Abraham Flexner (November 13, 1866 – September 21, 1959) was an American educator, best known for his role in the 20th century reform of medical and higher education in the United States and Canada.
Abraham Flexner (November 13, 1866 – September 21, 1959) was an American educator, best known for his role in the 20th century reform of medical and innovative education in the United States and Canada.
After founding and directing a college-preparatory university in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, Flexner published a critical assessment of the let in of the American bookish system in 1908 titled The American College: A Criticism. His produce a result attracted the Carnegie Foundation to commission an in-depth evaluation into 155 medical schools in the US and Canada. It was his resultant self-titled Flexner Report, published in 1910, that sparked the reform of medical education in the United States and Canada. Flexner was as well as a founder of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, which brought together some of the greatest minds in chronicles to collaborate on intellectual discovery and research.
Flexner was born in Louisville, Kentucky upon November 13, 1866. He was the sixth of nine kids born to German Jewish immigrants, Ester and Moritz Flexner. He was the first in his relations to complete tall school and go upon to college. In 1886, at age 19, Flexner completed a B.A. in classics at Johns Hopkins University, where he studied for single-handedly two years. In 1905, he pursued graduate studies in psychology at Harvard University, and at the University of Berlin. He did not, however, complete work on an objector degree at either institution.
Flexner had three brothers named Jacob, Bernard and Simon Flexner. He along with had a sister named Rachel Flexner.
The capability of Abraham Flexner’s experimental schooling allowed him to back up finance Simon Flexner’s medical education at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He proceeded to become a pathologist, bacteriologist and a medical instructor employed by the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research from 1901 to 1935.
Flexner also financed his sister’s undergraduate studies at Bryn Mawr College. Jacob ran a drugstore and used the profits from selling the commencement to attend medical school. He then practiced as a physician in Louisville. Bernard pursued a career in do its stuff and later skilled in both Chicago and New York.
In 1896, Flexner married a former student of his school, Anne Laziere Crawford. She was a learned who soon became a successful playwright and children’s author. The achievement of her play Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (based on the 1901 novel) funded Flexner’s studies at Harvard and his year abroad at European universities. The couple had two daughters Jean and Eleanor. Jean went on to become one of the native employees of the United States Division of Labor Standards. Eleanor Flexner became an independent scholar and entrepreneur of women’s studies.
Flexner grew going on in an Orthodox Jewish family, however, early on he became a religious agnostic.
In complement to contributions by his brother Simon, their nephew, Louis Barkhouse Flexner, was founding director of the Mahoney Institute of Neurological Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania and a former editor of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.[citation needed]
Flexner died in Falls Church, Virginia, in 1959 at 92 years of age. He was buried in Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.