holds. Consultant to a number of war agencies on labor matters, particularly the Department of Labor, the War Department and the National War Labor Board, Professor Brown was a staff member of the Harriman- Beaverbrook mission to Moscow in 1941. He is widely known as an arbitrator and as an authority on industrial relations. JoHN ELY BURCHARD was born in Marshall, Minnesota, in 1898. He attended the Colleges of Liberal Arts and of Medicine at the University of Minnesota, and took Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in Architectural 516 Biographical Notes Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After a number of years of experience in industrial housing, during which time he taught English and architectural subjects part time at the Institute, and was as- sistant music and dramatic critic for various Boston newspapers, he re- turned to the Institute in 1988 as Professor and Director of the Albert Far- well Bemis Foundation for Housing Research. In 1940 he went on leave of absence to work with the Office of Scientific Research and Development in which he was chief of the division of the National Defense Research Com- mittee dealing with the effects of impact and explosion, Deputy Chief of the Office of Field Service, chairman of ad hoc committees on amphibious problems of navigation and of demolition, and Chairman of the Publications Committee of the O.S.R.D. For these activities he received the Presidential Medal for Merit. He returned to the Institute in 1946 as Director of Libraries and became its third Dean of Humanities in July, 1948. VANNEVAR BUSH, electrical engineer, among the most distinguished of the alumni of M.I.T., was born in Everett, Massachusetts, in 1890, received Bachelor and Master of Science degrees at Tufts College and his Doctorate of Engineering jointly from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Designer of the first differential analyzer at the Institute, Dr. Bush moved through the various ranks of professorship until he became Vice-President and Dean of Engineering in 1982. He resigned this position in 1939 to become President of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, which position he still holds. As Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development during the Second World War he was responsible for the mobilization of science and for this work received the Presidential Medal for Merit and was made an Honorary Knight Com- mander of the Civil Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. At the end of the War he became the first Chairman of the Re- search and Development Board of the National Military Establishment, in which position he was succeeded by Dr. Compton in late 1948. Recipient of upwards of a dozen medals and of many academic honors, Dr. Bush is a Life Member of the Corporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology. ERWIN DAIN CANHAM, journalist, was born in Auburn, Maine, in 1904 and is a graduate of Bates College in that state and of Oxford University, where he was holder of a Rhodes Scholarship. He has been associated with The Christian Science Monitor throughout his career, beginning as a reporter immediately upon his graduation from college. He has served as a national and an international correspondent for this newspaper in many ways. He was stationed in Geneva during the years when the League of Nations made that city the political capital of the world, covered Ramsay MacDon- ald's visit to this country, and was chief correspondent for his paper at the London Naval Conference in 1933. Head of the Washington Bureau of The Monitor during most of the thirties he became General News-Editor in 1989, Managing Editor in 1941 and Editor in 1945. He is currently President of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. He holds honorary degrees of Biographical Notes 517 L.H.D. from Kenyon College, Yale University and Boston University; and honorary Litt.D. from Bates College. WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL was born in 1874 at Blenheim Palace, Ox- fordshire, and was educated at Harrow and Sandhurst. Continuously active in the affairs of his country, he has served her, and through her the world, in almost every conceivable capacity. In the face of so Olympian a career, a brief biography can do no better than to list names from which the reader may draw his own associations: Khartoum, Spion Kop, Vaal Krantz, Pieters, Johannesburg, Diamond Hill, Pretoria, the South African Light Horse, the 6th Royal Fusiliers, The Morning Post, The Board of Trade, The Home Office, The Admiralty, The Ministry of Munitions, The War Office, The Exchequer, The Privy Council, Epping, Trinity House, The Cinque Ports, The University of Edinburgh, Bristol University, The Royal Society, Cheq- uers, Downing Street, Prime Minister, First Lord of The Treasury, Minister of Defence, Dunkirk, The Battle of Britain, Argentia, USS Augusta, HMS Prince of Wales, Scapa Flow, Arcadia, Casablanca, Cairo, Yalta, Teheran, Quebec, Potsdam, Husky, Torch, Overlord, Mulberry, Round-Up, Sledgehammer, Trident. Currently a Member of the House of Commons, Mr. Churchill is the leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition. KARL TAYLOR COMPTON, physicist, was born in Wooster, Ohio, in 1887, and studied first at the College of Wooster where he took bachelor's and master's degrees and then at Princeton University where he was awarded his doc- torate in 1912. His teaching career began with an appointment at his alma mater, the College of Wooster, and this was followed by appointments at Reed College and at Princeton University where he became Professor of Physics and Chairman of the Department of Physics. It was this post he left in 1930 to become the ninth President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. With experience as a young man on scientific missions in the First World War, he played a leading role in the mobilization of American science in the Second World War, as a member of the National Defense Research Committee, as Chief of the Radar Mission, as a member of the Baruch Rubber Survey Committee, as Chief of the Office of Field Service, as Director of the Pacific Branch of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, as a member of a Scientific Intelligence Mission to Japan and on several other military missions. For these services he was awarded the Presidential Medal for Merit, and made Honorary Commander of the Civil Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. He has continued to serve the nation in peace as adviser on many military matters and as member of numerous commissions. He has been honored for his scientific achievements equally with his administrative ones and most re- cently was awarded the Marcellus Hartley Medal by the National Academy of Sciences for “eminence in the application of science to public welfare.” He resigned as President of the Institute in late 1948 to become Chairman of the Corporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Chair- man of the Research and Development Board of the National Military Establishment, in which post he succeeded Dr. Bush. 518 Biographical Notes CARLOS CONTRERAs, architect, was born in Aguascalientes, Mexico, in 1892, and after early schooling in his native land graduated from the School of Architecture at Columbia University, where he remained until 1925 as a member of the faculty of that school. Since 1926 he has worked in Mexico where he has been for many years President of the National Planning As- sociation. He is the author of planning laws for Monterrey, and the Federal District of Mexico. He has directed planning studies for Monterrey, Vera Cruz, Acapulco, Guadalajara, Alvarado and Matamoros. He was the delegate of the Society of Mexican Architects and of the Mexican Government to the International Housing and Planning Congresses in New York, Paris and London and a delegate to the first Pan-American Congress of Municipali- ties in Havana in 1988. Author of the master plan for the Federal District of Mexico, he is also the creator of the master plan for Mexico City. Al- though his professional planning has been on the urban scale, he is noted among those who know him for the concern he has for the interests of “the little man.” LEE ALVIN DUBRIDGE, physicist, was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1901. He earned the Bachelor of Arts degree at Cornell College, Iowa, the Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees at the University of Wisconsin. Serving first as an assistant in physics at Wisconsin, he was a National Re- search Council Fellow at the California Institute of Technology, and then held various ranks of professorship at Washington University (St. Louis), and later at the University of Rochester, of which he was Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences up to the beginning of his war work in 1941. During this period his work in physics lay in the fields of electronics and nuclear physics. During the war Dr. DuBridge was Director of the Radia- tion Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which was the largest single war research project save for the Manhattan District. In this capacity Dr. DuBridge proved the brilliance of his administrative talent; he served as a member of the Radar Committee of the Combined Commu- nications Board and the Joint Communications Board. As a member of the United States Special Mission on Radar, he made trips to the United Kingdom and to the continent of Europe. For his services he was awarded the Presidential Medal for Merit. In 1946 he assumed his present position as President of the California Institute of Technology; in 1947 he was President of the American Physical Society. He holds an honorary Sc.D. from Cornell College, Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, Wesleyan University, University of British Columbia, Washington University (St. Louis), and the honorary LL.