430 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1889. 



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 Byzantium, the arts and 

 letters of Europe began to decline. The Church was un propitious, aud 

 the invasions of the northern barbarians destroyed everything. In 

 476, with the close of the Western Empire, began a period of intellect- 

 ual torpidity 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 aud 

 noblemen and ecclesiastical dignitaries collected books, manuscripts, 

 sculptures, pottery, and gems, forming the begiuniugs 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 atten- 

 tion of bookish men. 



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

 worked out by Lord Bacon in his "New Atlantis," a philosophical 

 romance published at the close of the seventeenth century. 



The first scientific museum actually founded was that begun at Ox- 

 ford, in 1667, by Elias Ashmole, still kno^vn as the Ashmolean Museum, 

 composed chiefly of natural history specimens collected by the botan- 

 ists Tradescant, father and son, in Vir^ nia aud in the north of Africa. 

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

 liament, inspired by the will of Sir Hans Sloane, who, dying in 1719, 

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

 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 

 rather than a species of conquest. A ceutury before this, when Charles 

 the First was beheaded by order of Parliament, his magnificent private 

 collection was dispersed, What a blessing it would be to England to-day 

 if the idea of founding a national museum had beeu suggested to the 

 Cromwelliaus. The intellectual life of America is so closely bound to 



