PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS 95 



veloping with the state of civilization, usually in the form of 

 guilds of priests, until we reach the Greek period, whence we 

 date our philosophy and our science. The culture of Greece 

 was carried to Alexandria, where Ptolemy Soter, supposed to be 

 the son of Alexander the Great, established the beginning of the 

 liooalcov, based on the four corner-stones of science and cul- 

 ture, the university, the academy, the library and the museum ; 

 and this institution maintained its prestige for centuries. We 

 have here an association of scholars that surpasses anything to 

 be found in Greece or Rome, and one indeed that approaches 

 an ideal more nearly that any existing institution. Supported 

 by the government, we find men of science living together and 

 w^orking together, a system of lectures, a library of 600,000 titles 

 and the like. To these conditions we may attribute the work of 

 Aristarchus, Eratosthenes, Hipparchus, Ptolemy, Archimedes, 

 Euclid, Herophilus and others, who in many ways established 

 the principles of science. Similar if less important centers of 

 learning arose in Bagdad, Damascus and elsewhere ; and there 

 was a series of Arabian astronomers, physicians and mathe- 

 maticians who never permitted the torch of learning to become 

 extinct until it was merged in the dawning light of modern 

 science. 



The records of Roman history are chiefly of wars and poli- 

 tics ; but its institutions still dominate the world. The names 

 of Pliny, Galen and Lucretius prove that science was cultivated. 

 It is said that there were twenty-eight public libraries in Rome 

 in the fourth century ; and the schools of the Roman Empire 

 never became extinct. Rome was the center whence first em- 

 pire and then the church spread civilization throughout Europe. 

 The removal of the seat of empire to Byzantium, the ev^er-re- 

 curring invasions of the barbarians from the north and the ten- 

 ets of the Christian church are supposed to have extinguished 

 learning and culture ; and the period from the decline of the 

 Roman empire to the revival of learning in Italy is called the 

 dark ages. But perhaps these centuries are only dark in so far 

 as they are obscured from our sight. It may seem absurd for 

 an amateur in history to make an assertion contrary to the com- 



