{McGill University, Montreal — Annxml University Lecture— Friday, Nov. l%th, 1892.) A PROFESSOR'S VACATION. By Albxandhr Johnson, M.A., LL.D., Vice-Principal and Dean of the Faculty of Arte; When Sir William Dawson invited me to deliver this year the " Annual University Lecture" he sutjgested that I might use for it material collected during my recent visit to Europe. I must confess that I heard the sugges- tion at first with a slight shock of sur- prise and a feeling that it was unsuit- able, for I certainly had not crossed tlie Atlantic to do any special university work, not even to collect material for a lecture. I had gone for my own pleasure, to gratify certain tastes and satisfy cer- tain long-cherished aspirations of my own, and although I had collected in- formation that bore upon univer- sity work, vet it was not of a kind adapted to a public lecture. The immediate occasion of my visit had, it is true, a university aspect, for I was going to the tercentenary of the Uni- versity of Dublin as a delegate repre- senting this university ; but the university was here simply using the opportunity presented to it by my desire to be present at an epoch so interesting in the history of my Alma Mater. And yet, on reflection, it seemed to me that a sreneral account of my visit misrht be useful, at any rate, as suggestive of a mode by which greater opportunities and inducements might at some future time be offered to its professors for the acquisition of the most recent additions to know- ledge and for original investigation. Certainly, the thought thai was m^^jt strongly impressed upon my mind at the end of my trip was tnat those universi- ties in the United States are acting wise- ly who have made systematic arrange- ments not only to erable, but to induce, their professors to travel abroad for the purposes 1 have indicated. When I was in London I was introduced on one occar- sion to a couple of American professors by a friend, who laughingly told me that a short time previously be had spent an evening at the rooms of one of these Americans, and found there twenty (no* a round number but the exact number) American professors who had assembled to meet two eminent German professors. I was shown tne very list of names. The American professor himself told me that he had drawn up another list and found that with a fortnight's notice he could have assembled fifty American profes- sors. I presume that most of these bad, like myself, gone to Europe at their own expense, but others may have been sent on special missions by their universities. The sketches I present will best point their own moral. THE DUBLIN TERCENTENARY, whose celebration was appointed for the beginning of July, was the original and sole cause of my trans- Atla. tic trip. But it fortunately happened that I was eni- abled, without neglect of duty^ to leave in the middle of April, a fortnight before the session ended. It was the gain of this fortnight that enabled me to visit Rome before the unhealthy season, and afterwards to get to Athens Lefore the heat was unenduruble. A hasty visit in- deed ! yet giving intense enjoyment to one who bad so long cherished the hope of it The value of this fortnight may be judged from the fact that I was absolute- ly driven awav from Athens by the heat after a stay of only five da} s, although 1 could have ijpent there an additional week or more as far as the plan of my journey was concerned. It will be convenient to put wJat I have to bay in connection with the Dublin tercentenary first There are m iny -vays in which it may be treated. A delegate, from France, has published bis account in a French periodical which I have seen, and in it the historical element enters most Iarg«- I might, of course, do this also while at atthesametime giving a brief description of the series of meetings and entertain- ments, which, from the variety of tha robes of the representatives of sixty-eight different universities from all parts of the world and from the stateliness of the ceremonies, formed the grandest series of spectacles that I had ever ihe pleasure to see. I prefer, however, instead to treat it : more directly from the educational point of view and to explain the secret of the high standing of Dublin in « this aspect after three centuries • of existence. The whole secret consista in the MKTHOIJ OF CHOOSING PROFESSORS AND LEC- TURERS. In this method Dublin has succeeded in reconciling the ambition of graduates with the efficiency of the university. First, however, let me draw your atten- tion to the distinction between the meanings of the two terms prokeshou and LECTi'RER. Probably most people would say that a professor is a person who lec- tures in a university, and would regard the difference between a professor and a lecturer as merely a question of rank or seniority, or tenure of office, or experi- ence, or perhaps knowledge and learning. Unfortunately, this is generally too true in Ameri(!a. Tiiere is, nevertheless, a real distinction intended between these two titles. The office of a lecturer is indicat- ed directly by the name. It is the duty of a professor to give lectures also, but the mere delivery of the lectures