MELLON INSTITUTE OF INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH
“An industry is made great, not by its raw
materials, not by its products, but by the men
who show how to use them to best advantage—
.e., by scientists and engineers in its service.”
Hon. A. W. MeLLON.
The essential aim of Mellon Institute of Industrial Re-
search is the creation of new knowledge by scientific investi-
gation, in accordance with the Industrial Fellowship system
of Dr. Robert Kennedy Duncan. The institution was found-
ed by Andrew W. Mellon and Richard B. Mellon, whose
constant interest has brought success to the application
of the system.
The industrial research of the Institute is organized on a
contract basis, the problem being set by a person, firm or
association interested in its solution, the scientific worker
being found and engaged by the Institute, and an industrial
fellowship being assigned for a period of at least one vear.
Each holder of an industrial fellowship is given for the time
being the broadest facilities for accomplishing a definite
piece of research, and all results obtained by him belong ex-
clusively to the founder (donor) of the fellowship. Only
one investigation is carried out on a particular subject at
any one time and hence there is no duplication of the research
activities of the Fellowships in operation.
The Institute is primarily an industrial experiment sta-
tion, but the nature of its investigational procedure enables
broad training of young scientists in research methods and
in special subjects of technology. It also has a department
of research in pure chemistry, which investigates funda-
mental chemical problems that are of purely scientific
interest,
The idea of the Industrial Fellowship system was con-
ceived by Dr. Duncan in 1906, while in attendance at the
Sixth International Congress of Applied Chemistry in Rome.
For some time previous to this Congress, Dr. Duncan had
deen in Europe gathering material for several books on
chemistry. Through visits of inspection to factories, labora-
