War activities of the National Research Council

It is already a trite saying that this is a war of engineering and science. Yet it is a question whether the average person, or indeed whether even the technically qualified man whose work has been concentrated in a particular field, can realize in how large a sense these words are true. To do so he must survey the vast engineering achievements of the Entente and the Central Powers, and appreciate what countless details they involve and how far their ramifications extend into apparently unrelated fields. At the same time his view must embrace the wide expanse of medicine and hygiene, and the still wider operations of agriculture and the many industries without which the war could not go on. Nor must he be content with this sweeping view, comprehensive though it may seem. For inextricably united with the results achieved by men habitually concerned with the arts, he will find the no less important contributions of investigators in the mathematical, physical, and biological sciences, whose previous efforts have been devoted solely to the advancement of knowledge. Science and the arts have once more united their endeavors, to the advantage of the national defense and to the still greater advantage, let us hope of future national welfare.