ought to bear but a small ratio to his whole duty wniiihoughtto be that of a student and in- vestigator more than of a lecturer. To put it in otner words ; both professor and lec- turer must be lecturers; both ought to ^e students. But the pro- fessor ought to have much more time for research and less should be required of him in the matter of lectures. It is not easy to find a man qualified to be a pro- fessor according to European standards. But when he is found one of the most wasteful uses you can make of him is to overbunlen him with lecttures, except perhaps setting him up for a mark to be shot at. It is probably to some re- minisce). ce of this latter tact that we owe the economical provision m the Canadian law by which university professors are exempt horn military duties even in time of war. It might be said that the law wae more thoughtful than the uni- versiticis, were it not for the fact that it has been a matter of desperate necessity for 1 hem, owing to the smallness of their stall's in their struggling infancy, to use their professors as lecturers merely. But the time is coming fast when this must be amended if Canada is to bold its proper place in the world, although, no doubt, it will require some explana- tion before the general public can understand why the higher salary should be paid lor the smaller number of lectures. Quality, however, is often more cost'y than quantity. The DUBLIN SYSTEM is as follows : Most of the teaching work is done not by tlie Professors of the Un- iversity, but by the Fellows of Trinity college. Their duties correspond most nearly to those of professors in Canada. It must not be supposed, however, that their salaries are the same. On the con- trary, while they begin with a respect- able annual sum, they rise with certain- ty until each of the seven Senior Fellows receives a payment equal to or greater than that given to a Dominion Cabinet minister in Canada. It may be said that science and learning are thought too much of in Ireland. It may be on the other hand that ministers are held too cheap in Canada. The result is that in Dublin the very ablest of the graduates are secured as teachers when they are young and have not entered on other professions. A Fellowship is awarded always according to the result of a com- petitive examination. It is given to the best man. Testimonials. the valueof which is so often very uncertain, are neitlier asked for nor presented. Even previous standing as an underuradnate or gradu- ate counts for nothing. The examina- tion and that alone is considered. This examination cr)vers several suVije'^ts in the om the dif- ferent y«»ar8 into what is called the Fellow- ship class since the addition of one year's study makes addition to knowledge, the penior candidates are generally successful. In my time for I was once a member of the clans — the attainment of what is called a Senior Moderatorship in mathe- matics and physics, together with a Uni- versity Scholarship in classics, made it almost certain, as shown by the records of the university, that the winner could secure the Fellowship. The present Provost of the college, Dr. Salmon, one of the ablest of living mathe- maticians, is a case in point. He had attained the two distinctions namen be- fore he became a candidate for Fellow- ship. So also had the two previous pro- vosts, Dr. Jeliett and Dr. Lloyd ; both eminent as men of science, they had both been classical scholars. Besides the prizes above mentioned it has been found necessary to establish other stepping stones to Fellowships in the form of what are called 'Student- ships' tenable for seven years, with a fair annual income and no duties necessarily attached. They are awarded to the most promising' candidates at the B.A. examination and correspond most nearly to the Fellowships of Oxford and Cam- bridge ; the name being taken, I think, from Christ Church, Oxford, where those graduates are termed "Stud' nts," who in other colleges are termed Fellows. The necessity for these arose from the fact that though on the average there may be one Fellowship" vacant every year, yet there have been intervals of three or four years without a vacancy, and then, of course, the candidates used to accept or seek ap- pointments elsewhere. The Fellows are the lecturers in the university, doing, I owever, what would be called professorial work on this side of the Atlantic. The Professors are chosen as a rule Irom among the Fellows, and then they are released from the greater part of the lecturing work in order that the may have more time for original investigation. But the Fellowship examination cannot p.issibly cover all the subjects of the uni- versity work in arts. Hence there are other professorships to which appoint- ments are made in the same manner as is usual elsewhere. So much for tbe Tercentenary. Going back to the BEGINNING OF THE TRIP, I left New York in the middle of April for Genoa, crossing in a steamer which, among 150 passengers, had only about half a dozen Canadians. Our American fellow-travellers on board were very agreeable companions, and of the cul- tured class ; and I owe a great deal of the pleasure of the trip to them, and to other Americans whom I met every- where; but I was very much surprised lo find that with some we had to be very cautious when any matter at all related to our respective nationalities cropped up. They seemed to be very sensitive and to rejranl us in a way that I lan only dehcrihe by Haying thai they seemed to wati;h lis as if we niiirht l)e giving "nr- selves "'airs." and as it they were ready to resen it. One uKiident. will illustrate my meaidng. We stopped for lliree b iurs at <. GIBRALTAR and paid a visit to the town. As we ap- proached tlie gate an officer stopped me and asked if 1 was a British subject ; I answered, "Yes, from Canada." "You may enter," he said courteously. 