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles. RALPH EDwARD FLANDERs, mechanical engineer, and United States Senator, was born in Barnet, Vermont, in 1880. Self-educated, his achievements have won him honorary degrees from seven universities and colleges. Rising over a period of fifteen years from a machinist's apprentice in a Providence, Rhode Island firm, he became Director and Manager of the Jones and Lamson Machine Company of Springfield, Vermont, in 1912, and has been President of the same well-known manufacturing firm since 1933. In 1933 he became a member of the Industrial Advisory Board of the National Recovery Admin- Biographical Notes 519 istration. During the War he headed important committees of the Office of Production Management, was a member of the Economic Stabilization Board and Chairman of the Machine Tool Committee of the Combined Production and Resources Board. In 1944 he began a two-year term as President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. He was elected to the United States Senate from the State of Vermont in 1946. He is a Life Member of the Corporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. CLINTON STRONG GoLDEN, labor official, was born in Pottsville, Pennsyl- vania, in 1888 and had a public school education in Clinton, New York. At 16 he was a locomotive fireman, thus embarking upon a career which carried him through training as a machinist, a farm operator, an educator, a lecturer on labor problems and a mediator. He was Regional Director of the National Labor Relations Board 1935–36 and for the next six years was a Regional Director of the Steel Workers’ Organization Committee. In 1942 he became Vice-President of the United Steelworkers of America, and re- signed this post in 1946. During the Second World War he served the country as Vice-Chairman of both the War Manpower Commission and the War Production Board. More recently he has been a member of the Labor-Management Committee of the United States Conciliation Service, the Committee on Administrative Personnel of the United States Civil Service Commission and a member of the board and Chairman of the Labor Committee of the National Planning Association. A year ago he was the labor representative on the commission which visited Greece to report on the results of the United States program of aid to that nation. He is cur- rently Labor Adviser to the Economic Coöperation Administration. He is the recipient of honorary degrees of Doctor of Laws, conferred by Temple University in 1948 and Harvard University in 1949. WILLIAM MALCOLM, LORD HAILEY, statesman, Baron of Shahpur in the Punjab and of Newport Pagnell in Buckinghamshire, was born in 1872 at Newport Pagnell, educated at Merchant Taylors School, London, and at Oxford University. Joining the Indian Civil Service in 1895, he was suc- cessively Colonization Officer of the Jhelum Canal Colony, Secretary of the Punjab Government, member of the Durbar Committee (1911), Chief Commissioner of Delhi, Financial Minister, Government of India, Home Member, Government of India, Governor of the Punjab and Governor of the United Provinces. He relinquished this last post in 1985 to assume directorship of the African Research Survey. His next assignment was as member of the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission, which position he held until the outbreak of the Second World War. At this time he became a director of Vickers, Ltd., and President of the Royal Asian Society. In 1940 he toured West, East and Central Africa to study native administration, and in the same year served as head of the Economic Mission to the Belgian Congo. He was Chairman of the School of African and Oriental Studies in 1941, and the next year led the United Kingdom delegation at the Quebec Conference on Pacific Relations. Created a baron in 1938, Lord Hailey is a Knight Grand Commander of the Star of India and a Knight Grand Commander of the Cross of St. Michael and St. George. 520 Biographical Notes He was appointed Privy Councillor in the 1949 New Year's Honors List. His published works include An African Survey, Britain and Her Dependen- cies and The Future of Colonial Peoples. The last named was published in 1944. SIDNEY Hook, philosopher, was born in New York City in 1902 and educated at the College of the City of New York where he took his baccalaureate and at Columbia University where he earned the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy. He joined the faculty at New York University in 1927 as instructor in philosophy at Washington Square College, was named chairman of the department in 1984 and advanced to full professorship in 1939. He was twice awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for study and re- search abroad, and received the Nicholas Murray Butler Medal from Colum- bia University for distinction in philosophy in 1945. Dr. Hook has organized a number of significant conferences including those on Methods in Phi- losophy and Science, Scientific Spirit and Democratic Faith, the Committee for Cultural Freedom, Americans for Intellectual Freedom. He is the author of many books including The Metaphysics of Pragmatism, From Hegel to Marx, John Dewey, American Philosophy, Reason, Social Myths and Democ- racy, Education for Modern Man and The Hero in History: A Study in Limitation and Possibility. BRYN (Jolf) JACOB HovdE, historian and political scientist, was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1896. He took his baccalaureate at Luther Col- lege, Decorah, Iowa, and obtained his master's and doctor's degrees at the State University of Iowa. His work in educational institutions has been in two stages. In the first stage he began as Instructor in Norwegian and History and Acting Dean of Men at Luther College, and continued as Assistant Professor of History and Political Science at Allegheny College and as Associate Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh. Becoming interested in civic work and housing, he left the University in 1937 to ad- minister various Pittsburgh civic activities, including the Pittsburgh Hous- ing Authority. In 1989 he became Acting Director of the Management Division of the United States Housing Authority in Washington, and re- turned to Pittsburgh to become Director of the Federal Works Administra- tion in that city in 1941. He returned to Washington in 1944 as Chief of the Division of Cultural Coöperation in the United States Department of State, was Technical Expert on the staff of the American delegation to the United Nations Conference in San Francisco in 1945, and Technical Secretary on the staff of the American delegation to the United Nations conference to establish UNESCO in London, 1945. Dr. Hovde was appointed to his pres- ent position as President of the New School for Social Research, New York, in the same year. JAMES RHYNE KILLIAN, JR., was born in Blacksburg, South Carolina, on July 24, 1904. He was educated in the high school of Thomson, Georgia, and the McCallie School of Chattanooga, Tennessee; he studied at Trinity College, now Duke University (1921–24) and then transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he received the S.B. degree Biographical Notes 521 in 1926, in Business and Engineering Administration. Following his gradu- ation he began his career as assistant managing editor of The Technology Review of which, advancing through editorial grades, he became editor in 1930. In 1939 he resigned this editorship to become Executive Assistant to the President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; in July, 1943, he was appointed Executive Vice-President, and in September, 1945, was elected Vice-President. He is the first alumnus of the Institute ever to be- come its president. In June, 1945, Mr. Killian received the honorary degree of Doctor of Science from Middlebury College; two years later he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Union College; and in Decem- ber, 1948, he was the recipient of the honorary degree of Doctor of Engineer- ing from Drexel Institute of Technology. In the same year he was awarded the President's Certificate of Merit for his services in World War II. Mr. Killian was, at the time of his Inauguration, a member of the board of trustees of the Boston Lying-in Hospital, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, secretary of the engineering division of the Associa- tion of Land-Grant Colleges and Universities, a trustee of the University of Massachusetts and a member of the Air Force Advisory Committee on ROTC affairs. FREDERIC LILGE, educator, was born in Görlitz, Germany, in 1911, and came to America with a diploma from the University of Munich. Settling in the Boston district, he first taught German at Shady Hill School and then became an instructor at the Stewart School. He taught German literature at Wheaton College 1938–39. Dr. Lilge obtained his degree of Doctor of Philosophy from Harvard University in 1941 and is now Assistant Professor of Education at the University of California. He captured public attention with the recent publication of his book The Abuse of Learning, a scholarly and provocative study of the rise and fall of German universities. SIR RICHARD (WINN) LIVINGSTONE, classicist, was born in Liverpool in 1889 and was educated at Winchester College, and at New College, Ox- ford. He entered upon his university career as Fellow and tutor at Corpus Christi College in 1904, was Assistant-Master of Eton College, 1917–18, and became Vice-Chancellor of Queens University, Belfast, in 1924. Created a Knight Bachelor in 1931, he became President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 1984, the position he now holds. He completed his term as Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University shortly before this meeting. Dis- tinguished among English-speaking scholars everywhere for his understand- ing of the classical mind and his stalwart defense of humanistic studies as a preparation for useful modern life, past President of the Hellenic Society and the Classical Association, Sir Richard has published many significant books including Greek Ideals and Modern Life (Martin Lectures delivered at Oberlin College), The Future in Education, Education for a World Adrift, and, most recently, Some Tasks for Education. Sir Richard holds the D.Litt. of Cambridge, Belfast, Durham, Manchester, Toronto and Pitts- burgh and is an Honorary LL.D. of Dublin and St. Andrews Universities. He is also a Commander of the Legion of Honor and has the Order of the King Haakon VII Liberty Cross. 522 Biographical Notes WILLIAM RUPERT MACLAURIN, economist, was born in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1907, and lived in the President's house at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the regime of his father, who was one of the best-known and most distinguished presidents the Institute has ever had. He was educated at Newton Country Day School and later at Harvard Col- lege and the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. From Harvard he holds the degrees of Master of Business Administration and Doctor of Commercial Science. The latter degree was the result of a thesis based on data obtained in a year's study in Australia on economic planning in that country. Dr. Maclaurin has traveled extensively and has acquired business experience in Europe and in South America, where he was at- tached to the Buenos Aires branch of the First National Bank of Boston. He has been the Director of the Industrial Relations Section at the Massa- chusetts Institute of Technology since 1987. His special field of interest is the economics of technological innovation. JACQUES MARITAIN, philosopher, was born in Paris in 1882 and educated at the University of Paris, where he gained the License ès sciences naturelles and Agrégation de philosophie. He has also a Doctorat en philosophie des Universités Romaines. He also studied the biological sciences at Heidelberg. At the age of 24 Dr. Maritain was converted to Catholicism and in 1914 became Professor of Philosophy at the Institut Catholique, Paris. Subsequently he was a professor at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies at Toronto, Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University and Lecturer on Thomist Philosophy at the Universities of Louvain, Geneva, Buenos Aires, Milan, Bonn, Cambridge