Part 1 - The Institute Libraries - Institute for Advanced Study

quality to hirrself. ft was a sustaining and fruitful relationship.
But Dr. Buttrick retired in 1923, and a new end quite different man,
Dr. Wiekliffe Rose, took his place, just es the younger men in the
Foundation decided that basic ebnges must be mde In the modvs operandi.
Flexner's problem mltiplied, He found himself increesingly alone, He
had no accord with the new officers, He was not otle to hide his dis-
pleasure over new ways of handling foundation work. Thus in 1924 he
delivered a paper at a conference af Rockefeller foundations staff
members, in which k fr~nkly admitted that he hiaself and ether narned
officers had not been trained'to do the kind of thing fox which they
were lesllg responsible in foundation work, He asked for two new staff
members who would be prepared as experts to handle programs in tb
hurnnities, music, etc. He spoke strongly against project financing,
and urged instead the development and adequate support of "germinal
Progress ~Tri foundation activities7 depends En the first
instance on neither money or mchTnery, but on ideas - or
more accurately, on E n with ideas,..By way of recognizing
the one really vital factor vhieh is quite independent a£
foundations, let me enphasfze, in the first place, tbc
overwhelming importance of ideas -- 'germinal ihs,' as
Dr. Buttrick says -- fundamental ideas. One mat draw a
sharp distinction between ideas that, if brought to real%zation,
bring about far-reaching changes in course of time,
end projects, which are suggested by needs and lacks that
are on the surface. It is with ideas rather thsn projectE
that foundations mst concern themselves, and ideas cannot
be advanced unless the right persons can be found, 32
His passionate conviction that the old ways ef the General
Educatfon Board were best did not iqress his newer colleagues, Nor
did they wlcome having theEr fitness for their positions questioned,
even if the critic included hfmself among those he suspected of fnade-