1 noticed that most of the passeni ^rs re- ceived blue tickets and felt as it 1 might have missed some privilege, so on my way back to the steamer I asked an ex- planation from the officer. " Oh !" said he, " British subjects have free right of entrance, but foreigners must get permis- sion. The blue tickets were permits." Our American friends noticed the inci- dent, and after we had left the harbor some of them seemed to think that we must be conceited about the possession of the fortress, and resolved to take it out of us by exciting feelings ot remorse on the score that it wasn't honestly ours, but belonged by right to the Spaniards. That we had got and held it by force, in short. Ofc'urse I might have tried to make their tears flow over the fact tiiat they were occupying New York, a city taken by force of British arms from the Dutch, who again bad obtained it by question- able means from an Indian tribe, who had probablv txjmahawked and scalped their predecessors. But the " tu quoque " argument too of ten rouses anger, so I sim- ply pointed out that Gibraltar had been captured eighty years before they had separated from us anr" therefore, that their forefathers were just as much to blame as ours for the transaction. Tliis put another aspect on the case, and we heard nothing more about the rights of Spain, but we did bear some speculation in which the capture of Gibraltar was regarded as a joint British and American enterprise. Proceeding from Gibraltar to Genoa I soon made my way to ROME, from which I tore myself away reluctant- ly at the end of a fortnight. It would be impossible, in the tiaie at my disposal, to make even the briefest allusions to all that interented me there withoutomitting \^ hat interested me siill more in my visit to Athens. If any one asks why Atiiens was moie attractive than Home, let him consider the causes of tlie fascination w hi'h Attiens exerteo on the Koinans themselves. Let him remember that •Athens was the first universiiV, al- though not so called, that it was, as Milton terms it, the "Mother of Arts," and the train of thongfit thus indu<'ed will be suthcient explanation. Of course I visited other towns and historic sites as tliev came in my way, but these also I must omit. Going from Rome to Naples, I weno, after seeing the ruins of Pompeii and the Greek temples at Paes- tuni, across the country to Brindisi (a name that always recalls the "Iter ad Brundusium.") From Brindisi a very comfortable steamer took me to Patras* We stopped at Corfu, suggesting under its old name Corcyra, reminiscenses of the origin of the Peloponnesian war. Ithaca, which I was very desirious to see, we passed at night both in going and re- turninti. From Patras a railway journey along the Gulf of Corinth brought me to Corinth. On this same line, when returning, I saw the top of Mount Parnassus, covered with snow. At the Isthmus the train crossed the new canal by a bridge more than 200 feet above its level. This canal at Corinth, which I could see from end to end as" we crossed, thought of by Julius Cscsar and attempted by Naro, is now near com- pletion. The whole route from the start- ing point to Corinth, and thence by Megara to Athens, is full of historical as- sociations, which culminate when the Acropolis comes into view. ATHENS AND EDINBURGH. Every one knows that the hill of the* Acropolis rises abruptly from the plain at Athens and that its summit is crowned with the rums of the Parthenon and other famous buildings of antiquity, but no description can produce the effect of the reality to a traveller approaching from the side of Megara when he first sees it some miles off in the distance. The relative position of the Acropolis and some of the most interesting histori- cal sites in Athens might be fairly de- picted to anyone well acquainted "with Edinburgh. Indeed I never properly appreciated the true origin of the epithet "Modern Athena" Hometimes jestingly applied to Edinburgh until I began to think of describing Athens by a comparison with some city I had seen. Taking the rock on which the castle is built to represent the hill of the Acropolis, then, if we disre^tard the points of the compass, the base of it at the west end, near the Caledonian railway station, cor- responds to the site of the Theatre of DionyBus. Kast of this and running some- what parallel to Princes street would be the lower continuation of the same hill to correspond to the Areopagus. Eastward still the Calton hill would correspond