Research institute

“ The establishment of research institutes by governmental authority and private munificence marked the beginning of a new epoch in medical science by organizing research and giving it an assured status. ”

“ An institute established on such a modest basis as this still might render largely important scientific service through its own research and through organized cooperation with other existing research establishments. Thus, for example, supposing that behavioristic, psychological, sociological, and genetic inquiries were conducted in the institute itself, animals might be supplied on a mutually satisfactory basis to institutes for experimental medicine, for physiological research, and for anatomical studies. ”

“ The same may be said of the university of Hamburg, which so far consists of a number of interrelated institutes. But while the universities are growing in number and branching off in new and ever new specialties, they are also being supplemented by new forms of scholarly activity. The most characteristic new feature which gains increasing importance is the erection of research institutes, especially in the field of natural science and medicine. ”

“ They are not research institutes at bottom, but originally a means to fix and illuminate through the senses facts otherwise meaningless. For the average student the laboratory is a review as well as a fixative of data which he is to carry with him and upon which he is to build his professional experience. ”

“ There will be next year nine or ten research assistants and associates working under the direction of the professors of the institute, and every facility will be given to advanced students wishing to carry on research work. ”

“ The founding of research institutes does not guarantee their success. That will depend upon the men who work in and for them. It has become evident that our research workers must have more diversified training than the older generation possesses. The store of knowledge accumulated by science must be made available to medicine. The only way in which this can be accomplished is to have trained men continually examining and testing this accumulating store of facts and applying them to the problems of disease. ”

“ Instead of multiplying such institutions, it would be wise to create scientific institutes for the larger and more important branches of science. In this direction the benefactors of education and science have still almost everything to do. It is, in fact, the field that promises the greatest returns and the greatest blessings to mankind. As examples of what such institutes signify, may be mentioned the Pasteur Institute in Paris, the Zoölogical Station at Naples, the Lick Observatory, and the Smithsonian Institution. ”

“ On the other hand, it may be regarded as essential to the complete success of the proposed Institute that both the director and those engaged in investigation should have ample opportunities of ready and frequent intercourse with eminent men engaged in investigation in Physics, Chemistry, and the allied sciences. The help which is thus gained by intercourse with men at the very head of various scientific inquiry cannot be supplied in any other way. ”

“ I found everywhere the greatest care for developing scientific activity and for improving the facilities. New laboratories are in building, and in older laboratories very modern equipment may be found. The available room never gives that impression of insufficiency from which we suffer too often in France. The means are provided by private initiative expressed in gifts and foundations of various kinds. There exists also a National Council of Research established by private funds for stimulating and improving scientific work, and for assuring its connection with industry. ”

“ The object of the Institute was the progress of science; the general utility and glory of the Republic. Every year it renders an account to the legislative body of the progress accomplished. It has its budget, its collections, its prizes. It sends out scientific missions at its own expense. To form the nucleus of the institution forty-eight persons were named, a third of the whole number of members, the remaining two-thirds to be nominated by the original members. The three men to whom, in particular, this project was due, were Lakanal, Dainon, and Carnot. ”

“ The appeal of the National Research Council to the American universities and colleges in behalf of scientific research will not be like a voice in the wilderness. There never was so much enthusiasm for scientific research in the American colleges and universities as there is to-day. ”

“ But why should we labour to prove the advantage of practical science to the University? Let us rather speak of the help which the University may give to science, when men well trained in mathematics and enjoying the advantages of a well-appointed Laboratory, shall unite their efforts to carry out some experimental research which no solitary worker could attempt. ”

“ The fundamental object in founding State laboratories should be to keep a staff of the most competent men wholly engaged in original research in pure science, and a secondary object might be to train assistants to become investigators. ”

“ These essentials cannot be supplied otherwhere than in great centres of scientific activity. A small university cannot supply them. If they are insisted on, the Institute must be located in a place which has metropolitan distinction and holds not only a large but an active university. ”

“ Under the first of these three divisions—that of the Society of Arts—the Institute of Technology would form itself into a department of investigation and publication—devoting itself in every manner to collecting and rendering readily available to the public all such information as can in any way aid the interests of art and industry. ”

“ It is reasonable to suppose that Universities should be fountains of new theoretical scientific knowledge, as well as be the disseminators of it, and that they (especially the old ones with their rich endowments) would be certain to promote scientific research, as being especially a part of their functions ”

“ The board of trustees determined to make the property of the Institute the nucleus of a broad and comprehensive institution for the advancement of science and art, and its membership a large and active association, laboring not only for the advancement of knowledge, but also for the education of the people, through lectures and collections, in art and science. ”

“ The members of the National Academy of Sciences are elected on account of distinguished services to science, and not on account of their cleverness as administrators or organizers. The National Research Council was to be organized for the purpose of “stimulating research in mathematical, physical, and biological sciences, and in the application of these sciences to engineering, agriculture, medicine, and other useful arts, with the object of increasing knowledge, of strengthening the national defense, and of contributing in other ways to the public welfare.” ”

