Evening Star Newspaper, January 8, 1933, Page 65

WHERE With the Famous Scientist as Its Head, the New “Institute for Ad- vanced Study” Will Give Carefully- Selected Students the Benefitof Study Under the World’s Best Brains. BY WATSON DAVIS. N intellectual heaven for the Ein- steins of the world of learning where they may engage in creati search without financial routine duties is being cre Albert Einstein, who is perhaps the most widely recognized scientist of tod the head “for life” of the first schoel of this new “superuniversity.” Its directive force and instigator is Dr. Abraham Flexner, for years-one of the heads of Rockefeller's General Education Board, and severest critic of the vocational trend in Amer- ican universities. The necessary financial support is an en- dowment of $5,000,000, donated by Louis Bam- berger and his sister, Mrs, Felix Fuld. Prince- ton University is at present a friendly host to this independent educational agency. Modest and unsssuming is the title of this newest and most #dvanced of the world's edu- cational and research institutions. It is “The Institute for Advanced Study.” ROUND such great scholars as Einstein there will be gathered groups of assistants and students. And this will be done without haste, with the atmosphere of Oxford, Cam- bridge and the other venerable European cen- ters of learning. 3 Every incoming student of the Institute for Advanced Study will be capable of holding a professorship at an ordinary college. Few {if any students will be invited who have not re- ceived the highest of ordinary graduate degrees, the Ph. D. But Dr. Flexner has carefully left his aca- demic door open for the exceptional scholar who has not received the routine academic ap- proval conferred by degrees. An occasional un- usual genius qualified intellectually may enter his portals of higher learning without the formal blessing of other institutions. The details of education, so standardized in lower levels, will be left to the great intellects about whom the instjtute will operate. If Prof. Einstein does not wish to give lectures to the half dozen students that may be working with him, he will not do so. He will meet his col- leagues when and where and how he chooses. Not more than 10 students will work with any one professgr of the institute, and some of the faculty will desire to have only two or three students essociated with them at cne time. The formal term of actual study and research will extend for only six months of the year. The other half of the year the staff will be technically on vacation, But Dr. Flexner has found that those engaged in research often do their best work while “on vacation.” O informal is the program at the institute that it is hoped that the same creative spirit will infuse the working period as often controls the so-called vacations and makes them so productive. When a great scholar enters the institute for advanced study he will leave practical cares of life behind him. The entire staff of professors and assistants will be employed full time on such a scale that they need not worry about life’s routine, but can devote all their energies to “prolonged and fundamental thinking.” In addition to ample salaries, there will be, retiring allowances, pensions and aid in the education of children. . INSTEIN, when he vas told of the financial arrangements, is said to have exclaimed: ““This is heaven!” Other scholars doubtless will agree with him. Some of the philosophy behind the Institute Dr. Oswald Veblen, recently appointed professor of mathematics at the Insti- tute for Advanced Siudy. f Advanced Study was expressed by Dr. Flexner in the following words: “Institutions of learning are made up of men and women. In this complex modern civiliza- tion, with its steadily rising standard of living, it is of the first importance that education and research should attract gifted and vigorous tal- ent. “During the last 25 years the world has undergone great and important change: Insti- tutions of learning, once situated in quiet vil- lages, now find themselves in the heart of busy and noisy cities. Men and women who a gen- eration ago night have devoted themselves to academic life are swept into the vortex of prac- tical life. “Prof. Seligman of Columbia University has recently said that the ‘cutlook for brains in American universities is an ominous one." The sacrifices required of an American professor and his family are to a high degree deterrent. “The conditions provided are rarely favor- able to severe, prolonged and fundamental thinking. Poor salaries frighten off the abler and more vigorous and compel the university in- structor to eke out his inadequate income by writing unnecessary text books or engaging in other forms of hack work which he should not have to do. “I do not need to argue that, despite certain individual exceptions, American scholarship cannot be promoted upon an unsound and un- satisfactory economic basis. Isaac Newton, great mathematician of his day, did his research in peaceful Trinity College, Cambridge, Einstein, today’s greatest mathematician, will work: in a quiet American retreat. “It is therefore of the utmost importance that we should set a new standard. We