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The CHAIRMAN. When Columbus started out people did not know whether the world was round or flat, but they found out.

INTERCHANGE OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

Senator COOPER. I would like to ask another question.

You, yourself, are an example of a scientist who is trained and was a citizen of another country and who came to this country first as a noncitizen and is here now as a citizen. You have contributed a great deal to scientific knowledge in this country, to say nothing of the consequences.

What suggestion would you make about the interchange of knowledge, scientific knowledge, any other knowledge, between scholars and scientists of countries which would help the United States at this time correct some of the deficiencies in our system about which you spoke? Dr. VON BRAUN. I believe, sir, that there is a great eagerness on the part of scientists all over the world to exchange views.

I presume you are talking here about closer scientific cooperation within the Western World.

I think there are certain practical stumbling blocks that are often overlooked. For example, it still costs a lot of money to travel from here to Europe or from Europe to the United States, and many of the universities in Europe simply are not in a position to frequently send their scientists and professors to the United States for scientific conferences.

On the other hand, in this jet age of ours it does not take much longer to fly to Europe than to the west coast, so I do not see why distance should be a stumbling block.

The second type of obstacles are made up of petty difficulties like visas or customs problems. I mean the many technicalities and formalities you have to go through. I once heard a statement that while in 1912 it took 10 minutes to buy a ticket for a transatlantic liner and 2 weeks to cross the ocean, today you can cross the ocean in 10 hours but it takes you about 4 weeks to get the paperwork straightened out before you can leave.

Senator COOPER. Would you say there should be an exchange of university professors?

BETTER TRANSLATION SERVICE

Dr. VON BRAUN. I think in that area things should be eased up a bit so that scientists could visit other countries more freely and easily. There should be less paperwork and formalism involved in such visits. Any progress in this area would certainly be very beneficial to our own national scientific stature.

I believe that it would also be advisable to provide a better translation service for international scientific meetings. I attended a meeting here in Washington shortly before the first sputnik was fired, which was sponsored under the auspices of the International Geophysical Year. There were a few Soviet scientists present who gave their presentations in Russian. The translator service available at this meeting of the International Geophysical Year was so poor that hardly anybody could understand what these Russians were saying, although

they were showing very interesting and revealing slides. Their whole trip over here was almost wasted due to this poor technical assistance. I have never seen a scientific report out of the Soviet Union which was of importance for the field of rocketry, although I know that thousands have been published over there and are freely available. Senator COOPER. That is the point I wanted to ask you.

Dr. VON BRAUN. We just do not get them.

Senator COOPER. Is it true, then, that by reason of failure to translate these reports they are not available to American scientists and teachers?

Dr. VON BRAUN. Yes, sir.

Conversely, we know that the Russian translating system is so excellent that American scientific journals, engineering handbooks and periodicals and so forth are available in Russian language to Soviet scientists practically a week after they appear here. Very often that is sooner than American scientists get to see them.

I think the Russians are making full use of publications appearing in the rest of the world by making them available and palatable to Soviet scientists. With palatable I mean this:

A good scientific translation system involves even things like conversion of the measuring system used. We measure pressure in pounds per square inch. The Rusians use the metric system. Their translators even provide these conversions for their readers. Thus, Soviet scientists can read an American report with the same ease like reading a Russian report.

Senator COOPER. You think then that a larger provision should be made to make available to scientists, teachers, scholars, these scientific reports that come not only from Soviet Russia but other places in the world?

Dr. VON BRAUN. Yes, sir.

NATIONAL SURVIVAL

The CHAIRMAN. Doctor, if it is of major importance that we move into outer space, this fourth dimension, then it is also of major importance that we do whatever is necessary to be done in the matter of education and training of scientists and the personnel upon whom we must rely to move into outer space?

Dr. VON BRAUN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. That would mean then that whatever the sacrifice, whatever might be the burden or the cost for the proper training of these scientists and personnel, we must undertake it. Is that right? Dr. VON BRAUN. Yes, sir; I think it is a question of national survival.

The CHAIRMAN. You think it is a question of national survival? Dr. VON BRAUN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, we have no choice if we wish to survive but to do the necessary things to move into outer space. Dr. VON BRAUN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that right?

Dr. VON BRAUN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. And move with expedition and determination, is that right?

Dr. VON BRAUN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. And efficiency?

Dr. VON BRAUN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Any other questions?

GREATER OPPORTUNITY FOR THE GIFTED

Senator ALLOTT. I have just one. I am a little concerned about the connotations of some of this. As I interpret what you have said, Doctor, about the gearing up of our educational system and tightening up our requirements, it is not that you are advocating any less right for any child in the United States to be educated in accordance with his ability and has no desire to learn, but rather that the gifted one should be given a greater right, greater opportunity?

Dr. VON BRAUN. Yes, sir. I would say at the beginning the chances, of course, should remain equal for all children. According to talent and ability and, of course, hard work and industriousness, the better performers then should have a chance to move up to the schools for the gifted. If a child is less gifted but replaces less talent with harder work, he may still pass an entrance examination.

Somehow the requirements in school examinations should be stiffened. I am convinced there should be a little more "survival-of-thefitttest thinking" and less of this: "We will just take him through the grades and give him a certificate of attendance at the end, no matter what his qualifications are."

This is what I would advocate.
Senator ALLOTT. Thank you.

