Part 1 - The Institute Libraries - Institute for Advanced Study

to be such .that studies.. .will be timely and indeed, It
was a logical forecast, but logic did not determine the course of history.
When the collection arrived in Princeton, there was no place to
house it but the cellar of 20 Nassau Street. It was necessary to employ
a custodian for it, because of air and mistuse conditions. Accordingly
Flexner asked and received permission from the Board to appoint Dr. Nancy
Lee Swann, a scholar in the language, to catalog and take care of it.
(See p.284 ) Expenditure of approximagely $7,000 a yeas to maintain the
Library proved to be a target of Messrs. Maass and Veblen, who were hos-
ti12 to the venture from the beginning. Their opposition was borne out
by the facts that it was possible neither for the Institute nor the Uni-
versity to make real use of the Library during the forties, and that I ts
usefulness required additional annua1,capital expenditures of approxi-
mately $60,000 a year which the Institute did not have. Messrs. Maass
56
and Geed therefore urged that it be sold.
But the University stood upon its rights, and declined t o con-
sent to its sale to any other university with an active program in Chi-
nese literature, in the continued hope that it might some day make use of
it. The completion of the new Firestone Library enabled the University to
take custody of the collection, and the Institute was able then to avoid
continued expendituxes for kt.
In November 1942, when the mve to sell the Gest Library was
at its height ufthin the Board, Flexner wrote a statement of fafth which
bears repeating here. The letter was addressek'to Aydelotte, who stood
\
'.
in the dangerous mfddle where Flexner had earned his deep scars, and was
- .
.
written to buoy up his old Friend.
--.