246 Memoj'ial of George Bi'oivn Goode. 



found their way into the private collections of nionarchs, and were 

 doubtless also in use for study among the savants in the Alexandrian 

 museums. Aristotle, in the fourth century before Christ, had, it is said, 

 an enormous grant of money for use in his scientific researches, and 

 Alexander the Great, his patron, "took care to send to him a great 

 variety of zoological specimens, collected in the countries which he had 

 subdued," and also "placed at his disposal several thousand persons, 

 who were occupied in hunting, fishing, and making the observations 

 which were necessary for completing his History of Animals." If 

 human nature has not changed more than we suppose, Aristotle must 

 have had a great museum of natural history. 



When the Roman capital was removed to B5'zantium, the arts and 

 letters of Europe began to decline. The church was unpropitious, and 

 the invasions of the northern barbarians destroyed everything. In 476, 

 with the close of the Western Empire, began a period of intellectual tor- 

 pidity which was to last for a thousand years. It was in Bagdad and 

 Cordova that science and letters were next to be revived, and Africa was 

 to surpass Europe in the exhibit of its libraries. 



With the renaissance came a period of new life for collectors. The 

 churches of southern Europe became art galleries, and monarchs and 

 noblemen and ecclesiastical dignitaries collected books, manuscripts, 

 sculptures, pottery, and gems, forming the beginnings of collections 

 which have since grown into public museums. Some of these collec- 

 tions doubtless had their first beginnings in the midst of the Dark Ages 

 within the walls of feudal castles or the larger monasteries, but their 

 number was small, and they must have consisted chiefly of those objects 

 so nearly akin to literature as especially to command the attention of 

 bookish men. 



The idea of a great national museum of science and art was first worked 

 out by Eord Bacon in his New Atlantis, a philosophical romance, pub- 

 lished at the close of the seventeenth century. 



The first scientific museum actually founded was that begun at Oxford, 

 in 1677, by Elias Ashmole, still known as the Ashmolean Museum, com- 

 posed chiefly of natural-history specimens, collected by the botanists 

 Tradescant, father and son, in Virginia and in the north of Africa. 

 Soon after, in 1753, the British Museum was established by act of 

 Parliament, inspired by the will of Sir HansSloane, who, dying in 1749, 

 left to the nation his invaluable collection of books, manuscripts, and 

 curiosities. 



Many of the great national museums of Europe had their origin in the 

 private collections of monarchs. France claims the honor of having been 

 the first to change a royal into a national museum when, in 1789, the 

 Louvre came into the possession of a republican government. 



It is very clear, however, that democratic England stands several dec- 

 ades in advance — its act, moreover, being one of deliberate founding 



