84 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME, AND ASIA 



is freshness of impressions and new energies which substitute them- 

 selves for the old ones. And since you Americans, with a new and un- 

 failing impulse of youth, open your universities to the study of all the 

 problems of old Europe, let us hope that with your work a more per- 

 fect knowledge of the ancient world may be reached. Like all young 

 and robust organisms, you are naturally inclined to break down the 

 tendency toward routine which too often binds the work of European 

 scholars. From the contact of old with new theories, there will cer- 

 tainly come out sparks which will be destined to throw new light 

 on the infinite problems of the classical world. The study of the 

 early belief and social forms of America has contributed to explain 

 questions of ancient mythology and classical anthropology which re- 

 mained inexplicable mysteries for generations of learned men. In turn 

 the political study of old Europe, and especially of the classical world, 

 will make more clearly understood the destinies to which the United 

 States of America are called. 



In fact, the conception that political history should be studied by 

 itself, with no other aim but mere curiosity, must be rejected, as well 

 as the idea that any other science is not destined to have a practical 

 application in life. The purpose of this great Congress, to which you 

 have called all sciences to be represented, pure and experimental, 

 theoretical and practical, is the best guarantee that the scientific, 

 American society will not be lost either among the fogs of abstrac- 

 tions or the vulgarity of empiricism. If among the decadent nations 

 or those about to decay, men who are without ideality and who ignore 

 art or science are put at the helm, in the countries which are destined 

 to a prosperous future public interests are intrusted to those who best 

 understand the history, and therefore the hopes, of their country. 



It is not strange that nearly all Roman historians should have 

 been statesmen; and statesmen were Machiavelli, Macaulay, and 

 Bancroft. Without knowing the biological precedents the cure of an 

 invalid is not possible, just as without a long experience of the past 

 it is not possible to provide for the future of nations. 



The study of old Europe, its glories, and its errors, is a sacred 

 patrimony which she divides with the United States, which have the 

 task of forming a new and great civilized society. The Roman and 

 Greek civilization is a great part of this patrimony, and is worthy 

 of your cares, because it contains the best part of institutions and 

 traditions which you are called upon to study and partly to follow. 



The immense space of sea which separates you from Europe and 

 from Eastern Asia, the lack of danger of an invasion from the north, 

 and even less so from the south, seem at first glance to place the 

 United States in a situation quite different from that of the old 

 European civilization. But the speed which will be attained by 

 steamers in the near future will render these distances proportion- 



