D O C U M E N T 4 5 1 M A R C H 1 9 2 5 4 4 3
it. A selection of our most talented minds will stay and work over there someday
for the good of science and our young people.
Only modest beginnings of all this exist right now. But all those who have a love
of science and a Jewish heart are now already persuaded of the high importance of
this enterprise; and we may hope that the next decades will bring us a flowering
university, worthy of the site on which it stands and worthy of the traditional esteem
for intellectual striving that the Jewish people has preserved even in the most diffi-
cult phases of its history full of suffering.
May our university be a haven for academic freedom and tolerance. Let it never
be closed to any serious intellectual endeavor; let no person be forbidden entry.
May our tradition ever stimulate us, never hamper us.
I am prevented by a no longer cancelable commitment from celebrating this day
with you, though I count myself lucky to live to see
it.[3]
May this day leave its trace
in all hearts, to energetically promote this common endeavor.
451. To Chaim Weizmann
Berlin, 2 March 1925
Dear Mr. Weizmann,
As I am about to leave Europe for a longer period and it is quite possible that the
constituent meeting of the board of governors of our university will be taking place
during my absence, I would like to convey to you and our other colleagues on the
board, at least in writing, my conception of some issues that will perhaps be open
to
discussion.[1]
First, as concerns the further development of the university, it is my conviction
that its character as a research institution with courses of instruction for advanced
students should be retained at least for the immediate
future.[2]
Only on this basis
is it possible, in my opinion, for an educational university to be established as a real
product of the Jewish spirit and to exist organically in relation with the new life in
Palestine. I also believe that this is the only way to build up a scientific institution
in its truest sense, since with such a novel type of enterprise we do first have to de-
velop the intellectual material as well as the scientific staff.
From this point of view I think that we must also broach the difficult question of
regulating the administration of the university, as there have already been various
preliminary
consultations.[3]
My sense is that the most important thing here is to
secure for the scholars placed at the head of the institutes as much freedom in their