Abraham Flexner

Abraham Flexner ( born November 13, 1866 in Louisville ( Kentucky), † September 21, 1959 ) was an American educator and organizer of science. He was from 1930 to 1939 Founding Director of the Institute for Advanced Study.

Life

Flexner was the brother of physician and professor at the University of Pennsylvania Simon Flexner ( 1863-1946 ). He studied at the Johns Hopkins University with a bachelor's degree in 1885 at Harvard University and the University of Berlin without further qualifications. After his studies he founded in Louisville a private school, in which he transposed own educational ideas, which he was successful and attracted greater attention. He laid emphasis on personal attention, small classes and practical teaching.

Flexner's book, The American College, which was sometimes very critical to higher education in the United States, came to the attention of the President of the Carnegie Foundation Henry S. Pritchett (1857-1939), who commissioned him with a report on the training of medical students in the U.S., although Flexner himself had no medical training. From 1908 he worked for the Carnegie Foundation. His Flexner Report of 1910 on behalf of the Carnegie Foundation's medical education in the United States led to extensive reforms in the education of physicians in the United States. Flexner himself was involved in it, with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, the General Education Board he served from 1912 to 1925, from 1917 as its secretary. He also had a report on medical education in Europe follow.

In 1930 he founded with businessman and philanthropist Louis Bamberger ( 1855-1944 ) of Newark, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and was its first director. In his time, the Institute was a refuge of a large number of the Nazis from Europe displaced scholar. Flexner brought, among others, Albert Einstein at the Institute.

In 1926 he became commander of the Legion of Honour. 1927 to 1928 he was a Rhodes lecturer at the University of Oxford. He was much honorary doctorates, including the University of Berlin, Princeton and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

Writings

  • The American College, New York, Century 1908
  • Medical Education in the U.S. and Canada, Report to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, New York 1910
  • Medical Education in Europe, Report to the Carnegie Foundation, New York 1912
  • Prostitution in Europe, New York, Century 1920
  • A modern school, New York, General Education Board, 1916
  • A modern college, New York, Doubleday 1923
  • Medical education: a comparative study, Macmillan 1925
  • Do Americans really value education? , Harvard University Press 1927
  • Universities - American, English, German, Oxford University Press 1930
  • I remember, an autobiography, Simon and Schuster 1940
  • Henry S. Pritchett, a biography, Columbia University Press 1943
  • Daniel Colt Gilman: Founder of the American Type of University, Harcourt Brace 1946
25121
de