The Golden Age Of Science Fiction Vol Iv Part 52

"It's all right," said Fenwick, waving away Baker's protests with a vigorous flap of his hand. "I know Clearwater isn't MIT or Cal Tech, but we've got a real hot physics department, and you're going to see some sparks flying out of there if you'll give us half a chance in the finance department. What's the good word, anyway? Do we get the research grant?"

Baker took a deep breath and settled his arms on the desk in front of him, leaning on them for support. He wished Fenwick wasn't so abrupt about things.

"John," Baker said slowly. "The head of your physics department doesn't even have a Ph. D. degree."

Fenwick brightened. "He's working on that, though! I told you that in answer to the question in the application. Bill, I wish you'd come down and see that boy. The things he can do with crystals would absolutely knock your hat off. He can stack them just like a kid stacking building blocks--crystals that n.o.body else has ever been able to manipulate so far. And the electrical characteristics of some of them--you wouldn't believe the transistors he's been able to build!"

"John," said Baker patiently. "The head of the physics department in any inst.i.tution receiving a grant must have a Ph. D. degree. That is one absolutely minimum requirement."

"You mean we've got to wait until George finishes his work for his degree before we get the grant? That puts us in kind of a predicament because the work that we hoped to have George do under the grant would contribute towards his degree. Can't you put it through on the basis that he'll have his degree just as soon as the present series of experiments is completed?"

Baker wiped his forehead and looked down at his hands on the desk. "I said this is one minimum requirement. There are others, John."

"Oh, what else are we lacking?" Fenwick looked crestfallen for the first time.

"I may as well be blunt," said Baker. "There is no conceivable way in which Clearwater College can be issued a research grant for anything--and especially not for basic research in any field of physical science."

Fenwick just stared at him for a minute as if he couldn't believe what he had heard, although it was the thing he had expected to hear since the moment he sat down.

He seemed deflated when he finally spoke. "I don't think it was the intent of the Congressional Act that made these funds available," he said, "that only the big, plush outfits should get all the gravy. There are plenty of smaller schools just like Clearwater who have first rate talent in their science departments. It isn't fair to freeze us out completely--and I don't think it's completely legal, either."

"Clearwater is not being frozen out. Size has nothing to do with the question of whether an inst.i.tution receives a grant from NBSD or not."

"When did you last give a grant to a college like Clearwater?"

"I am afraid we have never given a grant to a college--like Clearwater," said Baker carefully.

Fenwick's face began to grow more ruddy. "Then will you tell me just what is the matter with Clearwater, that we can't get any Government research contract when every other Tom, d.i.c.k, and Harry outfit in the country can?"

"I didn't state my case in exactly those terms, John, but I'll be glad to explain the basis on which we judge the qualifications of an inst.i.tution to receive a grant from us."

Baker had never done this before for any unsuccessful applicant. In fact, it was the policy of the Bureau to keep the mysteries of the Index very carefully concealed from the public. But Baker wanted Fenwick to know what had hung him. It was the one more or less merciful thing he could do to show Fenwick what was wrong, and might be sufficient to shake him loose from his dismal a.s.sociation with Clearwater.

Baker opened the file folder and Fenwick saw now that it was considerably fuller than he had first supposed. Baker turned the pages, which were fastened to the cover by slide fasteners. Chart after chart, with jagged lines and multicolored areas, flipped by under Baker's fingers. Then Baker opened the accordian folds of a four-foot long chart and spread it on the desk top.

"This is the Index," he said, "a composite of all the individual charts which you saw ahead of it. This Index shows in graphical form the relationship between the basic requirements for obtaining a research grant and the actual qualifications of the applicant. This line marks the minimum requirement in each area."

Baker's finger pointed to a thin, black line that crossed the sheet. Fenwick observed that most of the colored areas and bars on the chart were well inside the area on Baker's side of the line. He guessed that the significance of the chart lay in this fact.

"I take it that Clearwater College is in pretty sad shape, chartwise," said Fenwick.

"Very," said Baker.

"Can you tell me how these charts are compiled?"

Baker turned back to the sheaf of individual charts. "Each item of data, which is considered significant in evaluating an applicant, is plotted individually against standards which have been derived from an examination of all possible sources of information."