and Oxford. He was the founder of the Bibliothèque Française de Philosophie, and of the literary series “Le Roseau d'or” and “Les Iles,” in Paris. In 1945 he was named French Am- bassador to the Holy See, and in 1947, when chairman of the French delega- tion, he became Acting President of the UNESCO Assembly at Mexico City. He recently relinquished his ambassadorial post to become Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. Universally recognized as the leading Roman Catholic philosopher of the day, Dr. Maritain has written widely, including the following works: Les Degrés du Savoir, Science et sagesse, Existence and the Existent, A Preface to Metaphysics, Art and Scholasticism, Art and Poetry, True Humanism, Christianity and Democracy, A Christian Looks at the Jewish Question, Ransoming the Time. Dr. Maritain has re- ceived honorary degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University and the University of Edinburgh. He is an honorary professor at the University of Buenos Aires. His civilian decorations include that of Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, Médaille de la Résistance, Commander, Order of St. Gregory the Great, Great Cross of the Order of Pius IX, etc. SIR RAMASwAMI MUDALLAR, economist and statesman, was born in 1887 and educated at Christian College and Law College, Madras, India. For many years he was an elected member of the Madras legislature, Mayor of Madras and for a time editor of the daily journal Justice. He was delegate to the Nine Power Conference in Brussels in 1987 which considered steps to be taken concerning Japanese aggression in China, member of the Eco- Biographical Notes 523 nomic Committee of the League of Nations, and in 1942–43, representa- tive of his government on the Imperial War Cabinet and the Pacific War Council. He participated in the San Francisco United Nations Conference as chief delegate for India and acted in the same capacity on the Preparatory Commission in London, where he won wide recognition as a brilliant chairman while presiding over the committee concerned with establishing the Economic and Social Council. Since 1946 he has been Prime Minister of Mysore State in India, and he is currently President of the United Na- tions Economic and Social Council. In the autumn of 1949, he was ap- pointed Governor of the South India States. FRANK WALLACE NOTESTEIN, demographer, was born in Alma, Michigan, in 1902. He studied at Alma College, received his B.S. degree from Wooster College, and his Doctor of Philosophy degree from Cornell Univer- sity. Thereafter he was successively Instructor in Economics at Cornell, Fellow of the Social Science Research Council, member of the research staff of the Milbank Memorial Fund and lecturer at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. In 1941 he was appointed Professor and Director of the Office of Population Research in the same institution. He has been a consultant to the Department of Social Affairs for the United Nations since 1946. Co-editor of the Population Index, Professor Notestein is co-author of Controlled Fertility and The Future Population of Europe and the Soviet Union. PETER H. ODEGARD, political scientist, was born in Kalispell, Montana, in 1901. He was educated at New York Military Academy, the University of Washington where he gained degrees of Bachelor and Master of Arts, and Columbia University where he took his doctorate. First lecturer and in- structor in government at Columbia, he occupied professorial positions in government or political science at Williams College and Ohio State Univer- sity before he went to Amherst College in 1938, where he became Dwight W. Morrow Professor of Political Science in 1941. In the same year he undertook duties as Consulting Expert to the Secretary of the Treasury; in 1942–43 he was Assistant to the Secretary and in 1944–45 Consultant to the Treasury Department. In August, 1945 he became President of Reed College, Portland, Oregon. He has recently resigned that post to assume his present position as Professor and Chairman of the Department of Political Science at the University of California. Dr. Odegard has written many books on political science including The American Public Mind, Peace or War, Prologue to November 1940, and has contributed to such works as Democ- racy in Transition, American Politics, Dictatorship in the Modern World. He has been Associate Editor of Public Opinion Quarterly since 1940. FAIRFIELD OSBORN, naturalist, was born in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1887, and was educated at Groton, at Princeton University where he received his baccalaureate, and at Trinity College, Cambridge University, where he took graduate work. Internationally known as a naturalist, he has been a member of the Executive Committee of the New York Zoological Society since 1923 and President of the same society since 1940. He is also Presi- 524 Biographical Notes dent of The Conservation Foundation. He is a Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences, a member of the Executive Committee and the Ad- visory Board of the American Committee for International Wild Life Pro- tection, a member of the International Committee for Bird Preservation, the National Audubon Society and similar societies. Editor of The Pacific World in 1944, he published in 1948 his provocative book, Our Plundered Planet. NoFMAN JUDSON PADELFORD, political scientist, was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1903 and took his baccalaureate at Denison University, his master's and doctor's degrees at Harvard University. First a teacher of gov- ernment at Harvard, he taught later at Colgate University where by 1933 he had become Professor and Head of the Department of Government. In 1936 he went to the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy where he re- mained until 1945, when he became Professor of International Relations at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the post he now holds. During the War he was a consultant to the Department of State and was intimately concerned with the peace planning, serving as member of the United States delegation to the Dumbarton Oaks Conference on International Organiza- tion, as Executive Officer of the Committee on Judicial Organization at the San Francisco Conference, as United States delegate to the London Conference on European Inland Transport, and as Adviser to Secretary of State Byrnes at the London meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers dealing with the treaties of peace for the Balkan countries. ANDREY ABRAHAM PottER, engineer, was born in Vilna, Russia, in 1882 and came to this country at the age of 15. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1903 and, after two years with the General Electric Company in Schenectady, began his career as an educator when he joined the staff of Kansas State College as Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering. In 1913 he became Dean of Engineering and Director of the Experiment Station at that institution. He resigned that post in 1920 to accept the position of Dean of Engineering Schools at Purdue University, a post which he has held since that date in addition to serving as Director of the Experiment Station and the Engineer- ing Extension Service. Dean Potter's long record of government service in- cludes membership in the United States Naval Consulting Board in the First World War and many consulting positions with the United States Bureau of Education. He was Chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Engineering, Science and Management Defense Training 1940–46. Author of many books on power engineering, thermodynamics and farm motors, Dean Potter has held high positions in many professional societies including the presidencies of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Engineering Council and the American Society for Engineer- ing Education. He is holder of the Lamme Medal and the Washington Award. He holds honorary doctor's degrees from the following institutions: Sc.D.: Northeastern University, Alfred University; Eng. D.: Kansas State College, Rose Polytechnic Institute, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology; LL.D.: Norwich University. Biographical Notes 525 NELSON ALDRICH ROCKEFELLER, businessman, was born in Bar Harbor, Maine, in 1908. He had his preliminary education at the Lincoln School of Teacher's College, New York, and took his baccalaureate at Dartmouth College. Shortly after his graduation he became a director of Rockefeller Center in New York, president in 1938, and has been chairman of the board since 1945. Long interested in Latin-American affairs, he served the na- tion as Coördinator of Inter-American Affairs from 1940 to 1944 and from December, 1944 to August, 1945 was Assistant Secretary of State. Pursuing this interest subsequent to the War, he was Chairman of the Inter-American Development Commission. Mr. Rockefeller is now President of the Inter- national Basic Economy Corporation, President of the American Interna- tional Association for Economic and Social Development, and trustee of the Committee for Economic Development. He has been awarded the Order of Merit of Chile and the National Order of the Southern Cross of Brazil. Other interests have caused him to be twice President of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and to be chairman of several civic cam- paigns, including the non-sectarian Community Committee of New York on behalf of the United Jewish Appeal, and 1949 Brotherhood Week of The National Conference of Christians and Jews. PHILLIP JUSTIN RULON, educator, was born in Keokuk, Iowa, in 1900. He took his baccalaureate and master's degrees at Stanford University and his doctorate at the University of Minnesota. First teaching in California schools, then at the University of Minnesota, he came to Harvard University as In- structor in Education in 1980 and has remained there, becoming a full pro- fessor in 1944. He has worked particularly in the field of educational psychology. From 1937 to 1942 he was Technical Adviser to the National Clerical Ability Testing Program, and during the War served both Army and Navy. He was director of the program of achievement test construction for the Army Specialized Training Program at Harvard, and also worked for the Special Devices Section of the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics and as Con- sultant to the Air Surgeon of the Army. Professor Rulon served as Acting Dean of the School of Education at Harvard from 1943 until 1948, when he laid aside administrative duties to devote full time to teaching and research. JoHN DALE RUSSELL, educator, was born in Bloomington, Indiana, in 1895, and took bachelor's, master's and doctor's degrees at the University of In- diana, studying also at the University of Kentucky and the University of Chicago. Secretary of the School of Education, University of Indiana, and Director of Research, Indiana State Department of Public Instruction, he taught later at Ball State Teachers College, the University of Kentucky and the University of Chicago, and in 1988 became a full professor at the latter institution. From 1939 to 1944 he was Associate Dean of the Division of Social Sciences, and from 1939 to 1945, Dean of Students. Secretary of the Commission on Colleges and Universities, North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, 1944–46, he left the University of Chicago in 1946 to take his present Federal post as Director, Division of Higher Education, United States Office of Education. 