ARTICLE I.-THE AMERICAN SCHOOL OF CLASSICAL STUDIES AT ATHENS.

I AM often led to contrast my two visits to Athens: I went to Greece in 1872 under favorable circumstances for those times; I was fresh from my studies in Germany where I had read with special reference to my visit to classic lands; I had spent several months in Italy with careful study of the monuments and museums. I was with a philological friend of more experience, the Director during the past year of our school at Athens. We had good letters of advice and introduction, and found pleasant friends, and met the prominent scholars of the country. But, in spite of our former studies, everything seemed strange or only half familiar to us. We lost much time in securing our orientation; our memoranda of objects to be more carefully examined proved incomplete and unsatisfactory, of course; we were unable to obtain the books necessary for any true study of the topography and ruins. In short, with a fair preparation (as such things go), with good friends, and the best of weather, we found that so far as systematic

study was concerned, much of our time was wasted. We enjoyed the scenery, the air, the ruins, the acquaintance with the people; we gained a better appreciation of some important elements of ancient life; we understood better than ever before the political history of the Greeks, after seeing the boundaries set by nature; we were interested, we were roused, but we were not instructed. My work would have been still more dilettante if I had been alone and unintroduced. I could find no proper support and sympathy and guidance for my studies. The work of the French school had been interrupted by war; the German Institute was not yet opened.

In the Spring of 1886 I was in Greece again, and had both experience and observation of the privileges offered by the American school. I learned more in five days than in my first five weeks in 1872. This was not simply because I had been in Attica before, nor because I had continued my studies, and knew what I wanted to see, what statements I desired to verify or correct, but mainly because of the American school. One can hardly estimate too highly the simple boon of using the library of the school; that I could refresh my memory each morning concerning what I was to see during the day; and at evening study the learned discussions and elucidations of what I had just seen. The very air of the school was redolent with philological and archæological ideas. Some of the members were interested in epigraphy, others in topography, others in architecture. I learned the latest views from enthusiastic teachers, on the very spot where the evidence could be presented before my eyes. An afternoon devoted to the ruins of the great Theatre, with a companion who has made a careful study of the remains, is better than a dozen learned treatises based mainly on obscure notices in the scholia from the old grammarians. A morning spent in roaming among the foundations cut in the rock of the old Cranaan city with a skillful guide is worth more than many books. I do not see how any member of the school, though making a specialty of some one subject, can fail to absorb a great mass of theory and information on the other subjects that his companions are studying. What one has learned from books or living scholars, the rest will soon know.

But this scholarly and stimulating influence does not proceed solely from the community of studies of the Director and students of our school; it comes largely from sister organizations. Professor Petersen, in charge of the German Institute, was most outspoken last summer, when I met him in Berlin, in his expressions of interest in the work of the American school, and of his readiness to do his part in securing the most hearty coöperation of the scholars of both nations in their common studies. These are no mere fine phrases. It means much for the members of our school to meet on friendly terms with the German scholars who cluster around the German Institute, to attend the gatherings at the institute, and to use the German library. Dörpfeld, Petersen's associate in the direction of the institute, though still a young man, is the highest living authority on questions connected with Greek architecture. He did important work at Olympia, during the German excavations there, and has been Schliemann's adviser in the more scientific of Schliemann's explorations. He has done more than any one else to interpret the architectural material found in the recent excavations on the Acropolis; he has disentangled the mass of ruins connected with the stagebuilding of the theatre, and has formed a definite and rational theory for their explanation; he has used the data found by Mr. Penrose in his diggings on the site of the temple of Zeus Olympius, and has convinced Mr. Penrose himself that the theatre was an octostyle, not a decastyle. This Dr. Dörpfeld is not only one of the most genial of men, but is on the best of terms with the American school. He has expounded to its members his theory of the Pisistratean Acropolis, and of the theatre; he has accompanied members of the school to Eleusis, to explain the five successive structures there, as evidenced by the remains; while some of the school enjoyed his services as Cicerone for two days at Olympia, where every stone is familiar to him.

