The Board of Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Study has officially confirmed to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency the announcement carried in cable despatches from Berlin last August that Professor Albert Einstein has accepted a life appointment on the Faculty of the Institute.
Professor Einstein will head the School of Mathematics, the first of a series of schools planned by the Institute established through a $5,000,000 endowment from Louis Bamberger and his sister, Mrs. Felix Fuld, noted as leading Jewish philanthropists.
The first intimation that Professor Einstein was considering such an appointment was brought to this country by a Jewish Telegraphic Agency despatch on August 20 and on August 26, a second cable from Berlin stated that Professor Einstein had accepted the offer.
Professor Einstein, who will occupy the chair of Mathematical and Theoretical Physics, will take up his duties beginning with October 1, 1933. The school year is to end on April 15th. The remainder of the year will be spent in vacations abroad, it is stated.
Dr. Walter Mayer, who has served as Professor Einstein’s assistant for a number of years, will accompany him to the United States. He has been named an Associate in Mathematics by the Institute. Dr. Abraham Flexner is director of the Institute.
Professor and Mrs. Einstein will reside in Princeton, N. J., as the School is temporarily to be housed in the new Fine Hall of Princeton University.
Students to be admitted to the school will be few in number and will be limited to persons who give promise of unusual development, regardless of whether or not they have college degrees, although the school is to be postgraduate.
Professor Einstein will, it is believed, complete his work on the unified theory before assuming the duties of his new post and may come to Pasadena, California, to work at the Mount Wilson Observatory in this connection.
The appointment of Professor Oswald Veblan as Professor in the School of Mathematics and of Dr. J. L. Vanderslice as his assistant, was also announced. Professor Veblen, one of the leading American Mathematicians, has until now been associated with Princeton University.
It is hoped that the Institute will attract teachers and students of independent thought. Emphasis will be placed upon the individual.
Each of the schools will be established gradually and not until men of such pre-eminence in their respective fields as Professor Einstein and Veblen can be secured.
The Institute will remunerate its staff in such fashion that its members will be free of financial worry and be able to devote themselves to intellectual work.
The announcement of the plans of the Institute followed a meeting of the Board of Trustees, who include Frank Aydelotte, president of Swarthmore College; Edgar S. Bamberger, nephew of Mr. Bamberger and Mrs. Fuld; Lieutenant-Governor Herbert H. Lehman, Percy S. Strauss, Dr. Alexis Carrel of the Rockefeller Institute; Dr. Julius Friedenwald of Baltimore; John R. Hardin, president of the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company; Herbert H. Maass; Dr. Florence R. Sabin of the Rockefeller Institute; Dr. Louis H. Weed, dean of the medical school of Johns Hopkins University and Dr. Abraham Flexner, who was formerly director of the division of medical education of the General Education Board.
Alanson B. Houghton, former United States Ambassador to Great Britain, is chairman of the Board.
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.
