DEC MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE o TRAL OF TECHNOLOGY BULLETIN PRESIDENT'S REPORT ISSUE VOLUM E 77 NUMBER 1I OCTOBER, 1941 Published by Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts .O I - - - Entered July 13, 1933, at the Post Office, Boston, Massachusetts, as second-class matter under Act of Congress of August 24, 1912. Published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge Station, Boston, Massachusetts, in October, November, February and June. Issues of the BULLETIN include the reports of the President and of the Treasurer, the General Catalogue, the Summer Session, and the Directory of Officers and Students. MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE . OF TECHNOLOGY : BULLETIN President's Report Issue I940-I941 Covering Periodfrom Meeting of CorporationOctober, 1940 to Meeting of CorporationOctober, i941 VOLUME 77 NUMBER I OCTOBER, 1941 PUBLISHED BY THE INSTITUTE, CAMBRIDGE I _ ~_·___· -7:-olG _ I ___ TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT. ......... 5 CO-OPERATION IN THE NATIONAL DEFENSE PROGRAM . 6 Personnel ....... 6 Educational Activities ... 7 Defense Research ..... : I I I IO Financing the Research Program 12 SOME EDUCATIONAL EFFECTS AND IMPLICATIONS OF THE DEFENSE PROGRAM .. TRENDS IN OUR NORMAL OPERATIONS . .. 19 Finances .. ... 19 Enrollment . .. 20 Student Aid S. 21 Placement ....... ... 22 Personnel.......... 23 IMPORTANT GAINS .... ... .. .. 26 SOME OBJECTIVES UNDER STUDY . .. .. 28 REPORTS OF OTHER ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICERS Dean of Students ........... 31 Dean of the Graduate School ........ 34 Registrar .. ... 37 Director of Admissions ...... 58 Chairman of Committee on Summer Session 59 Librarian . S 61 Director of the Division of Industrial Co5peration 69 Director of the Albert Farwell Bemis Foundation 72 Secretary of Society of Arts ..... ... 74 Chairman of Committee on the Museum .. 76 \ Medical Director. ..... 77 Director of News Service ... ... 80o Chairman of Special Training Programs for National Defense 81 REPORTS OF THE HEADS OF DEPARTMENTS AND COURSES SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING Aeronautical Engineering ..... Meteorology . ....... .. Building Engineering and Construction . Business and Engineering Administration . .. __ 4 MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Chemical Engineering 93 Civil and Sanitary Engineering . 100oo Electrical Engineering 104 Mechanical Engineering . Io8 Metallurgy ... ...... 113 Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering 116 SCHOOL OF SCIENCE Biology and Public Health . 117 Chemistry .. ..... 121 General Science and General Engineering 124 Geology .. 125 Mathematics ........ 125 Physics . I : I I i26 SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Architecture 130 City Planning ....... 131 Section of Graphics 133 DIvisION OF HUMANITIES Economics and Social Science . 134 English and History ..... 136 General Studies 138 Military Science and Tactics . 139 Modern Languages . 140 REPORT OF THE TREASURER 142 PUBLICATIONS OF STAFF 221 Index of Authors ... ... 251 THESES PRESENTED FOR DOCTORS' DEGREES . 247 Index of Authors . ....... 255 i REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT TO THE MEMBERS OF THE CORPORATION: T HIS annual report upon the affairs of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology covers a year during which the most noteworthy developments in its program have been related to the national program of defense. I wish consequently to give primary attention to this aspect of oor work and to suggest some of the ways it bears upon the future of this institution. It is not surprising that the Institute has been called upon to play an important r1le in the defense effort. From its found- ing one of its intrinsic qualities has been an ideal of public service, a recognition by members of its staff of an institutional obligation and opportunity to extend and implement its regular program by service to industry, governmental agencies, and society generally. Combined with this ideal and making it effective has been the Institute's concentration upon a defined and very specific objective of fundamental social importance - through educa- tion and research, the development and applicationof science and technology as mainsprings of social progress. As Thomas Huxley once observed and as we in America acutely realize now in this grim national emergency, "modern civilization rests upon physical science; take away her gifts to our own country and our position among the leading nations of the world is gone tomorrow; for it is physical science only that makes intelli- gence stronger than brute force." If this truth was challenged in some quarters during the depression and before the war, there is a startling change today. No need in the country is so urgent as that for more and better technically trained men, no objective more