CHARACTER AND MORALS

Senator SMITH. Do you think, Doctor, that talent alone is the important thing? Do not integrity and honesty and character and morals have anything to do with it?

Dr. VON BRAUN. Sir, character and morals can hardly be used as a yardstick to get a degree.

Senator SMITH. I know that. But does not character and spirit and the will to work enter into it?

Dr. VON BRAUN. I would say if a person is of a poor moral character the chances are he would not be able to pass through a more stringent system of performance screening anyway.

Senator SMITH. I think you are right in that.

Dr. VON BRAUN. I think demonstrated performance should be the only yardstick. In other words, stiff examinations should be given. Either they pass them or they flunk them.

KINDS OF EXAMINATIONS

Senator SMITH. I am a little bothered about one thought there. I have had some experience in educational work and I never was quite satisfied with just the written examination, whether a fellow gets 97 or 74, as a real test of ability. There may be some yardstick that you can apply in science, but it is more than just passing a written examination.

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Dr. VON BRAUN. Sir, I think this may depend to some extent on how the examination itself is organized. Some schools test children for what you might call encyclopedic knowledge. In other words, how much knowledge they have accumulated, what they have memorized.

I think that may be adequate for the very young children, but at the college and university level, I think a little more emphasis should be placed on creative capability and original thinking. In other words, in an examination they should not ask for the year when a certain battle was fought in history. Those are things you can memorize. They should ask the students instead to write a thesis on what was the issue about which that battle was fought.

Senator SMITH. I agree with you entirely.

Dr. VON BRAUN. Or in physics: Write a treatise on some subject that involves calculations to prove or explain a physical principle or law. For example: Develop the series of mathematical formula describing the movements of the planets through Keplerian ellipses. In examinations of this kind the student of physics has to demonstrate that he can logically think.

Senator SMITH. You need people capable of asking the right kind of questions to bring out that creative ability.

Dr. VON BRAUN. Yes, sir.

Senator SMITH. That has always been a question, how you give a creative mind or investigative mind the best training.

Dr. VON BRAUN. Give them a task to perform in these examinations to show how well they handle the assignment, rather than ask them for memorized facts.

Senator STENNIS. I agree.

The CHAIRMAN. You emphasize his native ability and then his willingness to engage in hard work. Is that right?

Dr. VON BRAUN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. It is related that one of Wagner's friends walked in on him one day when he was hard at work and said to him, "I have caught you in the hour of your inspiration."

He said, "Inspiration, mischief. You have caught me in the hour of d hard work."

There is a lot in that, is there not?

Dr. VON BRAUN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. When I went to school the motto was: "Omnia vincit labor," which, for the benefit of the press, translated means "work wins."

In every class, whatever that class might be, whether it was physics or chemistry or Latin or whatnot-and you had to take all those subjects or else you could not go to that school-the whole impetus there, the whole atmosphere was, "work wins."

That is one of the things you stress today, is it not?

Dr. VON BRAUN. Precisely.

The CHAIRMAN. Any other questions, gentlemen?

Doctor, you have brought us another very splendid thought-provoking statement here today. You have been most helpful. You were very, very fine, and we are deeply grateful to you. We certainly appreciate it.

(Whereupon, at 3: 45 p. m., the hearing was recessed until 10 a. m., Friday, January 24, 1958.)

SCIENCE AND EDUCATION FOR NATIONAL DEFENSE

TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 1958

UNITED STATES SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE,

Washington, D. C.

The committee met at 10 a. m., pursuant to notice, in the Old Supreme Court Chamber of the Capitol, Senator Lister Hill (chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Senators Hill (presiding), Thurmond, Smith, and Allott. Committee staff members present: Stewart E. McClure, chief clerk; Roy E. James, assistant chief clerk; John S. Forsythe, general counsel; William G. Reidy, Michael Bernstein, and Frederick R. Blackwell, professional staff members.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will kindly come to order.

We are very happy to have with us this morning as our witness Dr. Frederick L. Hovde, president of Purdue University, Lafayette, Ind. Dr. Hovde was born in Erie, Pa., in 1908, and received his degree of bachelor in chemical engineering at the University of Minnesota in 1929.

He was a Rhodes scholar from North Dakota at Oxford University from 1929 to 1932, where he was awarded his degree of bachelor of arts and bachelor of science and later, in 1947, his master of arts degree. At Hanover College in 1946 he won his degree of doctor of science.

During the thirties he was associated with the administration of the general college of the University of Minnesota and also the University of Rochester. His service to the United States Government began in 1941 when he was head of the London Mission of the Office of Scientific Research and Development.

During the war years he also served as executive assistant to the Chairman of the National Defense Research Committee and then became Chief of a division of that committee from 1943 to 1945.

After the war he became Chairman of the Guided Missiles Committee of the Research and Development Board from the period 1947 to 1949.

Following this he became Chairman of the Building Research Advisory Board of the National Research Council from 1950 to 1952. Dr. Hovde has, since 1951, served on the Board of Foreign Scholarships of the Department of State and was chairman of that Board 1953-54.

He has also been a consultant at the National War College and a member of the Army Scientific Advisory Panel. He has been president of Purdue University since 1946.

Dr. Hovde was honored in June 1957, by Oxford University which awarded him an honorary degree of doctor of civil law.

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