Part 1 - The Institute Libraries - Institute for Advanced Study

the Director was sometimes under necessity to defend a position, or
even to argue a bit in the interests of developing ideas fully.
Throughout he observed a self-ir?osed rule: he was strictly
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impersonal, and at all times accepted full responsibility for all that
bad been decided, whether he was in sympathy with it or not, It spoke
wolmes for his prestige, 2nd the power which men were willing to con-
cede to him, that not one of his carrespondents ever seemed t o think
thst he was not cmpletely responsible for every idea or policy 5nvolved.
He &fended each point of doctrine or policy as though he were, even to
the powers and responsibilities given the Director in the By-laws, with
uhic'n he w2s not at all pleased or comfortable. Some of his critics
took it ill that he bore with apparent equanimity the barbs directed at
him, It gave sn appezrance of cocksureness and self-confidence which
irritated tb. Perhaps some of them suspected that Flemer was makfng
no confidants of those whose criticism he invited. And smw rrren in
particular were not prepared to face tbt supposition. A brief reviw
of s m of the correspondence w ill prove revealing.
It was felt that the Director uas too determined to detach
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scholars, particularly those in the social
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sciences, from lifc outside
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the Institute. Dr. Arnold Toynbee noted this tendency, he thought, in
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Fl-r% ssemarks in the Bulletin, and feared ft might lead to sterilfty.
Though it rnlght be difffcult to arrange, Toynbee suggested alternating
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periods aE outside actfvity and detached reflection. ft would help
h&nists to relate to their tfws. And if some of the Institute's
staff should come f rcrm the world of affasrs, great care should be .taken
not Mto cut their roots,w he warned, Moreover, if the men of tbe
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