"Such as?"

"For example, the student burden per faculty Ph. D. That is shown on this chart here."

"The what? Say that again," said Fenwick in bewilderment.

"The number of students enrolled, plotted against the number of doctorate degrees held by the faculty."

"Oh."

"As you see, Clearwater's index for this factor is dismally low."

"We're getting a new music director next month. She expects to get her doctorate next summer."

"I'm afraid that doesn't help us now. Besides, it would have to be in a field pertinent to your application to have much weight."

"George--"

"Doesn't help you at all for the present. You would require a minimum of two in the physics department alone. These two would have to be of absolutely top quality with a prolific publication record. That would bring this factor to a bare minimum."

"You take the number of Ph. D.'s and multiply them by the number of papers published and the years of experience and divide by the number of students enrolled. Is that the idea?"

"Roughly," said Baker. "We have certain constants which we also inject. In addition, we give weight to other factors such as patents applied for and granted. Periods of consultation by private industry, and so on. Each of these factors is plotted separately, then combined into the overall Index."

Baker turned the pages slowly, showing Fenwick a bleak record of black boundary lines cutting through nearly virginal territory on the charts. Clearwater's evaluation was reflected in a small spot of color near the bottom edge.

Fenwick stared at the record without expression for a long time. "What else do you chart?" he said finally.

"The next thing we evaluate is the performance of students graduated during the past twenty-five years."

"Clearwater is only ten years old," said Fenwick.

"True," said Baker, "and that is why, I believe, we have obtained such an anomalous showing in the chart of this factor."

Fenwick observed that the colored area had made a considerable invasion on his side of the boundary on this chart. "Why anomalous? It looks like we make a pretty good showing here."

"On the face of it, this is true," Baker admitted. "The ten-year record of the graduates of Clearwater is exceptional. But the past decade has been unusual in the scope of opportunities, you must admit."

"Your standard level must take this into account."

"It does. But somehow, I am sure there is a factor we haven't recognized here."

"There might be," said Fenwick. "There might be, at that."

"Another factor which contributes to the Index," said Baker, "is the cultural impact of the inst.i.tution upon the community. We measure that in terms of the number and quality of cultural activities brought into the community by the university or college. We include concerts, lectures, terpsich.o.r.ean activities, Broadway plays, and so on."

"Terpsich.o.r.ean activities. I like that," said Fenwick.

"Primarily ballet," said Baker.

"Sure."

"Clearwater's record here is very low. It fact, there isn't any."

"This helps us get turned down for a research grant in physics?"

"It's a factor in the measurement of the overall status."

"Look," said Fenwick, "the citizens of Clearwater are so infernally busy with their own shindigs that they wouldn't know what to do if we brought a long-hair performance into town. If it isn't square-dancing in the Grange Hall, it's a pageant in the Masonic Temple. The married kids would probably like to see a Broadway play, all right, but they're so darned busy rehearsing their own in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Methodist Church that I doubt they could find time to come. Besides that, there's the community choir every Thursday, and the high school music department has a recital nearly every month. People would drop dead if they had any more to go to in Clearwater. I'd say our culture is doing pretty good."

"Folk activities are always admirable," said Baker, "but improvement of the cultural level in any community depends on the injection of outside influences, and this is one of the functions of the university. Clearwater College has not performed its obligation to the community in this respect."

Fenwick appeared to be growing increasingly ruddy. Baker thought he saw moisture appearing on Fenwick's forehead.

"I know this is difficult to face," said Baker sympathetically, "but I wanted you to understand, once and for all, just how Clearwater College appears to the completely objective eye."

Fenwick continued to stare at him without comment. Then he said flatly, "Let's see some more charts, Bill."

"Museum activities. This is an important function of a college level inst.i.tution. Clearwater has no museum."

"We can't afford one, in the first place. In the second place, I think you've overlooked what we do have."

"There is a Clearwater museum?" Baker asked in surprise.

"Two or three hundred of them, I guess. Every kid in the county has his own collection of arrowheads, birds' eggs, rocks, and stuffed animals."

"I'm not joking, John," said Baker bleakly. "The museum aspect of the college is extremely important."

"What else?" said Fenwick.

