Part 1 - The Institute Libraries - Institute for Advanced Study

CHAmm IT
TEE SCHOOL OF HAIkXWTfCS
The advice he received in Europe persuaded the Director t o
open the Institute with a single subject. That subject he became con-
vinced should be mathematics, not only for the reasons urged in his
Henorandm on the organization of the Institute, but because he had
leaad that a remarkable degree of unsnimity prevailed amng mathema-
ticians in raking their great contemporaries; this was facflitated by
the "vogue" or prominence of one or another branch of the field 2t any
given ti-, as one mtheraticisn put it, In no other discfpline cbuid
he hope to find such accord in these respects.
The old ideal of'"building the peaks higbrw which had inspired
the policies of the early General Edue~tion Board promised that, if the
Institute could enhance the high prestige of Princeton in u~tbetrratics,
each institution would shine the more r~diantly in the general refulgence.
There was also the argwnt he had presented to the Trustees: =thematics
led to ecanuusics through statistics, and to physics. Both were in his
earliest designs, econmics in particular because, as he has written, k
probably would bve become a specialist in political econouy had his
circumstances been such as to permit post-graduate work.
As for the link with physics, it is interestfrtg to note that
his first act toward establishing the School of ~themtfes was to con-
vey to Dr. and Mrs. Albert Einstein on behalf of the Founders an Lmrfta-
tion to uake the Fuld home in South Orange tbeir headquarters during
their travel f rom Germany to Pasadem fox the first of three suecesskw