Part 1 - The Institute Libraries - Institute for Advanced Study

My point was not that you were raking the front page, but
that the Institute was. You, more than anyone else, are
sponsoring an alnost cloistered austerity in scholarship and
learning. Of course you cEnnot effectuate your purpose if
you are seeking Einsteins fox your society of scholars..,.
You cannot keep the Einsteitls off the front page. The very
significence of your enterprfse is the promotion of silent,
epherr~rally unrecognized r~aiations of thought and standards
which will comnand the futuree49
Flexner's cmplete answer had to wait. Not until 1960 ard the
posthumous publication of his revised autobiography were the essential
compulsions under which he acted made elear:
It is obvious to enyone who looks criticzlly at the dwelap-
rent of the Institute that it had to szart with a group of
highly distinguished men.. . , f t had to bring together a mathe-
matical group thzt would at once attract the ettention of
their peers, and in their setting would
Indeed, he did have to irpress the Tmsteea, and particularly
the Foun&rs, with more than the appearance of a moderate audemic SUC-
cess. The calling of Albert Einstein did this as no other appointment
could have done, Up to this tie, the Institute was en sbstraction, a
concept in the Director's mind, without physical attributes in =n or
plant, There was yet a long way to go, but the promised presence of the
lone "voyages through the strange seas of thought" inmediately gave the
Institute the stamp of greatness. The Trustees, and agafn particularly
the Founders, shared with hric9n millions the wonderment and af*ction
evoked by the physicist, an admiration touched with reverence for his
mind and Its qsterfous achievenents which they could not comprehend,
and for a spiritual quality which they felt instfnetfvely, Professor
Veblenws appointment meant much to American mathematics end mathemati-
cians; he had long been known as an astute and indefatigable profrater of