Work Begins

Inventor Thomas A. Edison lately said in effect: "Society needs no more inventions for a while. It has not caught up with Science as things stand now." But Inventor Edison quickly denied that, such being the case, he would stop work (TIME, Feb. 22). And last week the National Academy of Sciences announced that no one is going to stop work, that work is just going to begin. With the help of Secretary of Commerce Hoover it is going to establish a fund of 20 millions to rescue genius from "conditions that stifle independent research." It has consulted 30 college presidents and many another notable—Andrew W. Mellon, Charles E. Hughes, John W. Davis, Elihu Root, Vernon L. Kellogg, Colonel Edward M. House, et al.—and one and all are agreed that time and money should be laid aside to guard and fan sparks of the kind that have lately blazed up into the automobile, airplane and radio. The broadest powers are to be given to an administrating board with Mr. Hoover in the chair. It is impossible to say what may some day result—trips to the moon? Invisibility? Synthetic babies? Immortality?