526 Biographical Notes RoBERT PRICE RUSSELL, engineer, was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1898, and took his bachelor's degree in chemistry at Clark University. He received his master's degree in chemical engineering from the Massachu- setts Institute of Technology and then served at the Institute successively as Research Associate, Divisional Director of the Research Laboratory of Applied Chemistry and finally Assistant Professor and Assistant Director of the Laboratory. He left the Institute in 1927 to be Director of Research of the Standard Oil Company of Louisiana. Two years later he became Man- ager of the Development Division, Standard Oil Development Company, and rose through various posts to become President of that organization from 1944 until 1948. During the War he directed important research on fuels and propellants and on various aspects of petroleum warfare, and was awarded the Medal of Freedom for his work in the Pacific theater and the Presidential Medal for Merit for his work in fundamental development. He is also holder of the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Chemists, the Cadman Memorial Medal of the British Institute of Petroleum and is a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor. Since the end of the war he has been directly concerned with improvement of conditions in Latin America, and in particular in Venezuela and Brazil. In this connection he is with the International Basic Economy Corporation as Vice-President and Director. PIERRE M. J. RYCKMANs, statesman, was born in Antwerp in 1891; he ob- tained his Doctorate of Laws in 1918 from the University of Louvain. A brief legal practice in Antwerp was followed by five years of active duty with the Royal Belgian Army. At the end of the First World War he entered the Colonial Civil Service and served in the Belgian Congo until 1928, when he became Professor of Colonial Law at the Universities of Louvain and Antwerp. In 1984 he returned to the Belgian Congo where he was Governor-General until 1946. Since that time he has been the representative of his country in the United Nations General Assembly and is currently the Belgian representative on the Trusteeship Council. He is a Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Louvain, Member of the Royal Colonial Institute (Belgium) and Honorary Governor General of the Bel- gian Congo. He holds the Grand Croix de l’Ordre de l'Etoile Africaine (Belgium), the Medal for Merit (U.S.A.) and has been honored with Knight Grand Cross of the following: Order of the British Empire, Order of Christ (Portugal), Order of St. Sylvester (Holy See), Ordre de la Couronne de Chêne (Luxembourg), Ordre de l'Etoile Noire (France), Ordre du Phénix (Greece). He is a Grand Officier de la Légion d’Honneur (France) and of the Order of the Colonial Empire (Portugal), is a Com- mandeur de l'Ordre de Léopold (Belgium), de l’Ordre de la Couronne (Belgium) and de l'Ordre Royal du Lion (Belgium). He is also the re- cipient of the Croix de Guérre (Belgium). He is the author of Dominer pour servir, La Politique coloniale, Allo Congo, Messages de guerre and Etapes et jalons, the last-named having been published in 1946. THOMAS KILGORE SHERwooD, chemical engineer, was born in Columbus, Ohio, in 1908. He took his bachelor's degree at McGill University and his master's and doctor's degrees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Biographical Notes 527 Starting as an Assistant in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Institute in 1924, all his academic career save for a two-year tour of duty at Worcester Polytechnic Institute has been spent here. He became full Pro- fessor of Chemical Engineering in 1941. His distinguished war career in- cluded duties as Technical Aide, Section Chief and division member in the National Defense Research Committee, consultant to the Baruch Com- mittee and Expert Consultant to the War Department. For these services he was awarded the Presidential Medal for Merit. He became Dean of Engineering at the Institute in 1946 and is Chairman of the Sub-Com- mittee on General Education of the M.I.T. Committee on Educational Survey. WALTER TERENCE STACE, philosopher, was born in London in 1886, studied at Bath College and at Fettes College, Edinburgh, and took his baccalaure- ate at Trinity College, Dublin. Two years later he entered the British Civil Service in Ceylon, holding various posts in the period 1910–32 from that of private secretary to the Governor, to Mayor of Colombo, and later to Con- troller of Revenue. He came to the United States in 1932 and since 1935 has been Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. He was President of the American Philosophical Association (Eastern Division) for 1949. Among Dr. Stace's books are: A Critical History of Greek Philosophy, The Philosophy of Hegel, The Meaning of Beauty, Theory of Knowledge and Existence, The Concept of Morals, The Nature of the World, The Destiny of Western Man. HAROLD EDwARD STASSEN was born in West St. Paul, Minnesota, on April 13, 1907. He graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1929 with baccalaureate degrees in both arts and law. Admitted to the Minnesota bar in 1929, he began practice in South St. Paul; the following year he became county attorney of Dakota County, in which post he served until 1938 when he was elected Governor of Minnesota, the youngest governor in the history of the state. Rećlected in 1940 and 1942, he resigned in 1943 to enter the United States Navy. Here he served with distinction on the staff of Admiral Halsey and was awarded the Legion of Merit and Bronze Star, Citation Ribbon and two Battle Stars. He was temporary chairman and keynoter of the Republican National Convention of 1940 and there served as floor man- ager for Wendell Wilkie; in 1948 he was candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States. In 1946 he was one of the United States delegates to the San Francisco Conference of the United Nations. He has received honorary degrees of LL.D. from Hamline Univer- sity, Washington and Jefferson College, Bates College, Dartmouth College, MacMurray College and the University of Alabama. He became President of the University of Pennsylvania in 1948. JULIUS ADAMS STRATTON, physicist, was born in Seattle, Washington, in 1901 and after beginning studies at the University of Washington, took his bachelor's and master's degrees at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology. His doctorate was earned at Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule in Zürich. His academic career has been spent at the Institute, first as a 528 Biographical Notes Research Associate, then as an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and since 1931 as Professor of Physics. A member of the staff of the Radia- tion Laboratory during the war, he has subsequently been Director of the Institute's Research Laboratory of Electronics. As an Expert Consultant in the Office of the Secretary of War, Professor Stratton was chairman or member of a number of top-flight committees dealing with major problems of applied radar for use in air defense, bombing and all-weather flying, and with problems of communications, including those peculiar to the far north. For outstanding service in discovering and solving such problems he received the Presidential Medal for Merit. He is currently a member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Committee on Educational Sur- vey, and took office as Provost of the Institute April 15, 1949. CHARLES ALLEN THOMAS, chemist, was born in Scott County, Kentucky, in 1900. He graduated from Transylvania College with a bachelor's degree, and obtained a master's at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a D.Sc. at Transylvania, and an honorary D.Sc. from Washington Univer- sity. In 1923 he joined General Motors Research Corporation as a research chemist and contributed to the successful program of research resulting in ethyl gasoline. In 1926 he formed his own laboratories and when these were acquired by Monsanto Chemical Company in 1936 he became Central Research Director of the larger corporation. He was made a director of the company in 1942 and elected Executive Vice-President in 1947. He has been one of the key figures in the development of atomic energy. During the Second World War he had charge of the metallurgy of plutonium. After the War and until 1948 he continued in charge of the Oak Ridge Laboratories. He was one of the five co-authors of the report prepared for the Secretary of State as the master plan for the international control of atomic energy. He was President of the American Chemical Society in 1948, and in January of that year the American Institute of Chemists awarded him the Institute Gold Medal in recognition of his work in the development of atomic energy and his leadership in research on synthetic resins. He was awarded the Presidential Medal for Merit in 1946. SIR HENRY TIZARD, physicist, was born in 1885 at Gillingham, Kent. He was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford University, and at the University of Berlin. Thereafter he was a Fellow of Oriel College and reader in thermodynamics. Toward the end of the First World War he became As- sistant Controller of Experiment and Research to the Royal Air Force. He was principal assistant secretary in the Department of Science and Industrial Research of the United Kingdom from 1921 to 1927 and for the next two years permanent secretary. From 1929 to 1942 he was Rector of the Imperial College of Science and Technology in London, and from 1942 to 1946 President of Magdalen College, Oxford. At the beginning of the Second World War he was the first and only civilian member of the Air Council. His scientific contributions in this field are credited with being a major factor in winning the Battle of Britain. In January, 1947, Sir Henry, who was then Chairman of the Defence Research Policy Committee of the United Kingdom, was appointed also Chairman of the British Advisory Biographical Notes 529 Council on Scientific Policy. He is also Chairman of the Committee on Industrial Productivity, and was Chairman of the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting held at Brighton in September, 1948. His many activities have brought him countless honors. Among them he holds the American decoration, the Presidential Medal for Merit. MERLE ANTONY TUVE, research physicist, was born in Canton, South Dakota, in 1901, educated at the University of Minnesota where he re- ceived bachelor's and master's degrees and at The Johns Hopkins University where he obtained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Following a year as instructor in