EDITORIAL
Education for Lasting Worth The trained scientist must continue to train, both in depth and breadth
I
n two separate but perhaps not wholly unrelated areas of advanced education, isolated programs have been launched with sufficient frequency of late to inspire hope of developing trends. The first area is that of resuming or continuing, through formal course work, the scientific education of practicing scientists and engineers. The second deals with imparting to those and other groups a sense of the interrelationships between science-technology and the many other fields on which science and technology impinge. Both are directly pertinent to the question of optimum training and use of scientific mindpower (C&EN, July 27, page 7). The programs thus far announced have taken about as many specific forms as there are specific programs. But the objectives are admirably consistent: updating of knowledge and prevention of individual obsolescence on the one hand, and broadening of scientific viewpoints to include the impact of science and technology on social, economic, and public policy patterns on the other. Until recently "keeping up to date" was widely regarded as a personal problem and responsibility—usually handled, if at all, through the individual's own spare-time study or attendance at scientific meetings. The change now taking shape is in the direction of formalizing the process through company-sponsored lectureships or cooperative programs and special curriculums worked out with universities. The matter of developing breadth of perspective, .encompassing
both scientific and social-political considerations, was scarcely recognized as recently as 20 years ago; the attention now accorded it on behalf of scientists and engineers, and of the intelligent lay public as well, is largely a development of the 1960's. Both these incipient trends—toward depth in technical knowledge and breadth of perspective —deserve to be encouraged and accelerated. The knowledge explosion in science and technology has reached such proportions that individual, spare-time efforts no longer suffice. An estimate currently circulated, and quoted by respected authorities, suggests that scientists and engineers may need to spend one year in each five or six as regularly enrolled students in order to keep reasonably current in knowledge of their fields. Furthermore, the increasing penetration of those fields into the mainstream of modern life dictates that study of their interaction with social, economic, and political developments be placed on a less casual, more purposeful footing. To the extent that we fall short of maximum success in either of these important areas, we handicap ourselves in our striving toward maximum contribution to a culture that is beneficially productive and worthy of perpetuation.
AUG.
3, 1 9 6 4
C&E
7
