The Educational Function of Social Scientists

Abstract

For the purposes of my discussion, I am defining “educational function' broadly. I take it to comprehend not merely instruction of the youth who regularly resort to academic lecture halls and libraries, but also the impact of such special knowledge as we accumulate upon the adult population generally, and especially upon the officials in government, industry, commerce, agriculture, and labor with responsibility for policy, decision, and operation of our major political and economic institutions.The entire burden of my remarks is a plea that in the years ahead we move together as a family of related intellectual workers to define more precisely the profession of social scientist. Especially, I urge that we consider together the broadening of the domain of our profession so that, although it remains based in academic life, it will penetrate, as a recognizable, self-disciplined group of investigators and staff advisers, the major extra-academic institutions of our national life.