THE AMERICAN SCHOOL OF CLASSICAL STUDIES AT ATHENS.
THE first Bulletin of the School of Classical Studies at Athens has just been issued by the Archmological In- stitute of America, and consists of the Report of Professor W. W. Goodwin, the Director. Professor Goodwin's Report is an interesting account of his experiences in founding the School and managing it during its first year, and is especially valuable at the present moment, in view of the proposed establishment of an English School of the same kind. He arrived at Athens' on October 1st, 1882, and was much encouraged to find no fewer than eight American students already there, working with enthu- siasm and ready to join the school. No furnished house was to be had, and since "Athens is a peculiarly difficult city to buy furniture in," the process of settling down was "long, per- plexing, and expensive, two stoves, for instance, having to be imported from Boston." At last the school found a temporary home in the upper part of a large house near the Gate of Hadrian, in the '014 'At.ciaiegg. Professor Goodwin is well known to possess practical powers unusual in a scholar, but it is with evident relief that he quits the subject of household articles and kitchen furniture, and gives himself rein for a moment on the more congenial topic of the historic surroundings of their new home:—" From the south windows we have a mag- nificent view over the rolling meadow-land stretching about three miles to Old Phaleron, and over the Saronic Gulf, in which lies the lofty island of Aegina, visible to us in its whole length ; while beyond the sea'we have the hills of Argolis in view, from the southern point of the peninsula to Mount Arachnaion, the memorable height from which (according to Aeschylus) Agamemnon's last signal-fire announced the capture of Troy to Clytemnestra at Argos. On the east we have a large open area of sand, in the farther part of which stand the Corinthian columns of the temple of Olympian Zeus ; and in the back- ground is Mount Hymettus. On the west we see the Acropolis
over the low houses of Plaka, and the eastern summit of the Parthenon is just visible above the wall."
The young institution received the most gratifying kindness on all hands. The King and Queen of Greece, the Prime Minister, the Senate, the University of Athens, the French and German schools, Dr. and Mrs. Schliemann, showed constant interest, and in many cases afforded most valuable help. The American Government recognised the School officially by ap- pointing its Director a special agent of the Bureau of Educa- tion. The Report does not tell us much about the work of the students, and, of course, during the first few months this must
have been more or less irregular. We are told that each student pursued an independent course of study, and indeed that no one would be accepted who was not fully competent to do this ; direct teaching, as such, there was none. The general direc-
tions of the work done may be judged from the theses presented at the close of the year. These were on the Pnyx ; the Erech- theum; the Life, Poems, and Language of Theocritus ; the Inscriptions discovered at Aisos by the expedition of the Archseological Institute of America; and the value of modern Greek to the Classical student. Two evenings a week were
devoted to essays and discussion, after the fashion of the Ger- man Seminar, at which friends in Athens, not members of the
school, were frequently present, and the allusion in the Report to excursions " during the fine weather of the autumn" to various places of historic interest suggests possibilities of un- limited enjoyment.
The School is supported by the contributions of fourteen colleges. For the present year, these will amount to about 2700. In addition to this, it was provided in the original scheme that each of the supporting colleges should send in turn one of its Professors to Athens as director of the school, paying him at least a part of his salary while away. As might have been anticipated, however, Professor Goodwin's experience leads him to the very decided opinion that this is impracticable, and that the school would suffer greatly if it were managed by a new Director each year, who would be almost useless until he had learnt, like all his predecessors, much about the topography of Athens, the customs and resources of the country, and the two languages of the people. Professor Goodwin therefore appeals to the friends of sound classical learning for a sum of about £16,000, of which the interest would secure as permanent director " a man who can be the peer of the scholars whom France and Germany have sent, and England will soon send, to Athens ;" and for a further sum of about £8,000, as capital for the annual expenses of the school.