to the hill ot the Pnyx, and just as alter ascending the Calton hdl you see the Frith of Forth, so from the sum- mit of the hill of the Pnyx you see the waters of the Saronic Gulf. The modern city of Athens lies chiefly to the north ot the Acropolis — but houses come close to the hill on the east side also. Leaving the hotel in the " plateia tou suntasinatos" we come by the "hodos philhellenon " round to the south- east corner of the Acropolis. Then leav- ing the road we cross an open space thickly covered with brok«n colu nns and fragments of ancient architecture and sculpture until we reach a low irre- gular wall, through which we pass by a rude gate opened to us by the caretaker, and we find ourselves in the THEATRE OF DIONYSUS. The low wall proves to be the remains of the " loeeion " or stage, n this theatre the tragedies of .Eschylns, yophoeles and Eurioides and the comedies of Aristo- phanes were first exhibited. It is only within the last thirty years that the ex- cavations have heen made which have reMtored thetheatre to the light of dav. and we can now see the verv '•loifeion"or stage on which the a tors etood, the orchestra in which the chorus sang and movfd. and the very seats ot the spectators rising t'er above tier np the slnpe of the Acropolis. The marble or stone worK, no doubt, is of a later time than that of the first dramatists. So recent is the discovery that I be- lieve most classical text books make no allusion to it. I read in a popular maga> zine an article published only three years ago, giving a description of this very theatre, ci refuUy prepared from the perusal of books, which winds up by say- ing that only a few stones are to be seen marking its former site. Nay, more, in a well known ex(:ellent history of (ireece, with the date of 1891 on the title page it is said that the '* dimennions of the thea- tre cannot be accurately ascertained." It says, too, as does also the article I have referred to, that the spectators had a "distinct view of the sea." Asa hill intervenes this is impos- sible, except, perhaps, from the highest seats, all of which" have disappeared. Another instance may be mentioned of an error to be found in many books due to a mistranslation of a passage in Paus- aiiias (the '■ Baedeker" of antiquity), which is at once corrected by a personal visit, it is often stated that "the point of the spear and the crest of the helmet of the statue of Athena Promachos could be seen by bailors as far away as the pro- montory of Sunium. It ought to be mentioned that it is necessary to success that one should be able to see through Mount Hymettus. However, we in Montreal have no reason to be envious of the power of vision indicated in the above instances, for, if we are to believe what has been said of us, we can see right through the body of t^-e eartli itself, at least a portion of it. I have seen it stated in print that a person on the top of Mount Royal can, on a clear day, with a good telescope, see the tops of the masts of the ships in Portland harbor. This surpasses the feats previously described. After the first feelingj that sriee at being on the very spot where the Greek dramas were presented to their proper audience have subsided, it is natural to examine the theatre itself. It is, of course, large. Bnt we outrht not to compare it with modern buildings, rememberingthat it is an open air theatre, never havinir had a roof or coveriiikj, having been only used for a few days in the year, and intended to ^rtli\ the whole free male population of Athene all at o^e t'me, sittintr th^re. per- haps, from f'arlv morninif until darkness came on. Plato says that it held 30,n(M) people. Doubts have been thrown on the possibility of this, judging from its pres- ent appearance. Looking at the gr^at sixe it is natural to desire to test the ACX)rSTIC I'UOI'KBTJEH, and I did so. Standing on the " lokteion " I asKed another visitor to stand on the 25th tier of seats, and then said a few words, with a moderate etfort as I thought. To my surprise the remark instantly came ba^ik, " yon are speaking too loud." To my surprise, I say, for there was no wall or surface of any kind behind ray back, sucii as must have existed m old times to letiect and so strensrthen the sound. Lowering my voice to about the ordinary loudness re- quired in a lar^e room conversation was carried on with perfect ease. We subsequently exchanged positions with the same result, but 1 had the ad- vantage of personal experience of both positions. Although, however, the conver- sation could be easily carried on, the tones of the voices were distinctly different from what would be heard in a closed building. The absence of resonan e w as very clearly felt. And then, at once, the full value o"f the masks worn by the act- ors, Irom an acoustic point of view, struck me witii a freshness of meaning never before perceived. These round open mouths, which look .so ugly in the ordinary woodcuts or engraving, suggest at once the end of a speaking trumpet ; the full force of the term "bombon," as applied to the voice of the tragic actor, becomes obvious ; and the truth of the derivation of the word "persona" for a "mask" seems