RESEARCH EMPHASIZED IN 1935-36 SESSION OF THE ENGINEERING SCHOOL

Since the School of Engineering was placed on a graduate basis last fall, there has been an increasing emphasis on research, Dean Clifford said in his annual report, issued today. More than 125 research programs of fundamental scientific character, many of them having an important bearing on industrial development, were in active progress at the school during the past year, the report stated.

"The establishment of the school on a graduate basis and the increasing emphasis placed on research call for a substantial number of fellowships with adequate stipends," said Dean Clifford. "For effective work the number of students should be kept small. An enrollment of two hundred to two hundred and fifty men of highest ability is suggested as the maximum permissible. To provide opportunity for a selected group of outstanding students, there should be available at least twenty-five fellowships paying an annual stipend of fourteen hundred dollars or more, and an equal number of scholarships covering tuition. The fact that Harvard is to lead the way in graduate study and that the financing of a man's study becomes increasingly difficult as he enters the graduate field, makes funds imperative for the purpose of students support.

"As indicative of the intellectual calibre of the students who are attracted by the offerings of the Graduate School of Engineering it is interesting to know that seventy-three per cent of the graduate student body, excluding the naval officers and foreign students, have either advanced degrees or honors," the report said.

"There was the usual wide distribution geographically, twenty-four states and nine foreign countries being represented. The graduate students in the school had received degrees from fifty-four universities and colleges. The United States Naval Academy continues to send a group of officers.

"It is gratifying to observe that of the one hundred and forty-five graduates of the school in 1934 and 1935, ninety-one per cent, excluding those who have returned for more advanced study, have jobs."

The school is planning to train a limited number of men with special reference to research positions in large industries, Dean Clifford explained.

"A small group, trained in advanced theoretical science, research methods, and research problems would meet a need which has been felt in industry for some years past and which until now has not been met. The preparation would require that these men spend probably three years in the Graduate School of Engineering following the usual college or engineering school training. The necessity for the training of a group of such men in the field of research is undoubted."

The dean called attention to the opportunity which exists at Harvard to develop centers of sanitary engineering, applied mechanics, and high-voltage engineering.

"There is at present no college or university in the country in which these fields, either collectively or individually, are being covered," he said.

"The great advances that have been made in the control of epidemic disease, the lengthening of the span of human life and the improvement in public health and well-being are closely associated with the development of engineering means for the control and improvement of the environment. The spread of intestinal diseases has been checked by water supply and sewerage works and by the sanitary production and distribution of foods; insect-borne diseases have yielded to proper engineering measures for the control of insects and their animal hosts; and it is hoped that many of the respiratory diseases will suffer marked reduction by devising engineering means for the control of the air supply of enclosed occupied spaces. It should be evident that public health are, in a large measure, an engineering undertaking and that the teaching and advancement of this art the conservation and promotion of the is a proper and desirable function of an engineering school. This is particularly so in a university that includes the main-springs of learning from which sanitary engineering draws its principles and inspiration.

"With a well-established program of instruction and research in Sanitary Engineering in the Graduate School of Engineering, and tested cooperation between this School and the School of Public Health, it would appear that there is no more favorable centre in America for the full academic development of engineering service in the control of the environment than at Harvard. A project of this kind should be based upon a flexible program of research and teaching.

"Adequate funds should be provided for the solution of the many varieties of problems encountered; a research laboratory should be made available, and it should be made possible to evoke the interest and cooperation of the numerous branches of learning within the University that may hold the key to solution of the problems studied.

"In the field of Applied Mechanics, it would be a matter of the highest scientific importance to establish at Harvard in the general field of applied mechanics, an opportunity similar to that offered by Prandtl at Gottingen, so inclusive and of such strength that it would attract the better grade students and be the recognized training place.