Abstract
I TRUST the rank and file of scientific investigators throughout the Empire will wake up to the urgent need of combined energetic action. The proposals to centralise under the control of a few official departmental heads the body of actual scientific investigators in India, thus creating a few highly paid administrative posts for senior men and effectually killing all initiative, enthusiasm, and liberty of action on the part of those actually carrying on the investigations, is perfectly in accord with what has happened in this country since, in an evil day, the Government assumed the control of scientific and industrial research. It is a proposal that appeals, naturally, to the official without knowledge of the way in which scientific discoveries originate, and anxious to secure a body of cheap and docile labour, even though it be mediocre in calibre, and to those few who hope to secure for themselves these senior lucrative administrative posts. To genuine investigators such posts, however highly paid, would be unattractive, and under such a system there seems every inducement for men of originality and scientific ability to give the service a wide berth. Whereas the crying need in India, as everywhere, is for men of high calibre and honest, independent mental outlook, anxious only to secure favourable conditions under which they may be left free to pursue their creative work, and, this being secured, careless of wealth, rank, and power save as the necessary antecedents to the essential condition.
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SODDY, F. Organisation of Scientific Work. Nature 104, 691 (1920). https://doi.org/10.1038/104691a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/104691a0
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