physics at Princeton University, and two years as instructor in physics at Johns Hopkins he became a staff member in the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, in 1926. After twenty years' service as a staff member, he was advanced to his present post as Director of the Department in 1946. He was on leave for war work from 1940 to 1946. In scientific circles his war work was marked by his direction of the development of the proximity fuse. During those years, from 1940 to 1945 he was Chairman of Section T of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, and from 1942 to 1946 Director of the Ap- plied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins, a laboratory of the United States Navy. For these services he was awarded the Presidential Medal for Merit in 1946. Recipient of the Research Corporation Award in 1947, Fellow or member of numerous learned societies, member of the Committee on Growth (Cancer Research) of the National Research Council, he is also Scientific Adviser to the Sloan-Kettering Institute. Index Aalto, Alvar viii, 127 academic freedom; see freedom Adams, Henry ix, 4, 5, 455 Adams, Samuel 257 Aeschylus 11 Afghanistan 148 African Research Survey 134, 185, 804, 520 agriculture, mechanization of 78, 104, 113, 119, 142, 143, 171, 172 agriculture, productivity in increase in 90, 92, 100, 101, 103– 105, 110, 140, 171, 194, 284 per acre 111, 119 per man 111, 123, 125, 179, 180 U. K. compared with U. S. 111, II2 airplane 24, 54, 265, 426 air power 54 Alaska 85 alchemists 22 Alexander, of Macedon 16 algae, as source of food 113; see also food, synthetic Algeria 210 Alsop, Joseph and Stewart 69, 70, 468, 469 Amazon Basin 85 American Association for Advancement of Science 19 American Federation of Labor 35 American International Association for Economic and Social Develop- ment 165 American Republic, Ministers of For- eign Affairs, Rio de Janeiro, meeting of 168 Anderson, Lawrence B. 1 Aquinas, St. Thomas 263, 418 Arabia 265 Aranha, Oswaldo 127, 128 Argentina 151, 210, 428 Argonne National Laboratory 360 Aristotle 13, 187, 219, 220, 227, 242, 841, 418, 427 Arrhenius, Svante viii, 20 art 206, 209, 225, 229, 230, 245, 246, 266–268, 276, 277 abstract 9 communication in 277 contemporary viii, ix, 8–11, 204 artists, as Communists 306 Asquith, Herbert H., Lord 304 Association of American Universities 358, 359 Association of Graduate Schools 359 Atlantic Pact 35, 64, 76, 196, 425, 470, 472 Atlantic, proposed Bank of The 436 atom, or atomic; see also science, nu- clear bomb xiii, 6, 7, 23, 61, 67, 68, 198, 199, 302, 347, 399, 423, 424, 468–470, 474 energy 23, 24, 27, 92, 124, 212, 296, 304, 344, 399, 422 Atomic Energy Commission, U. N. 422, 514 Atomic Energy Commission, U. S. 24, 27, 123, 124, 296 Australia 82, 151, 160, 210 Austria 68, 210, 294 Aztecs 338 Bach, J. S. 9 backward areas 7, 15, 31, 32, 78, 80, 132, 186, 156, 177, 180, 477 advice for 190, 192 agriculture in 100–103, 105, 118, 119, 140–143, 147, 152, 171, 179, 190, 194, 195 capital in 129, 130, 152, 155 capital for 106, 137, 189, 141, 143, 145–149, 152, 153, 157, 158, 160–163, 170, 178, 175, 180– 186, 189–192, 194, 195,435, 479 education in 95, 101, 103, 105, 117, 133, 134, 141, 147, 150–153, 157, 160, 186, 187, 194, 434, 435, 480, 481, 491 531 532 Index backward areas, indigenous develop- ment of 100–102, 105, 118, 120, 124, 143, 145, 151, 479 industrial productivity of 116, 123, 131, 183, 152, 171, 179, 180, I95 management in 105, 170, 174 medicine in 140, 147, 151–153, 160, 161, 175, 187, 194,434 monumental projects in 179, 180, 185, 195 peoples of 140, 145, 146, 149, 150, 173, 217,478 political stability of 106, 148, 149, 157, 184, 185, 191 reasons for 132, 186, 145, 156, 180, 188, 189, 193 research in 189, 140 self-government of 183, 184, 148, 150, 155, 159, 193, 479 technology in 118, 120, 124, 139, 141–148, 150, 152, 173, 175, 176, 186, 453 time for improvement of 137, 153, 155, 157, 166, 192–195 transportation in 106, 147, 161, 178, 181, 190 universities in 141, 160 Bacon, Francis 18, 19, 198, 212, 446 Baker, Everett M. 3, 45, 77, 202–204, 213, 218, 225, 236, 238, 241, 245, 246, 248, 421, 440, 513 Baker, John F. 444 balance of nature, upsetting of 88, 89, 138, 478, 137, 170, 93 Barker, Sir Ernest 304, 327, 858, 486– 488, 496 Barker, James M. 127, 128, 186–195, 513 Barr, Stringfellow 307 Baruch, Bernard M. 37, 45, 46, 48, 71, 421, 422, 518, 514, 517 Battle of Britain 452 Batu 71 Beaver Key 438, 439 Beaverbrook, William, Lord 143 Beckwith, Herbert L. 1, 2, 44, 181 Becquerel, Antoine H. viii, 20 “being,” philosophical 220, 221, 239– 242 Bela IV of Hungary 71 Belgian Congo 137, 144–146, 149, 152, 154, 157, 166, 526 Belgium xii, 144, 145, 149, 151, 156, 158, 163, 877, 478, 526 Bell, Laird 858, 359, 385, 397–402, 409–414, 416, 418, 419, 514 Bemis, Albert Farwell 516 Beneden, Pierre Joseph 21 Benedict, Ruth 217 Bennett, James Gordon 258 Bergson, Henri viii, 224, 237, 246 Berlin Air Lift 66 Bernal, J. D. 86, 89 betatron 27, 399 Bevin, Ernest 40, 64, 471 Bick, Nina xvii Bill of Rights 259, 427 Binder, Carroll 473 birth; see population Bissell, Richard M., Jr. 127, 132, 137, 149, 161, 175–186, 194, 195, 514 Bixler, Julius S. 9, 202, 204–213, 226, 229, 232, 236–238, 243–246, 249, 515 Blashfield, Edwin Howland 300 Blenheim, Battle of 85 Bodet, Jaime Torres 265, 309, 332, 334, 489—493 Bohr, Niels viii, 22, 28 Bolshevism 58, 72, 76, 321 Boltzmann, Ludwig 19 bomb, atomic; see atomic bomb Boston Garden 33, 37, 43, 44, 46, 77, 421 Boston Symphony Orchestra 8 Boston Tea Party 489 Boswell, James 115, 260 Boulier, Abbé Jean 424 Bradley, David 198 Bradley, Omar 295 brain, human 55, 81, 82 Brazil 79, 118, 128, 155, 170–173, 194, 526 Breslau, Conference at 39, 373, 408, 499 Index 533 Bridgman, Percy W. viii, 95, 202–204, 206, 207, 217, 219, 225–239, 244, 246–250, 264, 274, 302, 339, 515 British Broadcasting Corporation 261, 494 Broca 171 Brookhaven National Laboratory 360 Brooks, Beverly xvii Brooks, Van Wyck 270 Brown, Douglass V. 253, 254, 269, 278, 279, 289–296, 515 Browning, Robert 487 Bryce, James, Lord 304 Byrnes, James F. 514 Bucentaur 442 Buck, Paul M. 358 Buddhism 213, 214, 216, 428 Burch, Stanley 41 Burchard, John E. 4–18 et seq. Burdell, Edwin S. 456, 516 Buriats 511 Burke, Edmund 423 Burma 428, 430, 506—510 Burton, Robert 197 Bush, Vannevar 78–80, 84–96, 105, 107, 110, 112, 114, 119, 120, 123–126, 186, 145, 146, 172 188, 289, 339, 449, 451, 452, 516, 518 Butterworth, Joseph 418 262, 298, 102, Caesar, Julius 386 Calderwood, W. B. 442 Caldwell, Robert G. 456, 516 Calvin, John 290 Campion, C. T. 477 Canada 112, 151, 160, 210 Canberra 157 Canham, Erwin D. 6, 253–262, 286, 289–292, 294–299, 319, 404, 517 cannibalism 147, 161 Cantril, Hadley 14 capital; see backward areas, universities, etc. international flow of 181–184 Carlyle, Thomas 74 Carr, Peter 854 Carnegie Corporation of New York 358 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 422 Carnegie Foundation for the Advance- ment of Teaching 361 Carnot, Nicolas L. Sadi 19 Catherine II, of Russia 74 Cellini, Benvenuto 11 Ceylon 499, 527 Chadwick, James viii, 28 Chafee, Zechariah, Jr. 255 Chamberlain, Leo M. 381 Chapultepec agreements xii Chatham, William Pitt, first Earl of 475 Chesterton, Gilbert K. 219 China xii, xiii, 36, 65, 70–72, 80, 82, 91, 112, 116, 117, 159, 174, 210, 835, 424, 425, 428–430, 506—511 chlorophyll 85, 92 Christianity 3, 62, 262, 267, 299, 427; see also ethics, missionaries and most of Chapter V Churchill, John 35 Churchill, Winston S. xvi, 3, 5, 6, 8, 12, 33, 84–77, 80, 82, 83, 86, 185, 163, 166, 186, 252, 259, 262, 265, 269, 296, 316, 336, 344, 345, 420–423, 430, 431, 439, 440, 444, 452, 467–477, 510, 514, 516, 517 as anachronism 69 Bible reader 57 Elizabethan 40 fighter 37 instigator of cold war 41 legend 40 Latin scholar 59 nineteenth century figure 39, 40 orator 39, 422, 473, 475 prophet 36, 40, 64, 76, 471–473, 476 peace lover sage 68 “Stalin's atom bomb” 69 statesman 40, 473, 475 stylist 39, 76 48, 472 534 Index Churchill, Winston S., as anachronism, Victorian 39, 40 warmonger 39, 41, 69, 73, 75 world figure 471, 472 Brussels speech 66 Citation as Honorary Lecturer at M.I.T. 3, 43, 439 dinner for 420 drink of water, taken by 48 education of 52, 269 Fulton speech 38, 41, 42, 68, 64, 69, 74, 430, 469, 471, 472, 475, 476 in Spanish War 37 interpretation of, by brothers Alsop 468, 469 on America 50, 56, 57, 59, 63–65, 74, 75 humanities 55, 56, 59–63 science 50, 51, 54, 56, 59, 60 U.S.S.R. 41, 42, 59, 64, 65, 72–74 picketed 87 platform manner of 45, 46, 49, 74 polarized glasses for 49, 50 popularity of 88 quips of 46, 51, 52 sings Marine Hymn 440 sings Star Spangled Banner 46, 74, 5 Soviet comment on 37, 39, 41, 75, 76 Zurich speech 475–477 Churchill, Mrs. Winston S. 46, 74, 75, 421 Cicero, Marcus Tullius civil rights and liberties 373, 428, 431, 432 Civil War, U. S. 284–286, 295, 449 civilians, and military policy 293–298 Clark, Colin 210 classics, relevance of, to modern life 240, 241, 349, 351 Clausius, Rudolf, J. E. 19 Clemenceau, Georges 296 climatic theory 187 Cochrane, Edward L. 34 Colombia 210 cold war xiii, 41, 65, 460, 476 colonial, administration 100, 128–130, 188, 142, 144, 147, 151–153, 308 xi, 53, 368, 155–160, 163, 193, 194, 304, 477, 478,481 Colonial Development Corporation 139 Colonial Research Committee, British 135 Colonial Welfare and Development Act (British) 163 Commager, Henry S. xiv. Commission on Higher Education, Presi- dent’s 356, 890, 404, 407, 459 Compton, Arthur H. viii, x, xvi, 229 Compton, Karl T. 3, 6, 9, 12–34, 45– 48, 53, 60, 70, 80, 82, 86, 97, 175, 207, 263, 347, 401, 421, 422, 430, 437, 438, 440, 445– 449, 451, 454, 456, 461, 463, 465, 516–518 Compton Plan 24, 29, 101 communication in art 277 between individuals 254–256, 260, 262, 274, 275, 277, 278, 286, 292 between specialists freedom of 25, 26 in science 23, 25, 26, 347 Communism (and Communist Party) 41, 42, 59, 64, 65, 67, 68, 70, 72, 73, 75, 129–131, 138, 163, 194, 271, 305, 306, 311, 312, 314, 321, 359, 368, 372, 373, 377, 400, 408, 413–415, 424, 428–430, 433, 460, 465, 506–510 Conant, James Bryant 306, 823, 326, 339, 420, 444, 450, 461 Condon, Edward U. 369 Confederacy, The 270, 271 Confucianism 216, 428 Congo Free State 149 Congress of Industrial Organizations xi, 519 Connally, Tom, Senator 37 Conniff, Frank 54 Cooke, Alistair 40, 472 conservation 88, 100, 118, 119, 451 contraception 102 Contreras, Carlos 80, 148, 253, 262– 269, 273, 276, 277, 287, 289, 292, 435, 518 8, 320, 350 Index 535 control, biological 6, 24, 27, 28, 90, 465 climatic 146 epidemic 88, 97, 100, 105, 117, 147 governmental 26, 254, 261 of fertility 98–101 of pests 104, 118, 119, 171 of population 84, 110, 124, 185 thought 6, 12, 28, 60, 465–467 Convocation, Benediction to 440 Invocation to 3 televising of 2, 44, 46, 47 Corley, John D., Jr. 3, 444 corporate charity, legality of 398 Cotton, John 414 cotton, Sea Island 162 Coulter, Francis C. 444 Coulton, G. G. 818 Cousins, Norman 89, 129, 198 Cromwell, Oliver 30 Crowther, J. G. 86 Crystal Palace 18 Cuba 37 Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace (N. Y.) 38, 39, 129, 180, 424 Curie, Marie (Sklodowska) Curie, Pierre 20 