Research
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1934.tb02365.x |
| Published date | 01 January 1934 |
| Date | 01 January 1934 |
Research
ROUBLE
is
the nurse of research.
It
is far more effective in
T
winning converts, in industry and elsewhere, than years of
preaching. The necessities of war were a forcing ground, and the
results a signal lesson of the value of research. In medicine and, in
less measure,
in
industry, research was systematically pursued before
the war, and great things achieved. This country has been late, there
are good reasons for it, in appreciating the equal need of research in
public administration. If
any
new argument were needed, it is
provided by the growing complication of modem problems of
government.
Research is of three classes. First, the collection
of
facts and the
drawing of surface conclusions from them. This can more appro-
priately be called investigation,
as
distinct from research proper. It
is none the
less
useful. The danger
is
that surface conclusions may
easily
be misleading, and
do
not mine the ore underneath.
Secondly, there
is
research, practical research
as
it
may be called,
which is directed primarily to an immediate problem and
to
purposes
of action. The facts are collected and analysed
far
more thoroughly
than in an investigation and the results are likely
to
be of much greater
value; but the work is essentially practical rather than fundamental.
Thirdly comes fundamental research which, while by no means
ignoring experience, deals more with the elements
of
the problem,
the kind of research which, in physics, has yielded
so
much light,
and new obscurities, on the constitution
of
matter. In administration
it
is
directed to the basic notions and conditions governing political
activity (in
its
broad sense). Research of this kind
is
not necessarily,
probably will not be, directed to any immediate practical purposes
but may indirectly produce consequences far more sweeping.
There
is
need
of
the last kind of research in public administration,
indeed vital need, for it is ultimately the most important of the three,
and not least at the present time. The world in which we live
is
changing much more rapidly than any previous age. The ideas of
men are more fluid, traditions too.
Notions
and aspirations almost
taboo not
so
very long ago are now the common talk
of
the market
place. New ideas cleave deeply into the fabric
of
society. What
is
15
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