CLASSICAL ARCHEOLOGY 24 1 



ful study of this science, a direct and intimate acquaintance with the 

 objects of antiquity is necessary. Laboratory work is as important 

 in the pursuit of this science as for either chemistry or physics. The 

 best practice is secured by fresh material, which rouses the student 

 who is engaged in research to the fullest use of his powers, and this 

 new material is secured best by excavations, the privilege of first 

 study and publication being always reserved for the excavator. At 

 the present stage of the science such material is peculiarly impor- 

 tant, and our scholars are handicapped, as compared with others, if 

 they are not provided with it. The science of classical archeology 

 is important in itself ; it may stand alone ; but as a subsidiary to 

 the study of ancient history and philology it deserves special con- 

 sideration because of its relation to general education. The ancient 

 histories of a few years ago have little more actual value than the 

 chemistries and geologies of the same time, and the advance in our 

 knowledge of ancient history is due primarily and principally to the 

 work of archeology. And from all other sources combined, ancient 

 literature — biblical and classical — has received, I think, less light 

 within the last third or half of a century than from archeology. 



(2) Our relations to classical archeology are peculiarly close, since 

 this is our source of information with regard to the earliest culture 

 from which we can trace our own. America rightly feels the special 

 obligation to learn what can be known with regard to our predeces- 

 sors on the western continent, but our modern life has been influenced 

 to no appreciable extent by the habits and deeds of the North Ameri- 

 can Indians. Our intellectual inheritance has come from the Greeks 

 and Romans, to whom we stand in the same relations as do our 

 English and German cousins. All the learning and devices of Egypt 

 and the farther East have not affected us directly. The history of 

 our alphabet may be taken as an illustration. The Phoenicians 

 traded with all the peoples of the Mediterranean and the Black seas — 

 very likely even with the early inhabitants of Britain — but not one 

 of all these peoples except the Greek had the skill to adapt the Phoe- 

 nician alphabet to western use. Thus also Egyptian mathematics 

 and Chaldean astronomy were received by the West only after being 

 digested and assimilated by the Greeks. Still less did Egyptian 

 and Assyrian art influence directly our own sculpture and archi- 

 tecture. Sir Henry Maine exaggerated only slightly when he said, 

 "Everything that is not a law of nature is in its origin Greek." 

 Since we are the intellectual descendants of the Greeks and Romans, 

 and claim this relationship, the study of their lives and works is as 



