A Gentleman and a Scholar

As a young man in the 1980s—with Yale behind him and a Columbia professorship ahead—Anthony Marx lived and worked in South Africa, where he was deeply involved in the anti-apartheid movement. On one occasion he found his return to the country blocked by repeated visa denials. Undeterred, he tried another airport, eventually talking his way in. At the time he was in possession of anti-apartheid literature, which carried a six-year prison term. The qualities Marx displayed in that episode—patience, fortitude—happen to be the names of the marble lions that flank the entrance to the main branch of the New York Public Library. Marx, currently the president of Amherst College, will become the library's president this summer—just as its landmark 42nd Street building celebrates its 100th anniversary.

It is one of the supreme cultural institutions in the world—both a scholarly archive (cuneiform tablets, Washington's farewell address, letters from James Joyce) and a working library (with 89 branches). Bringing “elite” and “democratic” together is the theme of Marx's life—as befits a graduate of Bronx Science. In South Africa he helped found Khanya College, to prepare black high-school students for university. He helped make Amherst among the most diverse liberal-arts colleges in the country (more than 50 percent of attendees are students of color or from abroad). Now, amid a digital revolution, he must re-invent the library for the 21st century. “If a democracy is only as good as its people,” says Marx, “then knowledge needs to be democratic.”

I happen to be a friend of Tony Marx's (and sit on the board of trustees at Amherst). Students will miss his booming invocation of the college's motto—“Terras irradient”—at graduation. The phrase means “Let them enlighten the lands.” It fits the new job, too.