five. Whenever one of the young academists of Plato started a school of his own he called it an academy, in imitation of his master.

In England the term "academy" is applied to a certain class of mili tary and naval schools, such as the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, and the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth. It is also used in this sense in America, as the Military Academy at West Point, and the Naval Academy at Annapolis, but in its unambitious sense it means an institution for secondary education. In its wider or continental sense the term "academy" means an association of learned men, established for the promotion of science, literature, the arts, etc.

There was a kind of literary society at Athens during the fourth century B. C., although it would hardly be accurate to regard it as a learned society in the graver sense. It was called "The Sixty," met in the temple of Heracles, and its members were noted for their wit.

The first academy, in the higher sense, of which we have information was the μovocìov, or Museum, and was founded in Alexandria by Ptolemy Soter (B. C. 323-283), one of the generals and successors of Alexander the Great. After getting possession of Egypt, Ptolemy devoted his energies to maintaining a defensive balance of power and to the cultivation of letters. He gathered about him a large body of learned men, whom he employed in collecting books and treasures of art. This was the origin of the library of Alexandria, which was the most famous of the ancient world. It was organized and established in separate buildings under Ptolemy Philadelphus (B. C. 285-247). The larger library was in the Museum, the smaller in the Serapeum. Philadelphus sent into every part of Greece and of Asia to secure the most valuable books, and no expense was spared to enrich the collections.

There was an academy in Rome under the Emperors. It is mentioned by several of the epigramists, and was called the Schola Poetarum. It was composed of poets, who reciprocally read their works to each other and had an annual banquet. It seems to have been one phase of the public readings of authors in Rome, and was kept up till the fall of the Western Empire.

The idea of Ptolemy Soter was imitated by the Jews in Palestine and Babylonia, and to a degree by the Nestorian Christians. In the same way the Arabian caliphs profited by the lessons taught them by their Jewish and Christian subjects, and founded establishments for the pres ervation of learning from Granada and Cordova in the West to Samarcand in the East.

The first instance we have of a learned society in western Europe was that founded by Charlemagne, at the instigation of Alcuin, to promote the study of grammar, orthography, rhetoric, poetry, history, and mathematics. In order to equalize all ranks, each member took the pseudonym of some ancient author or celebrated person of antiquity. Charle magne called himself David, which indicated his preference for biblical

subjects. Alcuin became Flaccus Albinus, Einhard was Callimachus, another was Virgil, another Homer, and a third Lucretia. None of their labors have come down to us, but the society undoubtedly exercised considerable influence in modeling the language and reducing it to rules.

In the next century Alfred founded an academy at Oxford, but this was rather a grammar school than a society, and was the basis of the University of Oxford.

We hear no more of academies for the time. They were swallowed up in the general darkness; but, as was to be expected, the Renaissance was a period fruitful in academies. With the awakening at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century, with the developing influence of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, societies became more and more common. At first they were devoted chiefly to the cultivation of poetry. Italy was the country where they flourished most. With the overthrow of the Eastern Empire, and with the culmination of the revival of the classics in western Europe, societies were established in every city and large town. They became very numerous in the sixteenth century. Tiraboschi, in his History of Italian Literature, enumerates 171, and Jarkius, in his Specimen Historæ Academiarum Conditarum, gives nearly 700.

Being an outgrowth of the spirit of the Renaissance, the earliest of these academies were literary in form and character. They directed their attention to classical literature. "They compared manuscripts; they suggested new readings or new interpretations; they deciphered inscriptions or coins; they sat in judgment on a Latin ode or debated the propriety of a phrase. Their own poetry had, perhaps, never been neglected, but it was not till the writings of Bembo furnished a new code of criticism in the Italian language that they began to study it with the same minuteness as modern Latin." (Encyclopædia Britannica, article "Academy," quoting Hallam.) These academies were oligar chical in their constitution. They encouraged culture, but hampered genius and extinguished originality. They were patronized very largely by the Italian nobility, who, living in the cities as they did and being at the same time excluded from participation in the government, naturally turned to literature as a consolation and career. Many of these societies gave themselves names expressive of ignorance, or which were simply ludicrous. Among them were the Lunatici of Naples, the Extravaganti, the Fulmiales, the Trapassati.

