Abstract
THERE is still a certain amount of misunder-JL standing of what applied science means, especially on the part of those who draw a hard and fast line between pure and applied science, or of those who tend to regard applied science as of subordinate scientific interest and importance. There are some who treat applied science with a certain disparagement as being an attempt to adapt science to commercial purposes, a means of increasing wealth rather than of increasing knowledge. This attitude of mind is not perhaps so widespread as it used to be, but it still exists in Great Britain. Institutions such as the younger universities, which from the first seriously took up investigations which fall within the scope of applied science, have on that account been held to have derogated from the traditional conception of universities. Certainly up to recent years in Great Britain, no such problems were considered to deserve the attention of the academic mind. It was in fact for long held to be a recommendation and a merit that universities only taught and investigated subjects which could be studied in order to acquire knowledge for its own sake, and were useless otherwise except as promoting mental discipline.
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BAILLIE, J. Relations between Pure and Applied Science*. Nature 130, 726–728 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130726a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130726a0