liberal arts and industrial research

DECEMBER 21 r Î959. VOL. 37, NO. 51 APPLIED JOURNALS, ACS

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LIBERAL ARTS AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH

The Use of Education Is Exercise of the Mind

DR . EABL J. MCGBA.TH, former U.S. Commissioner of Education and now director of the Institute for Higher Education, has touched off the latest hotfoot for the American college and university system. In a book, "The Graduate School and the Decline of Liberal Education," Dr. McGrath hangs the graduate schools high for getting the liberal arts colleges off their proper course. Policies governing the education of students in liberal arts colleges, he charges, are dominated b y narrow specialists of graduate schools. Almost all the teachers on liberal arts faculties are trained in systems directed by these specialists, he declares, with results quite unsatisfactory. He urges special training for college teachers, different from the training of graduate students who expect to make research their primary work.

At about the same t ime, the American Institute for Research, in Pitts­burgh, issued a pamphlet entitled "Who Goes to Graduate School?" It concludes that sttidemts in graduate schools are mostly men who

'earned high college grades and whose fathers have high occupational 'status and educational attainment but undistinguished income. In this respect the graduate schools contrast with the professional schools of law and medicine where the students seem to have much more family financial backing. The study reports that in physics the per­centage of undergraduates planning to continue their education in graduate school is higher than in any other field. One of the reasons appears to be greater availability of financial aid.

The effect of financial aid is seen in some of the other sciences, partic­ularly chemistry. Large amounts are put up by industry for aiding worthy students, and the amount furnished by the Government is rising rapidly. It is indicated that many of these people have been reared in an atmosphere where a high value is placed on intellectual achieve­ments. In choosing a field of work, they have sought higher learning and the particular choice of field was influenced by a financial sittiation. A high percentage of the scientists thus trained go into industry. In industry, the atmosphere is less conducive than that of a university to minds* pursuing paths down which curiosity leads them. The atmos­phere and intellectual approach often are different from what the scien­tist had envisioned as a student. Perhaps the feeling of a tighter rein is a cause of some of the discontent that has come to the surface with increasing frequency of late.

That admirable scholar, Jacques Barzun, has said, "The test and use of a man's education is that he finds pleasure in the exercise of his mind."

\ ¥ e suggest, then, that good liberal arts studies in the undergraduate training—and the capable students can do it without neglecting sound training in basic sciences—yield gratifying results in the industrial re­search scientist. A strong and active mind, trained to exercise in areas outside the field of the professional pursuit, can contribute to both the serenity and the stimulation of the possessor of that mind. The trained mind flourishes with such exercise, and the results are visible in its productivity.

Dr. McGrath has suggested that it is the business of liberal arts colleges to make men, not scholars or workers. A little deeper develop­ment of the man before he begins advanced training for research could give him not only a broader base, bu t greater strength in the pursuit of a useful and satisfying life. The key, of course, lies in the intelligence with which this deeper development is attacked.

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