Abstract
PROF. EINSTEIN'S address at the Royal Albert Hall on October 3 was an eloquent plea for intellectual liberty. The meeting was organised by the Refugee Assistance Committee, and was under the auspices of the Society of Friends, the International Students Service, the Academic Assistance Council, and the Refugee Professionals Committee. Lord Rutherford was in the chair, and on the platform were many leading representatives of science and other branches of progressive thought and action. He said that the object of the four bodies mentioned, and of the organisers of the meeting, was to raise funds for the relief of refugee students, teachers and members of the professional classes of any country which had debarred them from carrying on their work for science and learning through no fault of their own. “Our contribution in this emergency,” he added, “must mainly be a financial one, combined with the provision of a temporary refuge in our universities and other learned institutions for some of the distinguished scholars and scientists who find themselves faced with destitution and complete collapse of their academic careers.” Prof. Einstein, who was given an enthusiastic reception by the assembly, congratulated the British people for remaining faithful to the traditions of tolerance and justice which for centuries they had upheld with pride. He pleaded for support from statesmen and the community in the solution of the problem of securing and maintaining peace, and also in the work of education and enlightenment. “If,” he continued, “we want to resist the powers which threaten to suppress intellectual and individual freedom, we must keep clearly before us what is at stake, and what we owe to that freedom which our ancestors have won for us after hard struggles.”
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Science and Intellectual Freedom. Nature 132, 539 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/132539c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/132539c0