One of the earliest of these academies was the Accademia Pontaniana, which was founded at Palermo in 1433 by Antonio Beccadella; but perhaps the best known is the Platonic Academy, founded at Florence by Cosimo de' Medici. The original idea of this academy was the study of Plato. To this was added later the explanation of Dante and other Italian authors and the improvement of the Italian language and literature. Its principal ornament was Marsilio Ficino, who developed a

system of philosophy borrowed principally from the later Platonists of Alexandria, but as it seemed to coincide with some of the later doctrines of Christianity it was allowed by the church. The Platonic Academy continued to flourish at Florence until 1522, when it was suppressed on occasion of the conspiracy against Giulio de' Medici. Duke Cosimo revived it in 1540 under the name of the Florentine Academy, when its labors were wholly devoted to Petrarch and the Italian language. (Symonds, Revival of Learning, 366.) The Platonic Academy had Machiavelli among its number and became the model of many others.

The most celebrated of these academies was the Accademia della Crusca, or Furfuratorum, founded at Florence in 1472 by the poet Grazzini. Its object was to purify the Italian tongue. Its great work is the Vocabulario della Crusca, of which the first edition was published in 1613. It was composed on Tuscan principles and regarded the fourteenth century as the Augustan age of the language. This exclusive Tuscan spirit has disappeared in the later editions. This academy is now incorporated with two others that are still older, and the whole is known as the Royal Florentine Academy.

Scientific academies were also founded in Italy at an early date. The Academy of Milan was instituted in 1485 for the study of arts and sciences. The first society for the study of physical science was founded in Naples in 1560 by Baptista Porta. It was called the Academia Secretorum Naturæ. It arose from a meeting of scientific friends at Porta's house, and no members were admitted who had not made some useful discovery in medicine or natural philosophy. Porta was accused by the ignorant of magic, and went to Rome to justify himself before the authorities there. He was acquitted by the pope, but his academy was dissolved. While in Rome Porta was admitted to the Accademia dei Lincei, or The Lynx. This academy was founded in 1603 by Frederico Cesi and devoted itself exclusively to physical science. The meetings were private and were held three times a week. There were five lectures at each meeting. Porta became a member in 1610; Galileo in 1611. Throughout his long controversy with the church Galileo was given almost unanimous support by the academy, and some of his greatest works were published at its expense. It also published the great work of Hernandez on the Natural History of New Spain. The Lincei finally became extinct about 1650. It was revived in 1784 and has since come to the front of European scientific societies. But the fame of The Lincei was outstripped by that of the Accademia del Cimento, established in Florence under the patronage of the Grand Duke Ferdinand II in 1657. The object of this society was to make experiments and relate them, abjuring all preconceived notions. It flourished only ten years.

When we come to France, it will be found that conditions there did not differ essentially from those in Italy. Many poetical societies were established in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, and

kings did not think it beneath their dignity to preside at their meetings. The most celebrated societies were at Caen, Dieppe, Rouen, Beauvais, Amiens, Arras, and Valenciennes. These generally met once a year. The Society of Puy, at Amiens, was a regularly organized academy and distributed prizes twice a year. The Academy of the Floral Games was established in 1323. Its object was to distribute prizes and rewards to the troubadours. These prizes consisted of flowers of gold and silver. It was first recognized by the State in 1694, when it was confirmed by letters patent from the King and its members limited to 36. It was suspended a few years during the Republic, but was revived and still distributes prizes annually.

These societies sang of poetry and love. We can see that their connection with the troubadours and with the minnesingers was close. The Institute of France is now the most important organization of this kind in the world. It is itself composed of five societies.

