President Cyrus Adler of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America announced at the opening exercises for 1924-25 that through the generosity of Felix M. Warburg and Mortimer L. Schiff, the institution has been enabled to acquire the adjoining properties 527-529 West 123rd Street, on which will shortly be erected a building devoted exclusively to the Seminary Library and collections of manuscripts and ceremonial objects.
The removal of the library to its own quarters will make possible the alteration of the present Seminary building. 531 West 123rd Street, so that, in addition to providing more space for students and professors, it will be able to accomodate some, and possibly all of the classes of the Teachers’ Institute which are now scattered in various parts of the city.
Dr. Adler’s statement is as follows:
In April of this year, the Seminary was advised by Mr. Felix M. Warburg and Mr. Mortimer L. Schiff that they had at their disposal a fund for the use of Jewish educational purposes amounting to some Two Hundred and Fifteen Thousand Dollars, which they were ready to make available for the new Library Corporation. We naturally accepted this very generous offer and have utilized a portion of this Fund in acquiring the two properties immediately adjoining the Seminary building to the east. It is the purpose of the Library Corporation to erect open this site a building which will be devoted exclusively to the library and the collections. Plans have been preparing over the summer for adequately and safely housing about 200,000 volumes.
Enrollment of new students for the year 1924-25 at the Seminary, it was announced, was 17, making the total student body seventy-seven. Professor Mordecai M. Kaplan announced, the enrollment in the Teachers’ Institute of which he is head was as follows: 136 in the regular departments: 45 in the Post-Graduate classes, and 250 in the Israel Friedlander Classes, the extension department of the Institute a total of 431.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
