The community is an abnormal one both in ability and interests and its physical isolation is quite in keeping with its intellectual isolation, although its intellectual remoteness would be much greater if Princeton University were not in the area. The Institute has no formal tie with the University, it manages to be part of the University community through allowing Princeton students and faculty to attend seminars at the Institute and enjoying a similar privilege at Princeton.
Essentially, though, the Institute for Advanced Study is alone in its position of educational granduer. It is a community where the member teaches the professor as well as where the professor teaches the member. It is interested only in the most advanced and difficult areas of learning. It has no laboratories and formal courses.
Youth and Experience
Formed by a financial grant with rather unusual terms, the Institute is not likely to be duplicated again. The students are mostly vigorous young men between the ages of 25 and 35 or else older men whose breadth of knowledge and experience makes them invaluable in an intellectual community.
The Institute will probably not expand much over the coming years. It will, however, in all probability, continue for many years to supply the world--more than half the members come from outside the United States--with many of the new theories of mathematics, physics and history.
In an age of General Education and shallow understanding the Institute for Advanced Study provides a refreshingly restricted and wise venture into the vast field of learning. Its astonishing success speaks well for thorough, understanding and advanced scholarship.