SCIENCE LEGISLATION there for the national group to get for wide dissemination the information produced? Dr. DAY. I wouldn't be sure that it was wise to prescribe publication of the findings obtained through the expenditure of these decentralized Federal funds, however, I would think it not only desirable but quite necessary to prescribe a periodic reporting by all the participating institutions to the National Research Foundation on the use made of the money and the findings obtained in all the different fields, so that there would be a central pool of information about everything accomplished with these Federal moneys wherever the work was located. That, I presume, would be certainly prescribed for the projects financed directly from the Washington agency, and I would put the same requirement in for those financed via any system of State sub-. vention that would be essential. Dr. SCHIMMEL. Would you permit the State, under those conditions, to determine the project, or would you leave it up to the final recipient institution to make the determination? Dr. DAY. In most States the institutions would make the determination. Dr. SCHIMMEL. If you left it up to State legislation, it seems to me you would lose the very thing you were seeking to gain. Dr. DAY. Our idea is that the State simply passes the money down. to the institutions and the administrators and scientists in the particular institution make the decision as to the selected project. Dr. SCHIMMEL. What about the fellowship features? Would you require that the fellowship features be based in some respects on population? You know it is not tied down in any way at the present time. Dr. DAY. I have no doubt that whether the fellowship and scholarship program is nationally administered or administered by States, you are going to get a State allocation or quota system in the awards. You won't be able to get away from that. So your principal question is, At which level can you get the better selection of candidates, at the State or the Federal level. I would assume that at the advanced level the fellowship award would be closely articulated with the research staff operating in the research institutions. They would be drawn into projects as assistants, research associates, and whatnot. Insofar as that is true, I would assume that it was best to attach the selection of the fellows to some extent to the operation of the research projects. When you get down to the scholarship level, with the induction into scientific training of these youngsters, you still have a long way to go. Consequently, they cannot be so easily identified as first-class prospects. I think you will break away from the actual research operations and The CHAIRMAN. Thanks very much, Doctor. TESTIMONY OF WATSON B. MILLER, FEDERAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATOR Mr. MILLER. Because of the lateness of the hour, I will just file my prepared statement for the record. (Mr. Miller's prepared statement follows:) It is with some diffidence that I, a layman, appear before your committee following so many eminent scientists. My keen interest in science, however, and my experience with its applications to human welfare serve as a reason for my appreciation of the opportunity to endorse the objectives of S. 1297 and related bills. Three aspects of the proposed program are of particular importance to the interests served by the Federal Security Agency: 1. The need for a broad medical research program, which has been covered by the statement of Dr. Dyer on Octover 23. 2. The selection and training of scientific personnel through a program of scholarships and fellowships which will be covered in a later statement by members of the staff of the Office of Education who have had considerable first-hand experience with such programs. 3. The proposal to include the social sciences, to which I will devote the major portion of the following statement. Social inventions are just as real and just as valuable as material inventions, although they are not usually recognized as inventions. This is because they are not as tangible as material objects and they are seldom patented and sold for profit. Several previous witnesses have emphasized in their testimony that the patent system provides a powerful incentive for scientific achievement. The fact that social science lacks this incentive is all the more reason for active encouragement by the Government of social and economic research in nonprofit agencies. All of our instrumentalities of Government law and public welfare have been invented at one time or another and they are being constantly improved. Another type of invention includes devices for measurement of people and groups. One such measuring instrument is the life table or mortality experience table which is the basis of modern insurance calculations and one of the most accurate instruments for the analysis of population trends. Louis I. Dublin, in his book The Length of Life, makes the following observations on the early history of this invention. "The Romans, with their essentially practical turn of mind, did not fail to recognize the necessity for numerical data on duration of life. It was a common practice to bequeath annuities or life interests, the equivalent lump value of which had to be determined by computation. Tables of expectation of life for this purpose were given by the Praetorian Praefect Ulpian and the Jurisconsult Aemilius Macer about the third century A. D." Later, John Graunt, who was a haberdasher in London but one of those remarkable persons who have stepped out of the circle of their commonplace, everyday pursuits to enrich the world with strikingly new ideas, produced in 1662 a table of survivors based on bills of mortality in London. Still later, the astronomer, Halley, contributed a table of mortality experience in the city of Breslau, 1687-91. It will be observed that these men were no crackpot radicals, but rather practical citizens seeking the sclution of a concrete problem. In fact, social invention should not be confused with crackpot ideas, although some proposals fall in that category. The same thing is, of course, true in the field of mechanical invention. The field of social invention is fully as broad as that of mechanical invention. To illustrate the reality of social invention, I need only to mention a few examples. Social insurance is an invention providing powerful protection against family hazards; schools of all types are inventions whereby a number of parents find that their children can be more efficiently educated collectively than individually; hospitals and clinics are arrangements for bringing the benefits of medicine to the people; a very interesting and significant invention in this country and one where the Congress has played a leading inventive role is our system of Federal-State grants-in-aid whereby the combined resources and skills of different levels of Government are brought to bear on problems of a local nature. The list of tools and techniques for measurement which have been invented includes