important than _ _ 6 MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY increased productive power, and the pure scientist has been drafted as an indispensable factor in defense work. Let me add, parenthetically, that I believe that this change was com- ing even without the war, and that the present defense activity has only switched into temporary channels and accelerated a movement which was already under way. I believe that thoughtful people have reacted against the panicky confusion of the depression and that they see in technological progress, in new development and in new production, essential elements of continuing national prosperity. CO6PERATION IN THE NATIONAL DEFENSE PROGRAM With these conditions prevailing, a technological institu- tion such as ours is in a position of great strategic importance, and the extent of the Institute's participation in the defense program is a measure of this importance. Let me first describe the events and activities at the Institute which are associated with the defense program, dividing them into three groups: personnel contributions, education, and research. Personnel. The first way in which the Institute responded to the national emergency was to release experts from its staff to serve in various operating or advisory agencies of the govern- ment. Nearly two hundred officers and members of our staff are now engaged in this type of service. Those in this group whose salaries continue to be paid by the Institute contributed during the past year approximately fifty thousand man-hours of time to defense, and the others have been temporarily trans- ferred to governmental pay rolls, usually requiring new sub- stitute staff appointments to carry the teaching loads which they have temporarily relinquished. There will be deposited in the records, as an appendix to this report, a list of the staff members engaged in defense work, so let me mention here only a few typical activities of those under auspices outside the Institute. Dean Caldwell has been associated with Mr. Nelson REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT Rockefeller and with the State Department in the govern- ment's important program of cultural relations with the South American Republics. Dean Moreland is Administrator for Northern New England in the National Defense Training Pro- gram and serves on a regional committee of the Office of Pro- duction Management. Dean Prescott is a special consultant on subsistence to the Office of Quartermaster General. Pro- fessor Hunsaker holds the new post of Co6rdinator of Scientific Research in the Office of the Secretary of the Navy and this summer was appointed chairman of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics when Dr. Bush resigned this office upon his appointment as Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development. Professor Douglass Brown of the Department of Economics served this last year as business spe- cialist in the Office of Production Management and at present is in Russia as economic adviser to the Commission sent by our government to that country. Professor Whitman is serv- ing as special adviser in the O.P.M., Professor Waterhouse is a consultant on Metallurgy in the O.P.M., and Professors Ben- nett, Bitter, Horton and Lamar have been called to an impor- tant new technical service with the Navy. A large group of members of the staff, including Professors Harrison, Samuel H. Caldwell, W. K. Lewis, Bowles, Burchard, Robert S. Williams, Sherwood, Trump, Boyce, Bemis, and Houghton and myself, are serving on the National Defense Research Committee and its subcommittees. Many others also deserve special mention. The defense activities of these staff members would be impossible were it not for the cheerful readiness with which other members of the staff have accepted additional responsi- bility. Those who continue to man the normal program of the Institute are contributing no less than those who are engaged directly in defense work. Educational Activities. As the Nation's gigantic defense program got under way it quickly became evident that the _~____I ___ _· _~__ 1 8 MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY supply of men with an engineering type of training was very inadequate. Consequently last October Congress appropriated $9,ooo,ooo to finance an engineering defense training program to be conducted in qualified colleges under the auspices of the United States Office of Education. The Institute has partici- pated in this program by offering during the second term of last year and this past summer twenty-seven intensive tuition- free courses of college or postgraduate grade, with an enroll- ment of 929 students. Examples of the subjects offered are: three courses in Aeronautical Engineering, two in Aircraft Engines, and one in Naval Architecture - all for Naval officers. One course in Naval Architecture and another in Marine Engi- neering were requested by the