Part 1 - The Institute Libraries - Institute for Advanced Study

Director on a par with the Institute's professtlta in "salary, social
position, and everything else. He would thus be a de to feel his place
as an academic indivfdual, not a public executive pers~mge,~ and the A
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governing Boerd should include outside scholars and faculty members.
Professor Veblen tactfully agreed that these innovations would inded I
be an improvement over the usual arrangerefits, suggesting, however, that
the proposed faculty trustees should constitute "en executive cmdttee
with large powers to act between tke snnugl or semi-annual meetings of
the w'nole board, &1
Agefn Professor Lefschetz took a paint of view vhich was all
most exactly contrary to that of his colleague. The mchinery of the
Institute, he wrote, "should be designed with the utmost cere so as to
remove administrative duties from the shoulders of the members. I should
say that it shauld be so constructed that they cannot.assume such duties
even vhen they themelves desire it. The very temptatfcln should be re-
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moved." Such extreme differences of opinion from two colleagues in
Princetonqs small Department of Math-tics might indicate that their
attitudes had been wrought by trial and test.
Others shared Veblenms vlev, Dr. Vfncent, whom Flexner held in
very high esteem, suggested that a new fom af administration vould he an
excellent atter far experimentation; why not try letting the full pro-
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fessors control educational policies and appointments? He feLt little
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confidence in faculty trustees; selecting a feu professors to sit on tbe
Board would have its drawbacks in envy and suspicion, he feared. Plexner
answered that vhen in 1924 Trevor Arnett went to.Chfcago University (with
Vincent's blessing) he had urged the governing board to adopt the very
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