Part 1 - The Institute Libraries - Institute for Advanced Study

ment," without explanation. Dr. Flexnex at Oxford ascribed his retire-
ment to a pending reorganization of the four Rockefeller foundations for
education, saying that Mr. Rockefeller, Jr., had offered him a position
equal in dignity and responsibility in the new establishnt, but that
he had declined, with the observhtion that those responsible for making
the ns- organization function would do better if he were not there. 33
The press, especially the Times,susgected that Flexner had ken disci-
plined for speaking his mind frankly. But again the Secretary.spoke,
attributing the retkremznt to the exhaustion a£ the special funds for
medical education, and alluding. ta flexner's age; at sfxtp-two he
within three years of compulsory retirement.34 the press took off
on the new scent, the reorganization, the - Tirres editoxialized on Plex-
nerD s contributions with rare praise:
Nearly twenty years ago, (191~), there appeased a report
which is recognized as one of the paxarnount influences of
that period of refom in mdieal education. It was made far
the Carnegie Foundztion for the Advaneemnt of Teaching by
Dr. Abrzham Flexner, and it deelt fearlessly, trenchantlyand
discerningly with the standards, methods and personnel of
the existing American medical schools, vmercflessly casti-
gating' all that was sordid and unwholesome, and holding
up to view the ideals toward which they should aspire. ThEs
knight errant, whose lance was at the conrnand of those ideals,
w2s anathematized by some who suffered from hfs critlci~,
but, as Dr. Llewellyn F, Barker said in his recently pub-
lished book an The Yourq Men and Medicine, 'kt is now
generally recognized that the thorough ventilation of the
subject by the-report was most tinel;, and that Mr. Plexner's
investigations and recmndations were ueighty contributions
to the progress of educational reform.'
This report was, however, but the preface to a chapter of
effort to put into effect the recamwndztions made on paper.
Dr. Flemer has had the adventage of havtng at his hand the
funds with which to realize some at least of his ideala or
to test their ~8lkdftp-