(1) The best known of the French societies is the French Academy. It was established by order of the King in 1635, but in its original form came into existence a few years earlier. About 1570 a company of wits and musicians, under the lead of Jean Antoine Baïf, a poet, organized themselves into an academy "to study grammatically the language of sound." It was incorporated under letters patent by Charles IX and was patronized by Charles IX and Henry III. Some wits renewed. the design in the early part of the reign of Louis XIII. In 1612 David Rivault published a pamphlet setting forth "The design of an academy and its introduction into Court." He proposed to embrace all sciences save theology in his academy.

Toward 1630, Valentine Conrart, a counselor, secretary to the King, established at his own house a reunion of learned men more or less esteemed. From these reunions came the French Academy. These meetings were informal, but turned often on literary topics, and members submitted their own work for criticism. A report of their work coming to the ears of Cardinal Richelieu pleased him, and he offered to incorporate the society. The offer was accepted, and the academy was organized on this new basis. Its principal object was the purification of the French language, "to render it pure, eloquent, and capable of treating the arts and sciences." The registration of its letters patent was resisted by the Parliament as the registration of the letters patent of the Academy of Charles IX had been. The academy was at first the butt of satire and the object of ridicule; but when Louis XIV became its patron, it became more popular and its titles were sought.

The number of members was fixed at 40, and they have since come to be known as "the Immortals." There is hardly a name among the French writers of the first rank that is not on its roll of members; but of its influence on the language and literature the most opposite opinions have been advanced. It is asserted, on the one hand, that it has corrected the judgment, purified the taste, formed the language of

French writers, and that to it we owe the most striking characteristics of French literature, its purity, delicacy, and flexibility. On the other hand, it is said that while it has given flexibility, brilliancy, and polish, it has done so at the expense of its masculine qualities, its originality, vigor, and natural grace.

It has disciplined it, but it has emasculated, impoverished, and rigified it. It sees in taste, not a sense of the beautiful, but a certain type of correctness, an elegant form of mediocrity. It has substituted pomp for grandeur, school routine for individual inspiration, elaborateness for simplicity. (Lanfrey in Encyclopædia Britannica.)

Voltaire said that academies uniformly suppressed the efforts of genius instead of exciting them, and defined the French Academy as "a body where they received titled persons, men in office, prelates, lawyers, physicians, geometricians, and even scholars."

The great work of the academy has been the preparation of its Dictionary of the French Language. The first edition appeared in 1694; the seventh edition was published in 1879. The academy was suppressed in 1793 and reconstituted in 1795 as the second class of the institute. It received its old name again in 1816.

(2) The old Academy of Science, which became the first class of the institute, had its origin very much in the same way as the French Academy. A private society of scientific men had been meeting for some thirty years at private houses to converse on their studies and communicate their discoveries. In 1666 Colbert, just as Richelieu had done, conceived the idea of giving the society an official status. This was done, pensions were given by the King to each of the members, and a fund for instruments and experiments were placed at their disposal. At first the society was rather a laboratory and observatory than an academy proper. Experiments were undertaken in common and results discussed. A number of foreign scholars joined the society. It was reconstituted in 1699; was overthrown by the Revolution, but reconstituted in 1816.

The other academies constituting the Institute of France are: (3) the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, an offshoot of the French Academy, founded by Colbert. It is concerned with general history, sociology, religious and philosophical systems, chronology, geography, medals, inscriptions, monuments, and comparative philology. (4) The Academy of Fine Arts, founded by Mazarin in 1648, has to do with painting, sculpture, architecture, engraving on copper, and musical composition. The Academy of Architecture, founded in 1671, was joined to this academy in 1795. (5) The Academy of the Moral and Political Sciences, founded in 1795, concerns itself with philosophy, moral philosophy, legislation, public law and jurisprudence, political economy and statistics, and general history. It was suppressed in 1803, but reestablished in 1832.

Academies also exist in many of the provinces of France. In the