currency, world 436 Cushing, Richard J., Archbishop 36 cyclotron 23, 27, 399 Cybernetics 81, 466 Czechoslovakia 42, 67, 68, 196, 210 viii, 20 daemonic, in theology 204 Dandrow, Charles G. 444 Darwin, Sir Charles 21 data, experiential; see Chapter V da Vinci, Leonardo ll Davis, Jefferson 270 Davy, Sir Humphry 89 Day, Benjamin 258 DDT 86, 90 death rate 17, 80, 96, 98–101, 120 Declaration of Independence, U. S. 427 de Gaulle, Charles 69 Denmark 23 Department of Agriculture, U. S. 90 Department of Defense, U. S. 294 Department of Justice, U. S. 368 Department of State, U. S. 35, 39, 65, 294, 295, 335, 377, 407, 408, 424, 521, 524, 525 Descartes, René 227, 242 de Tocqueville, Alexis 67 Deutsch, Karl W. xi, xvii, 137, 203 Dever, Governor Paul A. 45, 421, 461 Dewey, John 250, 312 Dickens, Charles 18 Dickinson, Emily 8 Diplodocus 81 diseases, animal 85, 91, 92, 109 plant 85, 90, 92, 104, 113 Disraeli 89 Dobu Islanders 217 Dodds, Harold W. 466 Dodge, Homer L. 881 Doenitz, Karl, Admiral 836 Donne, John 25, 86, 282 Don Quixote 265, 289, 292 Dostoyevsky, Feodor 492 Dow, Willard H. 36 DuBridge, Lee A. 358, 362–370, 375, 385, 387, 389, 390, 399, 403– 407,415–418, 518, 519 Duffy, Rev. Clarence 424, 429 Dunkirk 40 Eastman Court 463 ecology 78, 83, 215 Economic and Social Council, 523 Economic Coöperation Administration 35, 116, 175, 176, 269, 514, 519 economy, breakfast-in-bed 434 Eddington, Sir Arthur 339 education; see also backward areas, uni- versities adult 288, 309, 331, 332, 342, 343, 348, 349, 490–493 as unified system 312–314, 351, 352 British 43, 50, 304, 305, 343, 349, 487 classical 300, 305, 327, 339 controlled 254, 315, 325, 356 cost of 325, 355, 356, 359, 360, 365, 379–384, 394, 401, 402,419, 458 U.N. 536 Index education, economic motivation for 328, 329, 386, 412 engineering 29, 30, 43, 50, 301, 302, 310, 325–331, 839, 344, 345, 348, 349, 351 equality in 854–357, 359, 361, 381, 382, 394, 419, 504, 505 extra-curricular 328, 330 French 29 general 301, 306, 307, 310, 311, 822, 325, 326, 839, 344, 345, 848, 349, 351, 379, 386, 437, 454–456 “gentleman’s” 854 German 30, 300, 315, 317 history of; see universities, history of humanistic 318; see also humanities in backward areas 95, 101, 103, 105, 117, 183, 184, 141, 147, 150– 153, 157, 160, 186, 187, 194, 434, 435, 480, 481, 491 in democracy 320, 828 integration of disciplines in 352,872 irrelevance of subject taught 803, 807, 327, 351 medical 311, 826, 345, 368 Nazi 318, 316 useful 345, 412, 449 useless 346 political 315, 350 selection for 275, 278, 289, 320 specialization in 275, 300–352, 456; see also specialization standards of 355–357, 361, 380, 388, 404, 418, 419, 432, 433, 459, 466,487 educational services, contract for 894– 396 Edwards, Oliver Egypt 838, 434 Einstein, Albert viii, 5, 24, 220, 283, 234, 251, 339 Eire 55, 90, 260 Eisenhower, Dwight D. 268, 294, 295 Eisler, Gerhart 410 electronics 22, 24 electrons 20, 22, 208 electron microscope 360 Eliot, T. S. ix 115 Ellis, Havelock 94 empiriology 219, 220, 238, 248 employment, full 285 endowments, university 856 Engels, Friedrich 89, 428 engineering education; see education, engineering entelechy 219, 220 enterprise, free 106, 320, 453, 459, 460 private 141, 142, 362, 864, 899, 502, 503 entropy 234, 324 Epicurus 10, 340, 427 epidemics, control of 88, 97, 100, 105, 117, 147 epistemology 219, 221 equality of human beings 264 erosion, soil 63, 82, 103, 140 essence, philosophical 219–221, 285, 239–242 62, 197, 209–211, 218, 223, 224, 227, 235 Ethiopia 91, 146, 196 European Recovery Program 176 exploitation 129, 183, 148, 149, 160, 163, 185, 186, 194 exponential, power of 84, 88, 89 Export-Import Bank 173 53, 187, 157, ethics Fackenthal, Frank D. 358 faculties, Communists on 400, 413, 414, 460 Fadiejew, Alexander 39, 499 faith 8, 197, 206, 230–232, 237, 243, 250 Faraday, Michael 19, 899 Fascism 27, 197, 215, 489, 510 Federal Bureau of Investigation 368 Federal control; see education and uni- versities Fermi, Enrico viii, 28 fertility control 98–101 Feuerbach, Ludwig A. 428 Finland 68 Fisher, Admiral John A. 54 Index 537 Flanders, Senator Ralph E. 258, 262, 279–291, 293–295, 297, 298, 302, 823, 451, 519 fission, nuclear, development of 22–24 Fitzmaurice, Charles x Foner, Philips 854 food supply, world 51, 82, 85, 92, 93, 103, 110, 112, 118, 122, 123, 183, 190, 435; see also backward areaS food, synthetic 85, 91, 113 Foot, Michael 67 Forbes, Alastair 55 Forbes, Andrew 62 Ford Motor Company 189 foreign investment, International Code for 149, 150 Formosa 98, 509 France xiii, 23, 29, 57, 84, 93, 144, 182, 196, 210, 227, 260, 377, 434, 484, 507 Frank, Phillip 233 Frankel, S. Herbert 160 Franklin, Benjamin 19, 371 Fraser, John F. 51 free enterprise; see enterprise freedom academic 368–370, 375, 376, 879, 387, 888, 400, 403, 404, 413, 437, 460, 497, 498 in backward areas 477, 478 of communication 25, 26 of debate 374, 431 of individual 262, 268, 290, 297– 299 of inquiry 8, 25, 26, 209, 212, 313, 314, 351, 352, 357, 369, 373, 376–878, 391, 893, 396, 400, 402, 408, 410, 413, 417, 419, 466, 497 of the press 255, 256, 259, 261 of scientists 232 of speech 431 of teaching 891, 893, 400, 418, 497 Freeman, Douglass Southall 271 French Congo 161 frescoes, Renaissance 9 Fresnel, Augustin J. 19 Freund, C. J. 229 Frisch, Otto 23 gadgets, American concern with 818 Garibaldi, Giuseppe 17 Garrido, Luis 267 General Electric Company 349 General Motors Corporation 139 Geneva Convention 57 Genghis Khan 70, 71, 468, 469 George, Lloyd 54, 58 Germany xii, xiv, 20, 23, 27, 30, 85, 54, 57, 58, 66, 68, 210, 227, 244, 260, 298, 316, 317,489, 514 Gibbon, Edward 338 Gibbons, Rev. William J. Gibbs, Willard 20 GI Bill of Rights 385 Golden, Clinton S. 253, 269–278, 290, 291, 293, 296, 297, 403, 519 Good Neighbor Policy 168 Gottlieb, Joseph 248 Grant, Ulysses S. 270 great-books program 809 Great Britain xiii, 17, 22, 23, 30, 85, 36, 38, 41, 44–46, 50, 52–54, 57, 63, 64, 69, 90, 108, 110, 112, 116, 121, 184, 187, 188, 140, 141, 144, 154, 158, 162, 179, 182, 184, 196, 210, 244, 300, 309, 316, 328, 347, 377, 427, 467, 470–472, 475, 484, 494– 497, 499, 507, 511 “Greats” course, British 487 Greece 11, 15, 35, 48, 66, 227, 265, 308, 338, 340, 341, 427 Griffin, John 62 Gromyko, Andrei 465 groundnuts scheme 118, 141–148 Guldberg, Cato Maximilian 20 Gundlack, Ralph 413 102 861, 368, 380–882, Haeckel, Ernest H. 227 Hague, Frank 335 Hahn, Otto 23 Hailey, William Malcolm, Lord 3, 46, 53, 77, 80, 93, 110, 114, 117, 127, 128, 182, 134–145, 148, 538 Index Hooke, Robert 27 Hoover, Herbert xii, 433, 457 Hopkins, Margaret xvii hormones 6, 24, 27, 28, 90, 465 Hovde, Bryn J. 358, 370–378, 384, 893, 403, 405, 407–410, 417, 499–501, 520, 521 human nature, as objective reality 216 humanist, science for the 806, 807 humanities as mature subjects in life 58–62 in specialized education 339, 342 in technological education XV, 60, 61, 319, 329, 330, 456, 467, 486 meaning of 307, 322 Hungary 71, 210 Huntington, Ellsworth 187 Huntington Hall 201, 252 Hutchins, Robert M. 310, 312, 851, 869, 376, 410, 497, 498 Huxley, E. H. 35 Huxley, Thomas Henry 33, 208, 209, 227 Hyaenodons 81 Hylean project 102 330 153, 154, 156, 157, 161–163, 185, 188, 193, 194, 304, 519, 520 Haldane, J. B. S. 86 Halsey, Admiral William F., Jr. 422, 508, 527 Hamlet 489 Harriman, Averell 514 Harrison, George R. 461 Hart, Mrs. 36 Hastings, Warren 157 Haushofer, Karl 813 Harvard report 800, 301, 832, 889 Hazen, Margaret xvii Hazlitt, William 475, 476 health, world 117, 120, 121 Hegel, Georg, W. F. 227, 428 Heisenberg, Werner viii, 228 helicopter, dusting by 171 Hellman, Lillian 129 Helmholtz, Hermann L. F. von 19 Henry, David D. 887 Henry, Joseph 19 Henry V, of England 196 heresy, in universities 374, 884, 387, 392, 410 Hersey, John R. 198 high-voltage machines Hindu culture 146 Hinduism 218, 428 Hiroshima (and Nagasaki) 6, 24, 196, 198 history, accidents in 70 Hitler, Adolf 66, 68, 215, 271, 313, 321, 336, 428, 468, 469, 474 Hobbes, Thomas 428 Hobhouse, L. T. 304 Hochwalt, Msgr. Frederick G. 407 Hoffman, Paul G. 127, 514 Hofmann, August W. von 20 Hogben, Lancelot 86 Holland xii, 144, 158, 174, 182, 196, 377, 434, 497, 507, 510 Holmes, Justice Oliver W. 454, 455 Homer 341 Honours degree, British 804, 486 Hook, Sidney 39, 301, 305, 809–815, 334, 337, 339–341, 344–347, 350–352, 376, 408—520 420, 22, 24, 27 ideas, governmental control of 254, 261 ideographs in language 189 Imperial War Council, British 154 imperialism 128, 183, 156, 157, 160, 163, 176, 197, 478 xii, xiii, 69, 80, 98, 111, 112, 116, 117, 125, 128, 134, 137, 141, 153, 159, 162, 187, 210, 228, 304, 428, 435, 506, 508, 510, 515, 519, 520, 523 indigenous development 143 effort 124 forces 100–102, 105 peoples 146, 150, 151, 173, 478 progress 120 skills 118 individual aesthetic sense of 266 India Index 539 individual, and organizations 253, 262–264, 268, 271, 272, 275, 276, 278, 283, 288 and totalitarianism 254, 269, 271, 298 dignity of 198, 252, 263 freedom of 262, 268, 290, 297–299 future of 298 information available to 284–287 information for 253, 295 in mass production 281, 282, 288 in politics 283–287, 290 relation to society of 8, 56, 198, 267, 275 responsibility of 272, 281, 283, 287, 288, 290, 291, 303 rights of xi, 53, 198, 868, 373, 427, 432, 436 satisfactions of 274, 282, 288, 290 individualism, rugged 272, 877 individuals, communication between 254–256, 260, 262, 274, 275, 277, 278, 286, 292 Indo-China 434, 507 Indonesia xii, 174, 434, 510 Industrial Revolution 197, 302, 316 infant mortality 17, 97 inquiry, freedom of; see freedom Inquisition, The 313 insulin 27 intelligence 264, 268, 274, 276, 303 natural 205, 226, 228—230, 235, 239, 241 Inter-American Conference (Chapulte- pec) 169 Inter-American Development Commis- sion 165 International Bank 173 International Basic Economy Corpora- tion 31, 165, 525, 526 invention, invention of 18 Iran 518 Ireland 260; see also Eire Iron Curtain 41, 42 Islam 213 isolationism 166, 167, 321 isotope 23, 27, 92 Israel 155, 435, 436 Italy 11, 15, 23, 27, 196, 210, 377,489 James, William 237 Japan xii, 6, 24, 27, 80, 98–100, 108, 151, 198, 199, 210, 430, 508, 509 Java 98, 101, 117, 118, 120, 124 Jeans, Sir James 339 Jefferson, Thomas 256, 354, 371, 427 jet propulsion 349 John XXII, Pope 221 Johnson, Samuel 115, 260, 842 Joule, James P. 19 Joyce, James ix Judaism 213 Kant, Immanuel 212, 218, 240, 242 Karma, laws of 214 Kelvin, Lord 19 Kennedy, Paul M. 50 Kensington 35 Khan, Genghis 70, 71, 468, 469 Khan, Great 71, 475 Khan, Ogadai 71 Kierkegaard, Soren A. 205 Killian, James R., Jr. xvi, 3, 6, 45, 80, 324, 421, 423, 438, 447–463, 516, 521 Inauguration of vii, 2, 4, 12, 441– 461 Kindleberger, Charles P. King Lear 309 Kingdon, Frank 39, 474, 475 Kingsley, Charles 208 Kinsey Report 405 Kipling, Rudyard viii, 147 Kirchner, Otto 421, 438,439 Kittredge, George Lyman 342, 343 Koch, Robert 21 Korea 71 Kossuth, Louis 17 Koussevitsky, Sergei 8 Kremlin 85, 41, 65, 66, 69, 73, 336, 465, 469, 474, 511 xvii labor xi indigenous 161 leaders 284 legislation 261 movement 269 unions xi, 253, 261, 271, 272, 282, 285, 289 540 Index laissez faire 86, 102, 124 Lamartine, Alphonse M. L. de 17 Land-Grant colleges; see Morrill Land Grant Act