“ This forced him to send for a workman from Germany, whom he constantly employed, and who lived in his house. I was one day with the Count at a sitting of the first class of the Institute, when we heard one of the leading members declare that they would set their faces against any discovery which did not originate among themselves. ”

“ It seems undesirable to urge, as Dean Burgess of Columbia University has done recently, that the establishment of research institutions is unwise and unfair to the universities, or, as is frequently asserted, that the scientific work under the government and in the experiment stations should be confined to the applications of science. ”

“ The great want of the age is the Polytechnic School, or more correctly speaking, of the Technological Institute, in which the labors of the Society of Arts, aided by the Museum and Library, may serve the two-fold object of informing the public on all matters of science and industry and of aiding the School of Industrial Science. Developed on its largest scale, such an institute should be devoted to the acquisition and dissemination of all knowledge, but under strictly scientific guidance and influences. ”

“ The head of each Executive department and agency shall examine the potential for including the establishment of university research centers in engineering, science, or technology in the strategy and planning for any future research and development programs. Such university centers shall be jointly funded by the Federal Government, the private sector, and, where appropriate, the States and shall focus on areas of fundamental research and technology that are both scientifically promising and have the potential to contribute to the Nation's long-term economic competitiveness. ”

“ The Council are of opinion that this Society would be omitting a principal means of the advancement of Science—the end for which all such associations exist—if it neglected the question of the Endowment of Research. To maintain a successful investigator in his labours, even though no results of immediate or obvious utility can be shown to spring out of them, is of interest to the community at large. ”

“ Admitting that an organized association of investigators is of the first necessity to secure the best results in the scientific work of the future, we meet the question of the conditions and auspices under which they are to be brought together. The first thought to strike us at this point may well be that we have, in our great universities, organizations which include most of the leading men now engaged in scientific research, whose personnel and facilities we should utilize. ”

“ New departments of instruction could be added as the means and power of the Institute increased, until it would ultimately form what the world needs but has never yet seen—a thoroughly scientific University, in which every branch of human knowledge should be clearly taught on a positive basis—a school where literature and art would be ennobled and refined by elevation from mysticism, 'rhapsody,' and obscurity, to their true position as historical developments and indices of human progress. ”

“ He has given a history of the Institute from its foundation, explained the practical methods by which it gives industrial training, and then he has gone on to show some of the results which the institution has accomplished. The human element is carried through the whole so thoroughly that one reads the book for entertainment as well as for instruction. ”

“ The National Institutes of Health provides ongoing leadership in a unique relationship among government, academia, industry, and voluntary organizations. In addition to conducting investigations in its own laboratories, the NIH supports the activities of non-Federal scientists in universities, medical schools, hospitals, and other public, private, and voluntary research institutions. It plays a crucial role in training our Nation's biomedical research scientists and fosters biomedical communication throughout our country and abroad. ”

“ Here, amidst the stress of the years of the civil war and under all the discouragements which those years brought he founded the Institute of Technology, which forms to-day his greatest monument and which continued to be, until the very close of his life, his chief concern. ”

“ Professor Chamberlin, of the University of Chicago, who opened the discussion, spoke of the importance of endowing in connection with universities not only chairs and departments but also special schools and colleges of research. He said that instead of the colleges of the English universities, devoted mainly to personal education, the ideal university should be an association of colleges of research for the benefit of mankind as a whole. He also held that we need independent institutions of research and endowments for the coordination of research. ”

“ The training now given in graduate schools here and elsewhere for the doctorate in philosophy will, of course, continue, and increase rather than diminish. Investigators will be preferred in research, in universities, and in some colleges and college departments. They will be increasingly prized in the government service and in important branches of industry. The recent terrible experiences burn into our minds the imperative need strong nations have of exact knowledge and of skill that has a scientific edge. ”

“ In these directions through the ever-increasing ingenuity of device for advancing science, I see at no distant future an advance of skill and of invention among our workers; and if this skill be assured, practical applications will not fail to follow in many fields of human activity.
The advance of science is the principal object of this Institute and also the diffusion of knowledge. ”

“ Leading Washington out of account, a laboratory for research might perhaps be best established in connection with some good university—like Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Michigan, or Cornell. It would then be already provided with a library and a building-lot, some apparatus at least would be ready to hand, and a strong social element would aid in the attraction of scientific men. Moreover, with such affiliations, the laboratory would often be able to secure good volunteer work from advanced or post-graduate students; an advantage by no means to be despised. ”

“ The very discoveries of science in such fields as public health and manufacturing processes have made it necessary to depend upon the expert, and if the ranks of experts are to be recruited broadly from the democratic masses as well as from those of larger means, the State Universities must furnish at least as liberal opportunities for research and training as the universities based on private endowments furnish. ”

“ In our constitution and rules we have undertaken, as the object of this Institute, the promotion of art, science, and literature, and we have at the same time provided ample means by which that object is to be attained. We purpose the establishment of a museum and a library, and, I trust, if the institution is sufficiently supported, that we shall be able to add a laboratory. ”