"I won't go into everything we evaluate. But you should be aware of several other factors pertaining to the faculty, which are evaluated. We establish an index of heredity for each faculty member. This is primarily an index of ancestral achievement."

Fenwick's color deepened. Baker thought it seemed to verge on the purple. "Should I open the window for a moment?" Baker asked.

Fenwick shook his head, his throat working as if unable to speak. Then he finally managed to say, "Apart from the sheer idiocy of it, how did you obtain any information in this area?"

Baker ignored the comment, but answered the question. "You filled out forms. Each faculty member filled out forms."

"Yeah, that's right. I remember. Acres of forms. None of us minded if it was to help get the research grant. We supposed it was the usual Government razzmatazz to keep some GS-9 clerk busy."

"Our forms are hardly designed to keep people busy. They are designed to give us needed information about applicant inst.i.tutions."

"And so you plot everybody's heredity."

"As well as possible. You understand, of course, that the data are necessarily limited."

"Sure. How do our grandpas stack up on the charts?"

"Not very well. Among Clearwater's total faculty of thirty-eight there were no national political figures through three generations back. There was one mayor, a couple of town councilmen, and a state senator or two. That is about all."

"Our people weren't very politically minded."

"This is a measure of social consciousness and contemporary evaluation."

Fenwick shrugged. "As I said, we aren't so good at politics."

"Achievements in welfare activities are similarly lacking. No notable intentions or discoveries, with the exception of one patent on a new kind of beehive, appear in the record."

"And this keeps us from getting a research grant in physics? What did our progenitors do, anyway? Get hung for being horse thieves?"

"No criminal activities were reported by your people, but there is a record of singular restlessness and dissatisfaction with established conditions."

"What did they do?"

"They were constantly on the move, for the most part. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries they were primarily pioneers, frontiersmen, settlers of new country. But when the country was established they usually packed up and went somewhere else. Rovers, trappers, unsettled people."

"This is not good?" Fenwick glanced at the chart that was open now. It was almost uncolored.

"I regret to say that such people are not cla.s.sed as the stable element of communities," said Baker. "We cannot evaluate the index of hereditary accomplishment for the Clearwater faculty very high."

"It appears that our grandpas were among those generally given credit for getting things set up," said Fenwick.

"Such citizens are indeed necessary," said Baker. "But our index evaluates stability in community life and accomplishments with long-range effects in science and culture."

"We haven't got much of a chance then, grandpa being foot-loose as he was."

"Other factors could completely override this negative evaluation. You see, this is the beauty of the Index; it doesn't depend on any one factor or small group of factors. We evaluate the whole range of factors that have anything to do with the situation. Weaknesses in one spot may be counterbalanced by strength in others."

"It looks like Clearwater is staffed by a bunch of b.u.ms without any strong spots."

"I wouldn't say it in such terms, but the reason I am pointing these things out to you, John, is to try to persuade you to disa.s.sociate yourself from such a weak organization and go elsewhere. You have fine talents of your own, but you have always had a pattern of a.s.sociating with groups like this one at Clearwater. Don't you see now that the only thing for you to do is go somewhere where there are people capable of doing things?"

"I like Clearwater. I like the people at the College. Where else are we in the b.u.ms category?"

Baker suddenly didn't want to go on. The whole thing had become distasteful to him. "There are a good many others. I don't think we need to go into them. There is the staff reading index, the social activity index, wardrobe evaluation, hobbies, children--actual and planned."

"I want to hear about them," said Fenwick. "That wardrobe evaluation--that sounds like a real fascinating study."

"Actually, it's comparatively minor," said Baker. "Our psychologists have worked out some extremely interesting correlations, however. Each item of a man's wardrobe is a.s.signed a numerical rating. Tuxedo, one or more. Business suits, color and number. Hunting jackets. Slacks. Sport coats. Work shoes. Dress shoes. Very interesting what our people can do with, such information."

"Clearwater doesn't rate here?"

Baker indicated the chart. "I'm afraid not. Now, this staff reading index is somewhat similar. You recall the application forms asked for the number of pages of various types of material read during the past six months--scientific journals, newspapers, magazines, fiction."

"I suppose Clearwater is a pretty illiterate bunch," said Fenwick.