Langer, Senator William 87 Langland, William 196 Laski, Harold J. 11, 320, 374, 884, 392, 410 Latin America 98–100, 104, 165, 178 Laurence, William L. 7, 125 Lawrence, Ernest viii, 22 League of Nations 58, 520 Permanent Mandates Commission 135 League of Women Voters Learned, William S. 361 Lebanon 150 L’École Polytechnique 29 Lee, Robert E. 270 Leibnitz, Gottfried W. von 27 Lenard, Philipp 318, 314 Lenin, Nikolay 314, 428, 511 Leopold III of Belgium 157 Liberia 146, 479 Liebig, Justus, Baron von 20, 89 life expectancy, increase in 7, 17, 80, 89 Life's Round Table on Movies 11 light, wave theory of 19 Lilge, Frederic 30, 301, 318, 315–321, 344, 349–351, 521 Lincoln, Abraham 270, 328, 345, 427 Lister, Joseph, Lord 21 Little, Arthur D. 207, 482 Livingstone, Sir Richard 110, 266, 301, 808–809, 311, 327, 329, 331, 837, 839, 340, 343, 344, 349– 351, 444, 457, 461, 462, 521, 522 Locarno 58 Locke, John 427 Lodge, Henry Cabot 442 Logau, Friedrich von 164 Longfellow, Henry W. 164 Lorentz, Pare 82 love and hate, objective nature of 216, 217, 237,249 Lowell, A. Lawrence 442 Lucretius 213 342 Luftwaffe 336 Lysenko, Oksana 25 “MacArthur Plan” 425, 430, 507–511 Macaulay, Thomas B. 74 Maclaurin, Richard C. 442, 448 Maclaurin, W. Rupert 78–80, 95, 102, 107, 115–119, 122, 123, 126, 522 MacMillan, Harold 69 macrostructure 234, 248 Madura 98, 124 Magna Charta 427 Mair, George F. 102 Malaya 428, 507, 508 Malik, Charles 150 Malthus, Thomas R. 78, 106, 153, 333 Managing Agency Ltd. 142 Manhattan Project 23 Maritain, Jacques 202–204, 206, 210, 218–226, 230, 235, 237–241, 244–250, 264, 274, 302, 466, 467, 522, 523 Marlborough 85 Mars 14–16 Marshall Plan 24, 28, 29, 64, 76, 176, 425, 430, 500, 506, 509, 510 Martin, Mary 8 Marx, Karl 66, 89, 215, 314, 899, 428 mass-production 280, 281, 288 mastitis, bovine 92 materialism 200, 225, 227, 272, 277, 431 dialectical 228, 314 Maxwell, James C. 19 Mayer, Julius Robert von 19 McCall, Governor Samuel Walker McCarran, Senator Pat 507 McGuire, Martin R. P. 407 McMahon, Senator Brien 67 medicine, advances in viii, 22, 27, 90, 91, 93, 110, 302, 334, 452 Medley, Sir John 358 Mees, C. E. Kenneth 21 Meitner, Lise 23 Mendel, Gregor 21 Mendelyeev, Dmitri 20 Mercutio 322 Meredith, George 448 442 Index 541 mesmerism 260 metaphysics 206, 215, 216, 219, 221– 224, 227, 235, 241, 242, 244, 245, 247, 249 method, common intellectual 204–206, 238, 245, 247, 250 Mexico xii, 210, 252, 262, 267, 268, 278, 292, 518 microstructure 234, 248 Midas 319 Middlebush, Frederick A. 359 Middle East 98, 100 military expenditures 294 Mill, John Stuart 318, 350 Millett, John D. 359 Millikan, Robert A. viii, 19 Milton, John 374 Ministry of Education, British 50, 494, 495 Ministry of Food, British 118, 143 minorities, rights of 433 missionaries 146, 160 M.I.T. Concert Band 8,444 Moberly, Sir Walter 353, 358, 365, 377, 494–496 mobilization, total 297, 298 Mohammedanism 428 Mongols xiii, 71, 72, 468, 475, 511 Monroe Doctrine 57, 511 Monsanto Chemical Company 321 Montaigne, Michel E. de 308 morality 197, 201–204, 207, 211–213, 215–218, 223, 224, 243, 246, 250, 252, 290, 291 common standards of 208, 204 international 215 secular 216, 218 social 197 spiritual 197, 201, 202 moral order, world as 218–215, 249 morals, decay of 199 Moreland, Edward L. 47 Morison, Elting E. xvii Morrill Land Grant Act 328, 831, 383, 406, 449 Morss, Everett 300 Morss Hall 201, 300, 357 Moseley, Henry Gwyn-Jeffreys 22 Mosier, Earl E. 382 movies 11, 259, 261, 309, 379 Mudaliar, Sir Ramaswami 6, 32, 53, 70, 77, 80, 97, 101, 111, 114, 116, 127–129, 182, 186–188, 145–149, 152, 154–164, 166, 169, 173, 185, 187, 190, 194, 195, 204, 210, 228, 263, 507, 523 Mumford, Lewis vii, ix, 324 Murray, Gilbert 304 Mussolini, Benito 215 Mysore 129, 154, 523 mysticism 215, 228, 230, 231, 237, 239–241, 243, 246, 247, 428,434 nagana 92 Napoleon I 30, 70 National Academy of Sciences 518 National Association of Manufacturers 284, 285, 877, 400, 408, 415 National Conference on Higher Educa- tion 380 National Education Association 381 National Research Fellowships 26 National Science Foundation 31, 361, 377 national security 859, 452 Native Welfare Fund, Belgian 163 natives, incentives for 146, 150, 173, 478 natural intelligence 205, 226, 228– 230, 235, 239, 241 naturalism 236, 239, 249 nature, balance of 63 Nazism xiv, 27, 59, 197, 244, 313, 315, 428 Nehru, Jawaharlal 111, 435, 507 Nelson, Horatio, Lord 423 Nepal 148 neurosis, mass 9 neutron 23 New Caledonia 422 Newcomen engine 19 New Deal 433 Newman, John Henry, Cardinal 260 newspaper columnists 259 newspapers control of 259, 261 economics of 258, 259 542 Index newspapers, history of 255–260 number of, in U. S. 256 objectivity of 6, 28, 70, 71, 128–180, 256–260, 295, 452, 453, 460, 470 politics of 259 readers of 255, 256 responsibility of 261 service by 256 Newton, Sir Isaac 19, 27, 214, 457 New Zealand 90, 111, 151, 157, 210 Nicaragua xii Nietzsche, Friedrich W. 317, 341 nineteenth century 17, 19–21, 52 nominalism 221 Northwest Frontier 134 Norway 68 Notestein, Frank W. 17, 79, 80, 84, 90, 95–102, 107, 117, 119–121, 124, 133, 140, 143, 152, 173, 263, 435, 523 Nover, Barnet 76 nuclear science; see science, nuclear Occam, William of 221 Odegard, Peter H. 358, 364, 378–887, 390, 391, 893, 394, 399, 409– 415, 418, 523, 524 Oersted, Hans C. 19 Office of Education, U. S. 355, 388, 406, 407 Office of Naval Research, U. S. 385, 899 Office of Scientific Research and De- velopment, U. S. 293, 452, 516, 517, 529 Okies 82 ontology 219–221, 224, 238, 240, 248, 249 operationalism 233 Oppenheimer, J. Robert 482–485 Ortega y Gasset 8, 301–303, 312, 814, 351, 376 Osborn, Fairfield 79–86, 88, 92, 95, 97, 98, 118, 119, 121, 124, 125, 140, 146, 524 Osiris 427 Osler, Sir William viii, 57, 110, 185 198, 207, 339, Ottoman Empire 71 Overseas Food Corporation 118, 189, 142 overspecialization 300–303, 310, 312, 832, 338, 455; see also speciali- zation Owen, Robert 17 Padelford, Norman J. 78, 128, 180, 132–185, 144, 153, 154, 165, 175, 186, 188, 193, 524 Paine, Thomas 257 Pakistan 153, 428 Panama xii Panitt, Merrill 47 Parent-Teachers Associations 282 Parliamentary Grants, British 189 Pass degree, British 304, 486 Pasteur, Louis 21 Paulonis, Casimir E. 206 Peel, Sir Robert 260 Penicillin 92, 120, 452 perception, extra-sensory 244, 247 Pericles 341 periodic table 22 Perkin, Sir William H. 20 personality, laws of 217, 218 pests, control of 104, 118, 119, 171 Petronius 320 Pharaoh 427 Philippines xii, 210, 432, 508—510 Phillips, H. I. 465 Phillips, H. J. 413 photosynthesis 21, 85, 92, 118, 125 physics, atomic 19, 20, 22–24, 198; see also science, nuclear as philosophy 482—484 “Jewish” 814 modern 228, 233 “proletarian” 314 twentieth century viii Picasso, Pablo viii, ix Piers, Plowman 196 Pindar 61 Pinza, Ezio 8 Planck, Max 20 planning, city 262, 265, 266, 268, 292, 518 plant diseases 85, 90, 92, 104, 113 Index 543 plantation system 141 Plato 137, 209, 210, 218, 221, 240, 307–309, 340, 341, 418, 427, 482, 487 Plutarch 164 Poland 71, 210 Polaroid Corporation 49 Politburo 436, 475 pony express 258 Pope, Alexander 59 population, world, distribution of 182 control of 84, 102, 109, 110, 124– 126, 185 increase of 7, 17, 32, 78, 80, 82, 83, 85, 88, 89, 91, 93, 96–98, 100, 107–109, 117, 120, 123, 124, 130, 132, 133, 140 process of change of 101 trends in 140 Portugal 210, 428 positivism 220, 224 potato blight 90 Potter, Andrey A. 301, 307, 309, 310, 324–332, 335, 339, 342–345, 348–351, 361, 412, 524, 525 power atomic; see atomic energy governmental control of 399 press; see newspapers sources of 122, 124 world production of 123 Privy Council, His Majesty's 135 productivity, agricultural; see agricul- ture, productivity in prowess, rational vs. value 274–278 proximity fuse 298, 529 Prussia 317 psychological laws 216–219 public opinion, tyranny of 318, 319, 350, 351 Punjab 134 Pyramid Clubs 36 Pythagoras 340 Quai d'Orsay 5 quantum theory 20 Queensland 113 Quigley, Harold 508 Ra 427 Racine, Jean B. 74 radar 24, 55 radiation, cosmic 16, 24, 27 Radiation Laboratory 362, 452, 518 radio 11, 14, 24, 48, 255, 259, 261, 809, 820, 379 radioactivity 20, 22, 24 radiology 24 radium 5, 22, 24, 144 Rankin, Jeannette xi Red Cross 282, 337 Reformation xiii relativity, theory of 24, 233 religion 197, 201, 202, 204, 206, 209, 211, 215, 216, 221, 223–225, 230, 233, 236, 241, 246, 247 religion and science; see science, and religion research collaboration in 360 cost of 360 Federal financing of 395 freedom of 370 fundamental 379, 399 in backward areas 189, 140 nuclear; see science, nuclear support of 360, 898 Research and Development Board, U. S. 516, 518 IeSOUlrCeS coal 114, 121, 122 mineral 93, 114, 115, 121, 122, 161 new 121, 181 oil 114 renewable 82–84, 118 world 89, 121, 122, 124, 132, 133, 161, 210 world, destruction of 7, 32, 51, 63, 78, 86, 94, 107, 108, 114, 118, 158 revolution, material basis for 157, 163, 194, 263 Rice, Rev. William B. 445 rights civil and liberties 428, 431, 432 of man, natural 427, 436 366, 367, 885, 31, 147, xi, 53, 368, 373, 544 Index rinderpest 91 Roberts, Kenneth 137 Rockefeller Foundation 26, 95, 117, 358, 411 Rockefeller, Nelson A. 31, 80, 86, 101, 102, 118, 127, 187, 143, 149, 158, 161, 165–175, 179, 183, 194, 525 Rockwell Cage 1, 3, 44, 47, 79, 128, 130, 131, 185, 186, 201, 442– 444 463 Rockwell, John A. 1 Roentgen, Wilhelm K. viii, 20 Rogers, William Barton 449, 450, 454 Roman Catholic 102, 202, 206, 235, 374 - Rome 137, 265, 337, 338 Roosevelt, Eleanor 435 Roosevelt, Franklin D. xii, 54, 59, 76, 165, 168, 259, 321, 336, 452, 514 Roosevelt Theodore 40 Ross, Charles 49 Ross, Nellie Tayloe xi Rossi, Bruno 444 Rousseau, Jean Jacques Rowlands, John J. 49 Royal Institute of International Affairs 161 Rulon, Phillip J. 301, 332–339, 342, 344, 349—351, 525 Rumford, Benjamin T., Count 19 Russell, Bertrand 250, 374 Russell, John D. 50, 325, 353, 358, 365, 368, 375, 888–896, 403– 407, 416, 418, 419, 502–505, 526 Russell, Robert P. 31, 79, 86, 101, 103–106, 111, 118, 122–125, 143, 165, 178, 526 Russia 67, 325; see also U.S.S.R. Rutherford, Ernest, Baron viii, 22 Ryckmans, Pierre 32, 53, 62, 77, 80, 93, 97, 101, 127–129, 182, 186– 188, 144–161, 163, 166, 173, 185, 188, 192–194, 204, 325, 401, 430, 435, 477–480, 526, 527 212, 418 Sachar, Abram L. 444 St. Augustine 221, 313 St. Thomas Aquinas 219, 221, 285, 238 Salter, Robert 119 Samuel, Frank 142 Santayana, George 270 Santelmann, Major William F. 44, 421, 440 Sappho 61 Saudi Arabia 149 Say and Sele, Lord, 414 scale, human 265 Schleiden, Matthias J. 21 Schlesinger, Arthur M. 18 scholarship conditions favorable to 369, 870 funds 356 synthesis in 314 synthesis of 352 scholarships, Governmental 366, 368, 395, 396, 407 schools private 891 public 391 Schwann, Theodor 21 Schweitzer, Albert 137, 141, 146, 150, 173,477–481 science; see also physics, specialization advances in 18–24, 199, 279, et seq. amorality of 205, 207, 223, 231, 234, 302, 306, 315, 482 communication in 23, 25, 26, 347 competition in 27 conditions favorable to 6, 7, 25, 26 coöperative nature of 207, 483, 485 education in 484, 485 effect of autocracy on 27, 306 effect of, on art 10, 11 exchange of information in 347 foreign, rehabilitation of 28, 29 fundamental 347, 