Maeoh 17, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



399 



There are — most important of all — the 

 people, the descendants of the ancient civil- 

 ized nations; their countries, their skies, 

 their climate, their whole environment, 

 their way of living and the whole combina- 

 tion of imponderable agencies, the knowl- 

 edge of which enables the student to under- 

 stand the thousand peculiarities of the life 

 and fate of the people. All of these and 

 the particular methods of investigation 

 were what was desired to teach the young 

 in the schools of archeology that have been 

 established with so much liberality in the 

 classic countries of the Old World. 



Work of this kind has been in operation 

 for generations and with marked success. 

 Whole cities arose anew from the accumu- 

 lation of debris of thousands of years that 

 had covered them ; temples with rich orna- 

 mentation were restored, the secrets of the 

 Egyptian pyramids, of the temples of 

 Babylonia and Assyria, were brought to 

 our view, together with countless objects, 

 many of which were of inestimable value. 

 These were preserved to delight the eye 

 and satisfy the mind of mankind, and from 

 them many students have learned to see, 

 understand and work. 



On the American continent, in the 

 United States and in the Dominion of Can- 

 ada, great interest was manifested in the 

 ethnology of the Indian races and in its 

 antiquities ever since the middle of the 

 past century. Scientific associations and 

 private parties rivalled in collecting data 

 and documents ; and the governments, aided 

 by liberal means, undertook the direction 

 of the investigation. Eecently areheolog- 

 ieal investigations have also been instituted 

 on a larger scale in South America in the 

 Argentine Republic, particularly in the 

 Andean region of that republic. Some- 

 thing has also been done in Brazil, Bolivia, 

 Peru and Ecuador, by the cooperation of 

 private parties, institutions of the United 



States and the governments of South 

 America. Some foreigners have also 

 worked in the republics of Central Amer- 

 ica, as well as in Yucatan and Chiapas: 

 the Englishman Alfred P. Maudslay; the 

 Frenchman Desire Charney; the investiga- 

 tors of the Peabody Museum of Cambridge, 

 Mass. ; the Germans Berendt and Teoberto 

 Maler ; the Swedes Bovallius and Hartman. 

 Great additions to our knowledge of the 

 ancient peoples of those regions were de- 

 rived from their work. In Mexico the ex- 

 plorations authorized by the government in 

 Xoehicalco, Cempoallan, Monte Alban and 

 Teotihuacan have contributed much to en- 

 large and deepen our knowledge. Magnifi- 

 cent monuments which were little known, 

 and which were covered by debris or hid- 

 den by tropical vegetation, were unveiled. 

 This work awakened more and more in- 

 terest among the educated classes of other 

 countries, and especially among our neigh- 

 bors to the north. Thus arose the idea of 

 cooperation, of the union of efforts, of the 

 necessity of establishing a center to direct 

 the work, at which the young student can 

 learn, who, full of enthusiasm for those 

 studies, might wish to come here to learn 

 what books and the objects accumulated in 

 museums could not teach him. This was 

 the object and aim in founding a school 

 of the same kind as existed in Rome, and 

 with the same aims, but international in 

 character. It is not necessary to enter into 

 details to show the particular opportunities 

 of such a school in this country, but we 

 shall be grateful to those who initiated and 

 fathered the idea, for the zeal and per- 

 severance with which they worked to ac- 

 complish their end. We must be grateful 

 particularly to the government of this re- 

 public, that owns this soil, and to the min- 

 istry of public instruction, whose solicitude 

 for the study and preservation of all the 

 archeological treasures of this country is 