The Greeks are more cordial to no nation than to the Americans; they retain an almost sentimental affection for our land, because of the sympathy and aid extended to them in their time of need, during their war for independence, a little more than half a century ago.

The British school of Archæological and classical Studies at Athens is our nearest neighbor, and its director, Mr. Penrose, so well known for his work on the Principles of Athenian Architecture, has been very fraternal in spirit. The English were spurred to activity by our boldness in establishing a school at Athens; they had a permanent home before us, but our school building, now nearly completed, is a half larger than theirs, and much more convenient in its plan.

While preserving our own independence of work, in aim and method, we have the untold advantage of association with Germans, French, Greeks, and English,-all interested in the same studies, fellow citizens of the republic of letters.

This Review has already (July, 1886) called attention to the opportunities for archæological study at Athens in connection with the American school. Perhaps some of the readers of the Review will be interested in a sketch of the history of this institution. The French were the first to establish a national school at Athens; and they have done good work in connection with it. They have conducted important excavations at Delos and Delphi. At present, American scholars are perhaps unconsciously inclined to depreciate the work of the French school, because of our greater sympathy with German philology in general. The French school at Athens was established in 1846. It is supported by the government. The Director is a member of the French Institute, and one of the high functionaries of State; he is appointed for a term of six years, but the appointment is generally renewed. The number of students is limited to six, each appointed for three years; the first year is spent in Italy, in practical preparation for work in Greece. The students are under almost military discipline. Each must be a docteur es lettres or its equivalent; he must have passed a competitive examination on the Greek language (ancient and modern), epigraphy, palæography, archæology, history, and geography. This examination would be too severe for most American students on leaving college, even though the later years of the college course were given largely to philology and archæology. The student's salary is about $750. The students are in residence at Athens during eight months of the year; for four months they may travel in Greek

lands. They are not expected to return to Paris while they are connected with the school. Each renders a report of his work each year. Since 1877 the school has published a "Bulletin de correspondance hellénique." Perhaps the reader will find interest in extracts from the table of contents of the first volume: "Inscription from Kalamata; Supplement to the chronology of the Athenian archons after Ol. 122; Inscription from Melos; Fragment of an Athenian decree; Greek mirrors; Descriptive catalogue of the votive offerings to Aesculapius and Hygieia, found on the excavations on the south side of the Acropolis; Plan of the excavations near the Acropolis; Excavations at Dodona; The Roman colony at Olbasa in Pisidia; Excavations at Delos; Fragments of Panathenaïc vases found on the Acropolis," etc.

In the last century, the foundations of the scientific study of ancient art and archaeology were laid by Winckelmann, a Hyperborean at Rome. At the very beginning of this century Wilhelm von Humboldt was sent to Rome as Prussian embassador, and his house formed a gathering place for Thorwaldsen, Rauch, A. W. Schlegel, Mme. de Staël, Zoega, and Welcker, and Roman prelates,—for all who cared for art and antiquities. Niebuhr and Bunsen came to Rome a little later, in 1816. In Dec., 1828, at Bunsen's invitation and at his house, while he was Prussian embassador at Rome, a little company of five met and laid plans for the formation of the Society which has become the "German Institute for Archæological Correspondence." This was formally founded on April 21, 1829. The pope smiled graciously on the undertaking. Italian, French, and English scholars united with the Germans.

The "Istituto di corrispondenza Archeologica," was international in character, but was then under the patronage of the Prussian Crown Prince, afterward Frederick William IV. In 1874 this became an institution of the German government, with its head at Berlin; the Germans had been the controlling spirits from the first, and the Prussian government since 1860 was the chief material supporter of the undertaking. Its aim is to foster, invigorate, and regulate the intercourse between the researches of the learned in archæology and philology, and the lands which were the original homes of art and science;