The Partnership

The report on federal aid to the sciences and its impact upon universities issued last week by the President's Science Advisory Committee is encouraging both as a clear statement of the situation and as an indication that difficulties of government allocations are being recognized and acted upon. As a confrontation of the problems of basic research and education in science, the statement is forthright and surprisingly comprehensible.

More important, the fact that educators and scientists showed concern about the role of federal aid and a willingness to improve it indicates a future of cooperation and mutual understanding for government and university. Educators have not been content to accept all sorts of tempting funds with complete disregard for an institution's freedom and standards. They have not been so naive as to assume that they can survive without a successful working agreement with Washington. Those on the government end, likewise, have not been satisfied to shovel loads of post-Sputnik dollars into science with the blind hope that the investment will just naturally pay off in security and progress. The government, with this report, seems ready to alter its program if the universities can prove the need for a change.

The panel that drafted the report has been bold, sensible, and objective in its criticism of both the universities and the government for what it feels is "an artificial and fundamentally wrong division between teaching and research." The statemest is a careful analysis and a useful guide.

However, the report does not fully support some of its stands, which thus sound like unrealistic dreams on the part of the academic community. More and better justification must exist for its positions that research should be done, whenever possible, in the university and not in industry, that the government should give almost carte blanche grants, and that federal as well as non-federal funds should support faculty salaries. In its lack of elaboration on these points, the report does not anticipate probable opposition.

The report carefully states its limitations and thus avoids at least two matters of great concern. Whether federal aid has "distorted the basic function of the universities" by its emphasis on science is a question considered "beyond the report's mission." As much as humanists and social scientists complain about their neglect, there has yet to be a clear, sensible appraisal of federal aid and its relative support for each of the three areas of study. It is hoped that the science report will inspire a similar examination of this related matter, one that the current report says "deserves careful attention."

The matter of the federal government's emphasis on graduate education as opposed to undergraduate education is perhaps also "beyond the report's mission," but a recommendation for a subsequent report on the matter could have been included in the report's list of suggestions.

The President's report proves that, as the report says, the concept of federal aid to the universities can be viewed not as a grounds for mistrust but as a partnership. Not only the content of this report but also its very existence supports its finding that in the future of this partnership "the right note is one of hope, not fear."