the aptitude and achievement tests which are so useful in measuring individual capabilities and progress, and sampling procedures which are used both in the social and in the natural sciences to obtain highly reliable results by the examination of a small but representative proportion of cases in the universe under study. Continuous research is necessary not only to facilitate the discovery of such essential social inventions, but also for the continuous adaptation of these devices to changing human needs. To retain its usefulness, a social invention must be flexible enough to conform to progress, and continuous study is necessary to judge the appropriate time for change and the nature of the change necessary. Likewise, the effects of inventions, both material and social, on society need to be carefully appraised. Society is so complex and at the same time so unified that a change in one element is likely to cause a whole series of changes, some of which are predictable and some of which have to be observed as they happen. The study of social facts is primarily useful in peace, but it has also demonstrated its essentiality in time of war. A long list of applications of social research contributed to the achievement of our recent victory. The mention of only two will suffice to indicate their value. One of these was the use of aptitude or achievement tests. The so-called intelligence tests were a new tool of the psychologists just before the World War I, but even in their rudimentary form, they were applied extensively in that war and were useful in spotting mental variations and for other general personnel purposes. Between World War I and World War II a generation of psychologists and educators worked to perfect these tests, and at the outbreak of World War II there was available a tremendously effective system of tests and measurements for use in the assignment of military personnel and for selecting and placing workers in war production and determining the degree of training which they needed. Again, the unprecedented expansion of some of our war industrial communities necessitated intensive study as the basis of allocating Government funds to provide these communities with the facilities necessary for creating satisfactory living conditions for the industrial population. The question has arisen as to the propriety of the Federal Government's participation in this field. There are a number of strong reasons for such participation. Over the past decades the Government has tended to emphasize to a greater and greater degree the general welfare clause of the Constitution. The expansion in the Federal structure of the programs administered by the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor and the recent organization of the National Housing Agency and the Federal Security Agency have brought about a continuous broadening and enrichment of facilities and services which the Federal Government extends to the people on a national scale. The growing participation in such activities by the Federal Government involves some delicate balances and calls for continuous study and appraisal in order that both the values of national support and leadership and of local planning may be maintained. These activities in behalf of the general welfare involve large outlays of the taxpayers' money. It is, therefore, incumbent upon both Government agencies and outside research organizations to maintain efficient facilities for appraising the effectiveness of these programs. Economy and efficiency demand that the public interest in such operations be protected by discovery and analysis of all the facts. The operation of these services on a Nation-wide basis demands that equality of opportunity be maintained for all classes of citizens and all regions of the Nation. This is not easy to accomplish because the United States is a large and complex nation. To approximate this goal requires continuous study of the differential effects of the programs upon different types of people and different regions of the country. Government agencies now do some research of this type, but it is usually tied closely to administrative problems and program analysis. There is, however, not enough of even this work and it is not sufficiently supplemented by studies from outside the Government. I am filing, with the permission of the committee, as an appendix to this statement, a summary of some of the activities of the Federal Security Agency which may be characterized as social research. I do not wish to imply that the comparison of the social sciences and the natural sciences can be carried too far. What I do wish to emphasize is that the social sciences can be objective and fairly precise in some fields. They differ from the natural sciences in material studied and methods used. These differences have led some people to say that the matters dealt with are too controversial and should be omitted from a Government project. I do not subscribe to this position. 78860-46-pt. 4—5 In the first place, the Government is already in the social-science field with both feet. The list of activities of the Federal Security Agency, submitted herewith, demonstrates this. Secretary Wallace has told you of the social-sciences activities in the Department of Commerce. The extensive research programs of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Children's Bureau in the Department of Labor, the Department of Agriculture, and the National Housing Agency are other examples. There is, likewise, ample precedent for cooperation between the Federal Government and outside agencies in large-scale social and economic research. President Hoover sponsored two such commissions, one on economic changes and one on social trends. The program of cooperation between the Department of Agriculture and the State experiment stations embraces studies in rural population and rural institutions. In recent months a very fruitful type of cooperation has been operating between the Federal Government and the Committee on Economic Development, under which businessmen have conducted an extensive series of studies of postwar readjustment. Currently the Public Health Service is cooperating with the Commission on Hospital Care and the State departments of health in a Nation-wide study of hospital needs and hospital care. The opportunities for effective cooperation between the Federal Government and the States and municipalities are particularly promising in educational research. Research directors with limited funds are maintained in a number of education departments of States and large cities. But their work is decentralized; hence it is difficult for any one local unit or college to conduct comprehensive studies. Education is one of our largest enterprises, involving an expenditure of nearly $3,000,000,000 annually. The effective use of these large public expenditures could be promoted by reenforcing the State and local facilities and providing technical assistance and joint planning of projects. Such opportunities for StateFederal cooperation