Part 1 - The Institute Libraries - Institute for Advanced Study

Rockefeller Foundation, receiving cordial and interested responses frm
a 11. Meanwhile Professor Veblen wrote several assistant and associate
professors in universities -- or the heads of their departaents -- sug-
gesting that the Institute would be willing to pay half their salaries
for a year during which they would study at the Institute. Plexner viewed
this with grave ~isgivIng -- he felt it wes improper to ask the small
Institute to subsidize wealthy universities like Hanard, Yale, Columbia,
etc. But Professor Veblen insisted that such En, usually ineligible for
regular leave. such as a sabbatical, would profit by it greatly in some
cases; sm,e of the youngest did not even have tenure. Ffexner was won
over, and actually stepped in t o persuade Professor Harston Morse of
Harvard to sanction leave for an instructor with t b follawing argument:
Ve are trying this experiment because the sabbatical year
may c m so late in a ran's life as to be relatively uniportant
from the standpoint of his own development. By the
device which I have mentioned a man to uhm our Institute
attaches great worth can get a year or two years early in
his academic career at a t5me when opportunity of this sort
may mean most to him. 77
But the ether condition was that such a young =a should be
guaranteed hi a position when be returned. Though Morse agreed heartily
with the plan, he. could not say that his bepartrent intended to continuc
the nnn for the next year. Re did not come to Princeton*
IIov many students or workers should be admitted, as a mtter of
poli'cy? Veblen had mitten his ideas on that in June 1931:
My experience is that it is desirable to have a large audi-
ence (20-50) in e lecture, but a small rtmber (3 or 4) of
students whose reading or research one supervises. Perhaps
the best methad would be to leave attendance at lectures
open to as many as each professor was willing to admtt and
restrict the rimher of Junior Membsr~..,~~