453 Greek 341 history of 229, 484 honesty in 207, 236 Indian 157 -lessons from 25, 26, 207, 232, 482– 485 limitations of 218, 220–224, 236 Index 545 science, Marxist 499, 500 moratorium on 4, 6, 109, 453 nationalized 25, 200, 207 pessimism about 62, 63, 206 philosophy of 218 responsibility of 200, 222, 223, 267, 303 secrecy in 23 self-criticism in 483 specialization in 847 support of 30, 31, 232 understanding of, by statesmen 5, 31 unity of 26 utilitarian concept of 319 Science and morality 214, 222 politics 232 religion ix, 62, 199, 200, 205, 208–211, 214, 218, 221–224, 233, 241, 243 statesmanship 139, 482 truth 243, 249 values 224 as benefactor x, xiv, 15, 17, 31, 32, 50, 52, 53, 78, 80, 85, 89, 94, 103, 105, 137, 176, 199, 200, 279, 282, 284, 286, 318, 326,451 common denominator 82 dominating spirit of age 218 exponential 84, 88, 89, 93 knowledge 207 malefactor 56, 60, 200, 205, 317 moral influence 205 morality 205, 211 scapegoat 199, 204, 205, 225 servant 60 substitute for nature 83, 86 way of life 482, 485 for liberal arts students 487 nuclear 19–24, 27, 198, 303, 336, 344, 345, 399 scientific method 207, 209, 220, 221, 226, 227, 229, 230, 236, 239, 249 scientists as philosophers prophets 5 Communist 306 222, 223 scientists, free communication between 25, 26 free initiative for 25, 26 freedom of 232 German 306, 315 humility of 198, 208, 230, 242 in politics 198, 200 life of 483 need for 326 poetic insight of 222 propensity to Communism 805, 306, 311 social responsibility of 4, 11, 12, 16, 51 supply of 80 Scotland 304 Scotland Yard 50 sculpture, Gothic 9 Sears, Roebuck and Co. secession 270 security, desire for 361 selection procedures in organizations 274, 275, 278 semantics 216, 233, 237, 274, 276, 323, 345, 346, 349 sewing machine 18 Shakespeare, William 74, 185, 196, 809, 341, 342, 345, 423, 490 Shelley, Percy B. 161 - Shepard, David A. 461 Sherwood, Thomas K. 244, 301, 302, 309, 312, 315, 321, 325, 340– 349, 412, 527 Shostakovich, Dmitri Siam 507 Sinnott, Edmund W. 229, 302 Sitwell, Sacheverell 52 Sklodowska, Marie (Curie) 20 sleeping sickness 92 Sloan, Alfred P. 515 Smuts, Jan C. 507 social-service state 875, 419 social unrest, material basis for 31, 147, 157, 163, 194, 268 socialism 55, 56, 64, 377, 433, 434 Society for Promotion of Engineering Education 455 Socrates 209, 217, 227, 246, 427 412, 430, 513 324, 328, 329, 351, viii, 407, 408 546 Index Sokolsky, George 510, 511 Sommerfeld, Arnold 22 Sophists 427 space, conquest of 6, 16 Spain 37, 38, 196, 428, 510 specialist as citizen 303 learned ignoramus conscience of 303 wisdom of 303, 338 specialists communication between 8, 820, 350 social attitudes of 305, 306, 311, 312, 321, 332, 337, 344, 351 suicide rate of 338 specialization 8, 386 advantages of 302–305, 307, 310, 327, 333–336, 338, 344, 349, 351 education for 8 effect on individual 301 society 801 in British Universities classics 339 education 211, 834 history 888 law 335, 337, 338 medicine 833, 834 politics 336 science 305 war 336 not always narrowing 304 spectroscopy 22 Spellman-Roosevelt controversy 259 Spender, Stephen 305, 306 Spengler, Oswald viii, 63, 317 Spinoza, Baruch 233 Stace, Walter T. 202, 213–218, 235– 242, 244–247, 249, 274, 527 Stalin, Joseph 41, 68, 69, 76, 215, 424, 428, 465, 469, 474 Standard Oil Company of New Jersey 301–303 486 189 standards of culture 889 health 96, 97 living x, xiv, 53, 89, 91, 93, 96, 97, 100, 101, 108, 114–116 122, 124, 126, 130, 131, 183, 186, 188, 147, 178, 194, 263, 267, 282, 284–286, 288, 432, 433, 451, 491, 510 Stark, J. 818, 314 Stassen, Harold E. xvi, 65, 80, 186, 401, 420–439, 506–511, 527, 528 State Department, U. S.; see Depart- ment of State states’ rights 270 status, social, of women xi, 101, 435 steel capacity, as symbol of national power 179 Steelman, John 384 Steinbeck, John 82 Stewart, Irwin 452 Strassmann, F. 23 Stratton, Julius A. xvii, 358–862, 870, 878, 888, 397, 402, 403, 405, 407, 408, 410, 411, 415, 417– 419, 528 Stratton, Samuel W. 442 submarine 54, 296 subsistence, levels, minimum 84, 123, 140, 146, 163, 188 Sudan, Anglo-Egyptian 141 Suleiman I 71 sulfa drugs 120 Sulzberger, Arthur Hays 258 Sumatra 174 surplus property, war, to universities 407 Sutermeister, Pauline xvii Suydam, Henry 250 Sweden 377 Switzerland 182, 210, 377 Symphony Hall 442 synchrotron 27, 360, 899 synthesis in learning 211 need for 328–325, 846, 347, 351 Syria 118 Taft, Senator Robert A. 35, 65, 69, 166 Taft-Hartley Act xii Tanganyika 118, 141–148 teachers 307, 325, 328 freedom of 391, 893, 400, 418, 497 shortage of 357, 380–882, 390 technocracy 162 Index 547 technocrats 63 telepathy 244 television 2, 11, 24, 44, 46, 47, 255, 320 Tennessee Valley Authority 154 Tennyson, Alfred, Lord 51 theater, Elizabethan 809 theology 202, 205, 234, 239, 244 thermodynamics 19, 824, 327, 335 Thomas, Charles A. 95, 301, 321–325, 327, 344, 346–848, 350, 454, 528 Thomistic philosophy 219, 221 Thomson, Sir Joseph J. viii, 20 Thoreau, Henry David 269, 282 Thorp, Willard L. 151 Thucydides 341 Tizard, Sir Henry 78, 79, 85, 90, 92, 94, 95, 101, 102, 107–116, 119, 121–125, 132, 133, 185, 186, 148, 153, 154, 158, 180, 187, 289, 435, 528, 529 Toohy, John T. 45, 421, 461 totalitarianism 244, 254, 255, 297, 316; see also Nazism, Fascism, science, universities, education, U.S.S.R Toynbee, Arnold J. 85, 183, 137, 484 town-meeting, New England 283 tracers, radioactive 27, 92 transmutation, atomic 22, 28 travel, speed of x, 15, 52, 55, 83, 265, 426 Trimalchio 320 Tritylodon 81, 82 True, Ed 36 Truman, Harry S 31, 32, 35, 38, 42, 47–49, 52, 64, 155, 164, 174, 199, 259, 356, 420, 423, 465 Inaugural Address, Point Four 31, 32, 101, 106, 147, 163, 175 trustees, of universities 410, 411 tsetse fly 92 tuition; see education, cost of Turkey 482, 518 Tuve, Merle A. 80, 285, 253, 273–279, 289, 290, 292, 293, 295–297, 320 529 Twain, Mark 41, 269 twentieth century architects in viii composers in viii painters in viii scientists of viii writers of viii Tydings, Senator Millard E. 67 Tyrannosaurus 81 Ulysses 210 Un-American Activities House 369, 419 underdeveloped areas; see backward aTeaS UNESCO 102, 344, 489, 521, 522 Unilever 142 unions; see labor United Africa Company 142 United Fruit Company 31 United Nations 149, 150, 162, 176, 188, 437 United Nations Charter 435, 436 United Nations Commission on Eco- nomic Development 131, 182 United Nations Economic and Social Council 129, 131, 182, 151, 154, 164 United Nations General Assembly 145, 151, 154, 526 United Nations Organization 42, 59, 72, 73 United Nations, San Francisco Confer- ence 154 United Nations Trusteeship Council 145, 156, 526 United Negro Colleges 402 United States, gift capital from 183, 187 United States, trading position of 178 United States Marine Band 44, 45, 421 United States Marine Hymn 440 UNRRA. 163 U.S.S.R. xiii, xiv, 25, 27, 35, 87, 39, 41, 42, 59, 64–70, 72,78, 76, 99, 100, 129, 183, 148, 182, 199, 244, 254, 294, 305, 306, 314, 315, 317, 335–337, 844, 347, Committee, 134, 159, 169, 548 Index 850, 374, 408, 414, 428, 429, 481, 436, 465, 467–469, 478, 499, 500, 506, 510, 511 universe, theories of 28 universities; see also education alumni control of 392, 404 church control of 391, 893, 404 diversified support for 378, 887, 403, 404, 416, 419, 459 endowment of 409, 458 enrollment in 355, 356, 360, 364, 365, 379–381, 389–391, 404, 419, 459 faculty control of 392, 393, 403 federal control of 356, 357, 360, 365–872, 376, 383, 885, 387, 888, 391, 893, 396, 397, 408, 405, 406, 409, 417, 419, 459, 497 federal support of 857, 361, 363– 368, 875, 382, 884, 391, 894, 395, 397, 406, 407, 419, 459, 502—505 financial problems of 355, 356, 358, 861, 365, 879, 458 heresy in 374, 884, 887, 892, 410 history of 318, 323, 353–357, 364, 370, 371, 389–391, 502–505 in backward areas 141, 160 industrial control of 877, 386, 388, 404, 410, 411, 416, 419 industrial support of 862-864, 876, 385, 386, 897, 398, 400–402, 410, 411, 415, 416, 419 overcrowding in 325 parental control of 892 political pressures on 883, 884, 887, 388 private 354–857, 360–362, 364, 365, 370, 884, 389–391, 894, 400, 413, 417, 419, 459, 497 professional control of 892 public support of 353 state 353–355, 357, 364, 867, 382, 883, 389–391, 894, 396, 405, 412, 418, 417 student control of 391, 892 support of, British 494–496; see also University Grants Committee university as instrument of society 870 tool of special interest 376 purposes of 878 unified concept in 376 university curricula, proliferation of 355, 372, 886, 412 University Grants Committee, British 50, 853, 858, 377, 407, 494–496 uranium 22, 23, 144, 160 value judgments 340 value systems values communication about 274–279 human 305, 327 training in 274, 275 Van de Graaff generator 27 Vanderbilt, Cornelius 40 Veblen, Thorstein 316, 457 Venezuela 79, 102, 170, 173, 174, 194, 526 Vergil 12, 462 Verne, Jules 55 Versailles Treaty 58, 59 Victoria, Queen vii, xiv., 17, 18, 38, 89, 40, 52 Viereck, Peter 58 Vishinsky, Andrei 465 Voice of America 35, 480 Volta, Count Alessandro 19 274, 276, 802, 308, 277 Waage, Peter 20 wage earner, ideal 287–290 Wakefield Mission 142 Walker, Francis A. 1, 450 Walker Memorial 800 Wallace, Henry A. 85 Wallas, Graham 804 Wambaugh, Helen xvii war, as benefactor 91, 103, 172 Warren, Shields 27 Washington, George 321 water supply 83, 86, 103, 118, 119 Weimar Republic 317 Weinreich, Max 818 Welles, Orson 14 Index 549 Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of 260 Wells, Herbert G. 6, 14 Westminster College 42, 43 Whitehall 5 Whitehead, Alfred N. 339, 340, 461 Wiener, Norbert 19, 20, 81, 466 Wiesner, Jerome B. 8 Wilbur, John B. 421 Wilhelm II, of Hohenzollern 196 Williams, Norma 34, 35 Wilson, Woodrow 58, 59, 518, 523 witch hunt 369, 392, 399, 400, 417, 418 Wöhler, Friedrich 20 women, status of xi, 101, 435 Wood, Ben D. 361 Wordsworth, William 457, 458 World Congress of Intellectuals (Bres- lau) 39, 373, 408, 499 World Court 57, 59 18, 30, 210, 211, world problems, individual responsibil- ity for 170 world resources, destruction of; see re- SOULICeS World War I xii, 30, 57, 145, 166, 177, 181, 196, 285, 431 World War II xii, 26, 59, 158, 166, 168, 177, 196–198, 200, 210, 297, 298, 428, 447 World War III 59, 69, 70, 297, 298, 359, 424, 468, 469, 474 Wright, Orville 426 Wriston, Henry M. 358 x-rays 20, 22, 24 Yemen 148 Young, F. G. 221 Yucatan 273 Yugoslavia 210 Zilliacus, K. 69, 70 Zimmern, Sir Alfred 304 MID-CENTURY was designed by Rudolph Ruzicka, and was set, printed and bound by Quinn & Boden Company, Inc., Rahway, New Jersey. :k >}: :k The text of this book is set in Caledonia, a Linotype face de- signed by W. A. Dwiggins. Historically this type is related to the family broadly designated as “modern,” a style that derives from eighteenth century taste in design and coincides with the first important developments in the making of smooth papers and mechanical improvements in printing methods and machines. Although inspired by the late eighteenth century Bulmer face cut by William Martin (a version of Bulmer is used in this book for display lines) and by the Scotch typefounders of a later date, Caledonia achieves a modernity all its own. 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