do not need a large faculty. We should endeavor to attract into the institite a small number of scholars and scientists who will be free from financial worry and concern, who will live and work amidst conditions favorable to intellectual ac- tivity. . " PROFESSORSHIP can never be as remu- nerative as the practice of law or medi- cine or a successful career in business. It need not be, for it has much to offer that neither law nor medicine nor business can offer. “But, on the other hand, the German uni- versities long ago proved that adequate re- muneration with sufficient leisure amidst at- tractive and congenial living conditions and associations are absolutely necessary to an aca- demic group.” To mathematics, the queen of sciences, the first school of the Institute for Advanced Study will be devoted. Associated with Prof. Ein- stein will be Dr. Oswald Veblen, one of the world's leading mathematicians, who has been connected with Princeton University for 27 years. Dr. Veblen has just resigned as Henry Burchard Fine professor of mathematics at Princeton University to accept a professorship in the Institute's School of Mathematics. Prof. Einstein will have his faithful associate, Dr. Walter Mayer of Berlin, as his colleague in his work at Princeton, while Dr. J. L. Vanderslice has been appointed assistant to Prof. Veblen. THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, «D. C, JANUARY & 1933 3 EINSTEIN WILL HOLD HIS CLASSES Prof. Albert Einstein, the world’s most widely recognized scientist, who has & life appointment as head of the new super-university. i~ @ NE of Princeton University’s newest and most magnificent buildings will provide a congenia! home for the Institute’s School of Mathematics for the next few years, at least. When Prof. Einstein arrives in the Fall of 1933 to take up his work in this building, he will be able to read over a fireplace in one of its rooms a quotation from his own scientific philosophy: “Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber Boshaft ist Er nicht.” This has been translated: “God is clever, but not dishonest.” It makes a good epigram that way, but like much of the Einsteinian mathe- matics, the German phrase is also open to other interpretations. It translates a little more correctly as, “God is clever, but not malicious.” If Prof. Einstein, while formulating his thoughts, gazes through a certain window of Fine Hall upon the pleasant landscape sur- rounding it, he will see fashioned into an orna- mental device upon its leaded windowpane one of his famous relativity formulae. Eventually, when this new departure in edu- cation has proved itself, special buildings for it may be erected, but for the present the accent will be upon the few exceptional scholars and students who are being selected. EVER will the Institute for Advanced Study be surrounded by the conventional at- mosphere of the ordinary university. It will have no student activiiies, no fraternities, no foot ball team cr other athletic endeavors. Toward the trimmings of American academic life the director of the new institute, Dr. Abra- ham Flexner, has been highly critical. Many of the ideas that he expressed in his 1930 book, “Universities, American, English and German,” are finding expression in the organ- ization of the new institute. Race, creed or sex will have no influence in the conduct of the Institute for Advanced Study. The founders, Mr. Bamberger and Mrs, Fuld, laid down the principle that “in the appointment of the staff and faculty, as well as the admission of workers and students, no account shall be taken, directly or indirectly, of race, religion or sex.” And in the appointment of Prof. Einstein, who is a Swiss citizen in spite of his long resi- dence in Germany, there is evidence that politi- cal boundaries of nations will have no influ- ence. Dr. Flexner, in expressing “a very grave sense of responsibility” in his duties connected with the inauguration of the institute, observed that “new foundations, starting as does this with a clean sheet, without commitments and with- out traditions, are not likely even in America to be frequent occurrences.” ECAUSE he is architect of this new educa- tional institution, Dr. Flexner’'s previously expressed ideas are prophetic and are worth quoting from briefly here. “Suppose we could smash our existing uni- versities to bits,” Dr. Flexner wrote in his book on universities, “suppose we could remake them to conform to our heart’s desire, what sort of institution should we set up?” “We should see to it somehow,” Dr. Flexner answered in part, “that in appropriate ways scholars and scientists would be conscious of four major concerns—the conservation of- knowledge and ideas, the search for truth, the training of students who will practice and ‘carry on'.” Confident that civilization which he ealls “the great society” wishes to understand ftself, partly as a matter of sheer curiosity and partly because human beings are in a.muddle and cannot get out unless they know more than they now know, Dr. Flexner explained in his book why universities as he conceives them have an important place in the world. Dr. Abraham Flexner, directing the or- ganization of the new institution.