November 1, 1967 FRIENDS JOURNAL 565
Quaker Thought and Life Today
VOLUME 13 NOVEMBER 1, 1967 NUMBER 21
Einstein on on Quakerism
By HOWARD H. BRINTON
Howard Brinton, Quaker historian, was formerly director of Pendle Hill, the Friends' adult study center at Wallingford, Pa. He is still a resident lecturer there.
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IN 1938 Albert Einstein gave the commencement address at Swarthmore College. He wrote it in German, and Dr. David Mitrany (Rumanian born and English educated), his colleague at the Institute for Advanced Study, translated it into English. Dr. Mitrany was at that time lecturing at Pendle Hill on international relations. On returning to Princeton from Pendle Hill he found that Einstein had taken a sheet of used paper from his scrap-basket and had written on the blank side of it, in German, an addition to the introduction to his address. The other side of the sheet contained a diagram and a number of mathematical notations concerning it.
Einstein, realizing that he was going to speak to the graduating class of a Quaker college, had added a paragraph of appreciation of the Society of Friends. After David Mitrany had translated the new paragraph, Einstein threw the original German version back into his scrapbasket, from which Dr. Mitrany rescued it. He asked the author to sign his name to the new paragraph, saying that he wished to give it to Pendle Hill, where the two of them had spent the night. Einstein readily complied.
David Mitrany then sent the original German writing to us at Pendle Hill, along with a letter expressing thankfulness for his opportunity to lecture there, saying, "1 have received so much more than I have given." He added that he would give his honorarium to the fund then being collected for support of refugee scholars. Regarding Einstein's paragraph on Quakers he wrote (in part): "I thought you might like to have it in its original as a memento for Pendle Hill, and at my request he has signed it for you. If you knew him you would be aware that he is the last person to think his autograph has any value at all; the idea came from me and he agreed to it because of the very deep respect he has for the Society of Friends."
The following is a translation of Einstein's paragraph, made by John R. Gary in 1938:
"At the outset I should like to express my pleasure that through his invitation Mr. Aydelotte [then Swarthmore's president] has given me the opportunity to speak at this Quaker university. With admiration and respect I have seen, in the course of many years, how successfully and selflessly the Society of Friends has worked in the entire world to lessen human suffering and to make the teachings of Christ apply to real life. Everyone who is coucerned about a better lot and a more dignified stature for humanity owes deep gratitude to the Society of Friends. This Society is an admirable testimony against the assertion that every organization by its very nature kills the spirit which has called it into life."
The opposite side of this sheet would be of interest to mathematicians, but only to those who have breathed the air on the upper levels of the subject. Einstein at that time was working hard on his field theory. His special theory of relativity had appeared in 1905, and a iitore generalized form (which included the mathematics of a gravitational held) in 1915. In 1938 he was working on a still more generalized form of the theory to include other kinds of fields. The mathematics on our paper probably include work on this problem.
A young Negro mathematician, Eloise Wiggins, then a student at Pendle Hill, was much interested in these calculations. Following the equations she observed at one point: "Here Dr. Einstein skips two steps. I take them.'
