Part 1 - The Institute Libraries - Institute for Advanced Study

may have knm of Flexner's intentions early, vrote him in October,
1932, about Meritt:
I am looking forward to seeing Ben become the head of the
Department of History end Archaeology of the Institute....
I believe that archaeology as a part of history is one of
the subjects that csn be successfully prosecuted on the
higher levels of research in this country, and that such
stimulus to research in that field is greatly needed here.
Conducting excavations alone is all right if the excavator
is trained to his job, but exploiting finds can be terribly
superficial and will generally be so unless the scholar in
question is irrhued with the historical spirit from first to
last and thoroughly grounded in his department of history. 9
Few men could meet that test as could Dr. Meritt. He was will-
ing to accept a call to the Institute, but only on specified conditions:
he vould devote his whole time to research in epigraphy; he would retain
his positions with the krican School for Classical Studies as Editor of
its publications, as h e r of the Agora Cmission, and as Member ofthe
ltnaging Cmittee of the School. He recognized that in leaving Balti-
more he would hsve to surrender his vork as an editor of the American
Journal of Philology. Also he was conunitted to spend 1935-1936 at Ox-
ford, and would keep the engagement. Flexner agreed. 10
Dr. Panofsky was temporarily teaching at Nev York university
full-time after being summarily dismissed from his position at Hamburg
by Hitler's ministry in 1933. Like Dr. von Neumann, he had.been teach-
ing half-time in this count~y since 1931. But he did not intend to re-
main at New York University. especially after talking with Worey, who
needed at Princeton a highly qualified art-historian in certain periods
since the retirement of Dr. Prank Xather from the Departwnt in 1933.
Morey wanted "a specialist in the Middle Agesand the early Renaissance,
a Quatrocencist ... whose preference for Italian or Northern Renaissance