Part 1 - The Institute Libraries - Institute for Advanced Study

November, 1930, creating enew the stir of 1928 for, in Flexner's words,
he gave ''full credit for all that wss goodw in American universitis, but
I riddled with facts, serczsm, nnd documents the outsight
and sb~less hmbuggery that wzs proving profitable at
teachers' colleges; in home-study courses at Coluubia,
Chicago, and even my m beloved Johns Ropkins; in COTrespondence
courses corveting with work on the campus;
and in the absurd topics for which the P& D. degree was
given -38
But he elso courageously revealed his plan for the "society of
scholarsn which he conceived the real university t o be. NO brief of the
plan is feasible here, but it must be said that he emphasized the import-
ance of developing the social sciences, which were not exploited in the
Gemn and English universities, and for which he urged corrslderatim of
new methods of research and study here. He suggested the empiri-l
methods used so successfully in the natural sciences, and urged the.
testing af hypotheses and generalizations, which a special conmiittee of
the.Rockefeller Foundationen fomd lamentably wanting in a survey con-
ducted in 1934. Moreover, he felt there was little need to emphsstze
future development in the natuml sciences; they were doing very.vel1
and would continue to do so. The ather great branch of knauledge, the
hmnities, he said required much greeter attention than it had so far
received. Foreign languages, dead and live, mediaeval and modern art,
music, literature, history -- these subjects nourished values by which
men ltve; they could also "be scientific," Iw believed.
He pleaded for "creative activity, productive and critical
inqufry," in the modern university: for minds which ccluld specialize,
as was necessary OF research, and also "minds which can both specialize