Quotations: Science in the United States
From Science Besieged
Freedom [is] the first-born daughter of science.
-- Thomas Jefferson to François D'Ivernois, 1795. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Memorial Edition), Lipscomb and Bergh, eds. 9:297 source
The value of science to a republican people, the security it gives to liberty by enlightening the minds of its citizens, the protection it affords against foreign power, the virtue it inculcates, the just emulation of the distinction it confers on nations foremost in it; in short, its identification with power, morals, order and happiness (which merits to it premiums of encouragement rather than repressive taxes), are considerations [that should] always [be] present and [bear] with their just weight.
-- Thomas Jefferson: On the Book Duty, 1821. source
Only in popular education can man erect the structure of an enduring civilization.
-- Andrew Carnegie source
New frontiers of the mind are before us, and if they are pioneered with the same vision, boldness, and drive with which we have waged this war we can create a fuller and more fruitful employment and a fuller and more fruitful life.
-- President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a letter to science advisor Vannevar Bush asking for recommendations that led to the creation of the National Science Foundation, 17 November 1944; the letter is reproduced in Vannevar Bush, "Science -- The Endless Frontier: A Report to the President on a Program for Postwar Scientific Research", July 1945.
Prior to World War II, there was indeed much doubt on the part of both private industry and the various levels of government in our country regarding the amount of support science, particularly basic science, should be provided. Some doubt regarding this matter had been overcome as a result of the noteworthy contributions to defense and the civilian economy by American chemists and to a lesser degree physicists, in World War I. As a result, the system of support had become sufficiently generous by 1939 so that most areas of science in the U.S. contained pools or zones where contributions of world-class level were being made. Both the wholehearted dedication of the scientific community to the national effort in World War II and the remarkably effective use of the store of basic scientific knowledge then available convinced our national leaders that the natural sciences not only deserved our support but that the wisdom contained in Vannevar Bush's documentary book Science, The Endless Frontier should be followed. Private industry and foundations, and both federal and state agencies, supported by Congress and legislatures, created the most remarkably productive system for advancing science that the world had yet seen.
-- Frederick Seitz, "The Present Danger To Science and Society", Cosmos Journal, 1995.
In just the past four years, information technology has been responsible for more than a third of our economic expansion. Without government-funded research, computers, the Internet, communications satellites wouldn't have gotten started. When I became President [in 1993], the Internet was the province of physicists, funded by a government research project. There were only 50 sites in the world. Now, as all of you know, we are adding pages to the Worldwide Web at the rate of over 100,000 an hour, and 100 million new users will come on this year. It all started with research, and we must do more.
-- President Bill Clinton, commencement address at MIT, 5 June 1998; excerpted in FYI: The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Science Policy News, number 91, 16 June 1998.
Our scientific progress has been fueled by a unique partnership between government, academia and the private sector. Our Constitution actually promotes the progress of what the Founders called "science and the useful arts." [...] After World War II, President Roosevelt directed his science advisor, Vannevar Bush, to determine how the remarkable wartime research partnership between universities and the government could be sustained in peace. [...] Vannevar Bush helped to convince the American people that government must support science, that the best way to do it would be to fund the work of independent university researchers. This ensured that, in our nation, scientists would be in charge of science.
-- President Bill Clinton, remarks at a ceremony awarding the National Medal of Science and National Medal of Technology, 27 April 1999; reprinted in FYI: The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Science Policy News, number 74, 28 April 1999.