The French school, says Professor Goodwin, " occupies an elegant palace on Mount Lycabetus ; it has a large and costly
library, and one of the best scholars of France, M. Foucart, at its head. The German school is managed by Professor Kohler, and under his direction work is done which commands the atten- tion of the learned world. " The English," he adds, "have had serious plans for a school in Athens during several years ; and last Jane I attended an important meeting which was held at Marlborough House in London, under the presidency of the Prince of Wales, to consider the question. Twenty-five or thirty of those best known in England as scholars or statesmen, or both (including, of course, Mr. Gladstone), expressed themselves with great earnestness in favour of the immediate establishment of an English school in Athens ; and since the meeting I have heard that large subscriptions have been made for this purpose.
A fourth school is therefore likely to be added within a year to the national schools in Athens. The third place, I rejoice to say, has already been taken by ourselves ; and I feel that our good example may have done something to stimulate the activity of our friends in England."
Professor Goodwin is enthusiastic concerning the advantages to the study and teaching of Greek letters and art to be derived from residence in the country from which these sprang, and where the priceless monuments of them still stand. " Yon can no more teach a dead language than you can teach a dead student," he very pithily says ; and there is no other way to keep Greek alive as a real tongue than to understand and speak the Greek which is spoken to-day in the Athenian Senate, and which differs so little from what we are accustomed to call the " dead " language, that " Plato or Demosthenes, were he to return to Athens, could read the daily papers with little difficulty, except so far as he would be puzzled by modern ideas and new forms of thought" And there is no way to give life and interest to the history and antiquities of Greece one-half so good as to study them on the spot. Professor Goodwin's words on this subject afford the strongest support to the promoters of an English school. He says :—" Before you get to Sparta you will see why none of these rough stones were needed to build walls for the city ; and before you leave the valley you will understand better the dis- cipline of Lycurgus, with its iron money and its black broth, and the hardihood of Leonidas and the men of Thermopylae. Taygetus, with its snowy peaks and its rugged cliffs, is still suggestive of wolves and of Spartan children sacrificed for the benefit of the race ; and the famous bill of Ithome gives a new idea of Messenians and Helots, as we see the massive walls and steep precipices around which Sparta learnt her ten years' lesson that freedom was not meant for Dorians alone. Now, I believe that any scholar who should take in these object-lessons, with the host of others which follow them, in a rapid journey through Greece, and then make a study of the monuments of Athens herself, and of the topography of Athens and Attica, would never regret the year devoted to the pleasant work ; and I believe, further, that any school or college which might hereafter employ' him as its teacher of Greek would have made the best possible investment, if it had paid his expenses while be was doing it."
With those who regard the study of Greek as valuable for purposes of mental discipline only, Professor Goodwin has, of course, no sympathy ; and he quotes with pardonable triumph the unanimous judgment of the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Berlin, in opposition to a different plan imposed upon them for ten years by the Minister of .Public Instruction, —viz., that "after long and vain search, we must always come back finally to the result of centuries of experience, that the- surest instrument that can be used in training the mind of youth is given us in the study of the languages, the literature, and the works of art of classical antiquity." Professor Good- win adds that he has no fear that this foundation of literary culture can be superseded by anything which has yet arisen to dispute its claims.
Study of the kind that a School of Classical Studies at Athens would promote is needed in England certainly no less than in America. A beginning has been made by the spirit which Dr. Waldstein and his fellow-workers have infused into the two Greek plays at Cambridge, and there are a number of the younger Professors who are doing their best to lead students to regard grammatical study as merely the key to a door beyond which lie the objects of their search. But there is need of general conviction and unanimous action upon this point, and the establishment of facilities for English students in Greece itself would do more than anything else to bring these about. The success of our own scheme is probably assured by the efforts of the influential committee of which Mr. Escott is the secretary, and we wish Professor Goodwin and his committee a speedy and generous response to their appeals. "Why is it," he asks, " that the magnificent frieze of Pergamon now adorns the Royal Museum of Berlin, and not the public Museum of New York, Boston, or Philadelphia ?" In a matter where there is so much national honour to be obtained, it ought not to be difficult to raise twenty-four thousand pounds from the enormous private wealth and overflowing public revenues of America. We would suggest in certain quarters that the plan affords a more legitimate employment for superfluous American capital than the buying-up of Scotch deer-forests or English newspapers.
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