are also inherent in the programs of the Social Security Board and the Public Health Service. The National Research Foundation could well advise as the the wisest expansion of Government research in the social sciences. It could assist in coordinating "across the board" studies which concern several of the departments and assist in focusing the studies more sharply upon those problems of interest to outside agencies. A compelling reason for inclusion of the social sciences is the inseparability of the methods of research in many problems and the consequent need for active collaboration among scientists. When a broad human problem is approached, to attempt to divide it into academic fields is often highly artificial. Suppose we are planning a coordinated attack on malaria. We would probably start with such natural-science techniques as study of the mosquito, study of the germ, study of insecticides and drugs, but we would eventually get to. such socio-economic problems as the ownership of mosquito-breeding waters, methods of keeping roadside and farm ditches free of weeds and obstructions, methods of house screening, methods of obtaining community cooperation, and sources of funds for the campaign. In a problem of this kind, it would be extremely shortsighted to insulate one science for another in a neat set of pigeonholes. All of our scientific resources must be integrated in such a way as to reenforce each other. Today, especial attention should be given to the recruiting of social science personnel and the development of research facilities. Before the war, competent research men in social science were being trained in only a few major colleges and the drains of the war have been particularly heavy in these fields. Among the critical professional occupations designated by the Selective Service as eligible for deferment, not a single social-science profession was included. Hence, young professors and students were taken into the armed forces in large numbers. Within the ranks of the armed forces the opportunity for training in and application of social-science techniques were more limited than those in mechanical fields. War industries also attracted social-science teachers, and within colleges which operated training programs for the armed services or war production, considerable numbers of teachers were shifted out of social science into the teaching of other subjects. The personnel situation in the social sciences will, therefore, remain critical for a number of years. As to the basis of inclusion of social sciences, they should probably have some representation in the over-all governing body, and section 3 (c) of the amended draft of S. 1297 should probably provide for a Division of Social Sciences, coordínate with the other divisions set up in that section. I wish to endorse the general purposes of S. 1297 as set out in the declaration of policies of the amendment, and especially its provisions to insure freedom of research activity and the stimulation of initiative among scientists. Likewise, I am in agreement with the provisions that the foundation shall not enter into direct research operations of its own, but shall stimulate and support research in the nonprofit institutions through grants-in-aid and the support of scholarships and fellowships; that the foundation shall also be in a position to coordinate socialscience research, stimulated and supported by its own funds with collateral research conducted in the Federal departments and outside agencies. One function of the foundation should be to advise the heads of executive departments, the Congress, and the President as to balance and technical quality of research programs of Federal agencies and the needs for development of these programs from the viewpoint of fitting into a comprehensive national pattern. In so doing, however, the foundation should not be given coercive powers, and the authority of executive departments for planning and administering the research functions assigned to them by law should remain undisturbed. Like everyone else, we in the Federal Security Agency, have been discussing the various possibilities that have been suggested for the top organization of the foundation. We are concerned first, that the wisest possible policies will be adopted for the programs of the foundation, and second, that the integrity and independence of the research programs of the various parts of the Federal Security Agency shall be secure. Also, we have had a good deal of experience in our agency in working with advisory committees with varying degrees of responsibility. On the whole, we favor the use of such committees even where they appear to assume some administrative responsibility such as approval of regulations, project grants, etc. We had a good deal of experience during the war with boards and committees of this character both in an administrative way, like Procurement and Assignment, and in developing research projects similar to OSRD. In casting about for something which would satisfy us, I think we would like to see a board of elder statesmen and a director appointed by the President, the board to develop and lay down the broad policies under which the.foundation would operate, the director to have a good deal of scope in administering the foundation within the framework of these policies. It seems to me in that way we would get the best of both suggestions. We feel, of course, that there should be adequate representation of the Government agencies interested in all the technical committees, but we feel that this is a matter that can be worked out after the foundation is set up, but we certainly believe that this representation should be provided for. (Additional statement submitted by Watson B. Miller, Federal Security Administrator:). Hon. WARREN G. MAGNUSON, United States Senate, Washington, D. C. NOVEMBER 5, 1945. DEAR SENATOR MAGNUSON: In reply to your request of October 11 concerning research in the field of social sciences conducted in the Federal Security Agency and similar inquiries which were addressed to the Social Security Board, the Public Health Service, and the Office of Education, we submit the following material. 1. As to research in the Agency: Much of the statistical work of the Federal Security Agency arises from accounting and administrative operations, but the statistical results are basic to socialscience studies. Much of the research is done in connection with program analysis or program planning, but also lends it self to the advancement of knowledge in the field. Principal fields in which this type of work is carried on are: Social securitysocial insurance, public assistance, and a large number of related areas that impinge on these, such as population, vital statistics, family composition, individual and family income and expenditures, taxation, fiscal policy and administration, national income and income payments. Practically every branch of the Public Health Service conducts research into some aspects of the social sciences. These activities include investigations into |