FIGURE 4.- The Harrison Chronometer, the first clock with accuracy sufficiently good for the precise determination of longitude at sea.

By mid-century, the government had created a pattern of aid to science which was to have a lasting influence on science-government relations in Britain and the United States. Where possible, the government preferred to work through small committees of scientists. empowered to provide stipends for researchers and to consider grant applications. And the scientists were ready to oblige. By this time a well-organized scientific community had come into being with official spokesmen, professional societies like the British Association, publications like Nature and a political program with a "lobby" to back it. This program had three goals: financial support from the government, more science in the university curriculum and, to make science policy more

FIGURE 5.-Captain James Cook, Royal Navy, the most accomplished navigator and explorer of the eighteenth century.

uniform, creation of a Ministry of Science with Cabinet rank (ref. 21). But scientists had to contend with the reluctance of officials to extend their spheres of influence or to initiate any policy that might mean some increase in expenditure or staff, no matter how trivial. The government's conservatism extended to providing scientific and technical education. Before 1870, there was no provision even for universal elementary education, although there was nothing in it inconsistent with a philosophy of economic liberalism. More important, no system of secondary education (let alone advanced scientific instruction) was possible until elementary education had been provided for.

Put differently, in Britain (unlike Germany) the industrial revolution preceded the educational revolution. To the extent that Britain did train scientists for industry, it was emphatically not because of pressure from manufacturers. Few industrialists understood either the value of planned research or the relevance of a scientific discovery to industrial production. The facts were public and notorious: the discovery of aniline by an Englishman, Perkin, in 1856 and the transfer of the industry to Germany within a dozen years; the total dependence of British industry on Germany for scientific instruments; the fact that the crucial inventions in the mass-production of steel were made by Bessemer, an independent inventor, Siemens, a German resident in England, and Gilchrist Thomas, a police-court clerk. The difference between British and German industry was between one based on planned innovation and another based on rule of thumb and non-standardized production. It is hardly surprising that few university graduates chose scientific careers. Jobs were few, salaries miserable, advancement unlikely. In 1900, there were only 200 scientists in government service, rising to 300 on the eve of the First World War.

We have examined the origins of applied research in Britain because the British approach to the organization of scientific research has been extremely influential. We can go even further: The technology development laboratory, at least in the United States, is the offspring of the German research laboratory and quasi-public scientific associations modeled on the Royal Society. On the eve of industrialization, the states comprising the German Empire (after 1871) had an educational system superior to Britain's. Education tended to last longer, to cover a much higher percentage of children of school age, and to link elementary classes with the middle and secondary classes where technical education began. And while in Germany rigorous scientific research began in the universities (with Liebig's laboratory at Giessen in the 1820s), by the 1860s industrialists had begun to perceive that progress in the sciences opened a variety of alternative paths for economic development. As Ben-David notes, “An original idea with practical implications could now be explored and exploited within a short period of time by a group working in concentrated fashion." The most striking examples of such applied work were the development of aniline dyes building on Perkin's discoveries and immunizing vaccines. Both "led to the establishment of nonteaching research laboratories employing professional researchers who were not professors." (ref. 22.) In Germany, but not in Britain, it was possible, not only for a university graduate to pursue a scientific career, but to move into the ranks of the managers and directors of the giant enterprises (BASF, Bayer, Hoechst, AEG, etc.) made possible by research.

Thus by 1900, most of the elements of the technology development laboratory were in place. These were, first, the existence of a pool of

university-trained chemists, physicists, and engineers; second, an understanding of the process by which research could be transferred from the laboratory to the factory; third, a system by which government could draw on quasi-official learned societies for unbiased advice; and fourth, an educational system which produced the technicians and administrators who supported the scientific enterprise. How these processes worked themselves out in the United States up to the eve of the Second World War comprises the rest of this chapter.

Research and Development Institutions in the United States

The United States did not have a formal research establishment supported by the Federal Government until well into the country's history. While there were learned societies established before and during the Revolutionary War, like the American Philosophical Society (founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1780), they had very limited funds and supported no development institutions. In fact, the first academy supported by the government, the National Academy of Sciences, was not chartered by Congress until 1863.

In the United States most, if not all, of the research institutions supported by Federal funds originated as the result of war or a crisis perceived by the public as major. The first of these institutions was the U.S. Naval Shipyard in Washington (1798). Here as in England, maritime technology set the pace for publicly-funded applied research, owing to the importance of warships and fleets in keeping ocean trade routes open. During the Revolutionary War the U.S. Navy had no ships designed from the keel up as warships; all the warships used were converted merchant transport ships mostly procured from foreign shipyards. When the Navy was disbanded after the war, U.S. flag vessels were at the mercy of Barbary Coast pirates, as well as England and France, both of whom took American ships almost at will during the Napoleonic Wars.

These conditions drove the United States to establish and develop a Navy. The Navy Department was established in 1798 as the first "regular" service. From then until the Civil War, the Navy sponsored many important technical developments. Beginning with the construction of the Washington Naval Shipyard, the Navy undertook to build warships that no private shipyard would build, because there was no profit in building them for a nearly bankrupt government. Under Joshua Humphreys, who was appointed "Naval Constructor" in 1799, the Navy designed and built the famous heavy frigates that dominated the War of 1812. These ships-the "Constitution" (fig. 6), "Constellation," "President," and "United States"-were the most advanced of their time.

FIGURE 6. The U.S.S. "Constitution," one of the class of heavy frigates designed

and built by Joshua Humphreys that were so technologically superior that they dominated single ship actions with the Royal Navy during the War of 1812.

Because they were built of pine rather than oak, they were much faster than similar ships and carried more guns. During the War of 1812 they proved superior to any ships the Royal Navy could muster against them.

The War of 1812 confirmed the Navy's importance. Between the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war, and the outbreak of the Mexican War in 1846, the Navy sponsored several important developments: the construction of the first "slide" or "ways" (1821), so that ships could be hauled out of the water for scraping, painting, and general maintenance; the building of the first steam engine intended for a ship (1826); and, most important, the use of steam for the propulsion of ocean-going ships and the replacement of wood by iron in their construction. The first steam warships were built at the Washington Yard in 1842. These ships were sidewheelers and, as such, were involved in the lengthy controversy over the best means of using steam propulsion. At the time, the Navy was experimenting with steam propulsion and especially with propellers for large ships-experiments which led to the steamships employed in the Mexican War (1846-1848). This war first saw the large-scale use of steamships by the U.S. Navy and, with it, the problems of keeping steamships at sea. Among the latter were: