Frontiers of the Mind

Posted by jns on October 19, 2005

New frontiers of the mind are before us, and if they are pioneered with the same vision, boldness, and drive with which we have waged this war [i.e., World War II] we can create a fuller and more fruitful employment and a fuller and more fruitful life.

– President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a letter to his science advisor Vannevar Bush asking for recommendations that led to the creation of the National Science Foundation, 17 November 1944; the letter is reproduced in Vannevar Bush, “Science — The Endless Frontier: A Report to the President on a Program for Postwar Scientific Research”, July 1945, three months after Roosevelt’s death.