NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS 37 



followed and heard their master in the open air. In such an academy 

 the teacher had his own doctrines most at heart, not those of others, 

 consequently did not try to accumulate a library. Libraries arose in 

 the orient earlier than in Europe, partly from the reverence of the east- 

 ern nations, particularly the Mohammedans, for the written word, 

 partly from the greater age of eastern civilization; through Europe 

 libraries arose in kingly palaces and in priestly monasteries, and these 

 were, before the days of the printing press, the centers of book making. 

 The foundation of distinct natural-history museums was considerably 

 later than that of libraries for the reason that the voice of authority 

 long took precedence over the concrete object: witness the long conten- 

 tion of bookly scholars over the number of legs of an insect, all dis- 

 puting over various renditions of Aristotle, none condescending to 

 catch a house fly and count its members. Alexander brought home 

 great collections of living animals from the east, and founded there- 

 with a zoological garden for this teacher of his, but we have few records 

 of this collection; the beasts the Soman emperors secured were used 

 mostly for combats in the circus, for these emperors had political and 

 popular effects in mind and not the increase of knowledge. 



The materials for the study of the natural sciences in medieval 

 times were the libraries, museums growing up in Italy and England, 

 and universities starting in Italy, Spain, England, France and Ger- 

 many. These early universities were at first much of the type of 

 Grecian academies, with didactic teaching; they arose from the desire 

 of certain free spirits to gain knowledge of other kinds than that pre- 

 scribed by the church. We can say that the museum was in most in- 

 stances the mother of the empirical natural sciences, for it stood for 

 the accumulation of objects of study rather than the accumulation of 

 books. Men of inquiring mind grew up, inspired partly by curiosity, 

 partly by superstition and belief in the black magic, who collected mon- 

 strosities and other strange specimens, without any definite idea to guide 

 their choice; their preference was for fossils and crystals, salamanders 

 and hedgehogs, and in general the most heterogeneous objects as one may 

 learn from " Hudibras " or from the plates in Johnston's " Natural His- 

 tory." The wish was for the unusual, and specimens from foreign lands 

 inspired much more interest than those of the native fauna and flora. 

 The chief growth of these museums dated from the times of colonial 

 expansion, when the ships of the Dutch and Spaniards and English 

 brought home collections from the new and old Indies. The govern- 

 ments then lent their help to the museums, as an exploitation of the 

 products of their new possessions, and the great collections of London, 

 Paris and Amsterdam jumped in their growth and importance and 

 have justly become objects of national pride. 



The universities came to join with the museums in many cities, but 



