Letter: IAS Does Not Need Land for Housing

Dear Editor, 

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has placed the Princeton Battlefield on their list of America’s most threatened historical sites as a result of plans by the Institute for Advanced Study to build on the site. 

The idea propagated by the IAS and its supporters is this housing is essential for scientific endeavors. The common misconception in Princeton, one with which the planning board and the public was thoroughly hoodwinked, is that this housing is somehow necessary and that the IAS would be compromised without it. 

Richard Feynman received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for his work in QED (quantum electrodynamics). In his 1985 autobiography “Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!” he described the essential nature of institute housing for the promotion of scientific research: 

“I could see what happened to those great minds at the Institute for Advanced Study, who had been specially selected for their tremendous brains and were now given this opportunity to sit in this lovely house by the woods there, with no classes to teach, with no obligations whatsoever. These poor bastards could now sit and think clearly all by themselves, OK? So they don't get any ideas for a while: They have every opportunity to do something, and they're not getting any ideas. . . . And nothing happens. Still no ideas come. Nothing happens because there’s not enough real activity and challenge: You're not in contact with the experimental guys. You don't have to think how to answer questions from the students. Nothing!” 

The computer pioneer Richard Hamming echoed Feynman's assessment during a talk entitled “You and Your Research” given at the Bell Communications Research Colloquium Seminar March 7, 1986: 

“The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, in my opinion, has ruined more good scientists than any institution has created, judged by what they did before they came and judged by what they did after.” 

The battlefield was intended to commemorate Washington and those who sacrificed their lives to create a free country and a sanctuary from tyranny and persecution. Many who benefited from the sanctuary they created have studied at the IAS, most notably Albert Einstein. 

It is difficult to convey a just idea of the sacrifices and the horrors of the Battle of Princeton. There were classical scholars, a Doctor and a Minister (Colonel John Haslet) among the slain at Princeton. Wounded Americans were bayoneted where they lay. A Minister named John Rosbrugh was murdered after surrendering in Trenton the previous night: the British thought they’d killed the Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon, the president of Princeton college, Signer of the Declaration, and a fellow Presbyterian Minister. The British bragged about killing Witherspoon to the townspeople after the battle. 

The site Washington’s boyhood home, Ferry Farm, was approved by a local planning board for a Wal-Mart, as was a portion of the Fredericksburg Battlefield. General Hugh Mercer, killed at Princeton, had bought Ferry Farm with the intention of retiring there. In both cases the public outrage against the plans was sufficient to stop the destruction. 

The Princeton Battlefield has suffered enough indignities without the enormous destruction with which it is now now threatened. To consider this housing development is to insult the efforts of over two centuries of Princetonians to preserve the battlefield; what is more atrocious is that it demeans and dismisses the sacrifices made there. 

William Myers

Highland Park