unassailable. Again, when you are on the spot you are im- pressed in a way which mere reading cannot produce with the fact that the details of the mask could not have been visible to spectators in those ages which possessed no opera glasses. The seats in the theatre generally have no backs. .The lowest tier is an excep- tion. This consists of HKill-BACKED MABBbE CHAIRS of ample proportions. They were the official seats ot the priests, whose official titles are cut into the marble, and as leg- ible now, probably, as the day they were mad«. I fcad great pleasure in sitting in 'those chairs ana trying to conjure up a vision of the past. I happened first to try that which belonged to the priest of JDsculapius ; then, for a change, that of the priest of the Olympian Zeus, then several others. All had one common characteristic, they were very comfortable owing to the sup- port given the body by the perfect curva- ture of the back. They did not loFCT OE THE DRAMA is strongly impressed on a visitor by the presence of these official seats for the priests ; and its religious origin in the lorus is emphasized by the great extent of the orchestra assigned to so small a body of men and the contrast presented by the narrow " logeion " or stage re- served for the actors. This last suggests the almost casual way in which the dialogue was introduced alihough itsubse- quently ousted the chorus from the chief place. Jt is stated by Diogenes Laer- tius that Thespis introduced one actor in order to give a rest to the chorus, a state- I nt probably parodied by the musical t .thusiast who a short time ago, said that the use of a preacher was to give a rest to the church choir. .lEschylus by introducing a second actor, and Sophocles subsequently a third, entirely altered the relative posi- tions of the chorus and the dialogue. Standing on the stage it is not difficult to imagine all these seats crowded, at the performance of some of the comedies of Aristophanes, with the whole of the citi- zens of Athens (women were not present at the comedies). The thought will then probably occur that these same men. meeting in the Pnyx, about half a mile distant, were the abftolute rulers of Atheiis and Attica, each man^ivi ijr liis vuie per- sonally and not thr«>u>jh representatives, on qne«tioii8 involvinji coiiHscation of property, life or death, (lomestic and for- eign pdliov, peai e or war. Tins looks like niiiversal siUrrajre carried lo its ex- treme. Yet it was ^o far from it, tliat the working ' classes, as they are now calletl, hail not only no share in it, but tliey were >renerally slaves. The father ot Demosthenes, Atr example, wan eni:a>red in the buHines of yword-mitking and also as a cabinetmaker. But he bought, his workmen, not hired them ; and Demosthenes tells us the aveiatre price he paid fir them. In short, four per- sons outof every five in Attica were slaves. Whatever may be thouirht of universal sufTrage, there can be no doubt of the great advance In civilization at the pre- sent day, largely due as it is to the prin- ples of Christianity diflnse ! by a wider education. The terras " liberal education" and " liberal arts" still testify to the ex- istence of this fomer state of things. For a "liberal education " means strictly an education worthy of a free man, and it the name be correi't, we may dedu.'e as a corollary that the more wide- ly it is extended, the more free men there will be, men free not only in body but in mind. Let us us go back to the spectators ill the theatre ; spectators or legis- lators whichever you please to call them. In this double capacity it was natural that politics should enter largely into their amusements, and ARISTOPHANES certainly gave them an ample supply, and he didn't treat the politicians gently. Horace tells us tha', he used to censure any bad man or •' boodler " *• malus aut fur" with a good deal of freedom, " multa cum lib- ertate." Of this there can be no ques- tion. He took liberties with their char- acters and in his suggestions for their punishment that even in tliese days of the liberty of the press might surprise us. In the play of the " Knii^hts " attack- ing the great political party leader of the day, the prime minister, Cleon, and accusing him of dishonesty in dealing with the public funds before the very men whose votes kept him in power, there is a part where the chorus begins with " I'aie, paie ton panourgon," etc., which is translated by Frere thus. TIIK BOODLER, 424 B. C. " CloHe arotinU talni, and confound bim, the confounder oi uh all, " Pelt hiiii, piuiiinel h*ii), and maul him, rum- n\,iKn, miisapk, ovtThiinl him, " Overbear him and out-bawl him; bear him down and brini; him under, " Bellow like a burst of thunder, robber! har- py ! Hink of plunder ! "Kogue and villain! roKue and cheat! rosue and villain, I repeat. "Oftener than I can repeat It, has the ro&ue and villain cheated." And again, further on, beginning with ti'e words " O miare kai bdelure," which Frere translates : — " Dark and unsearchably profound abyss " OuUof unfathomable " Baseness and iniquity ! '• Miracle of Immense " Intense Impudeace. " Every court, every hall, " Juries and assemblies, all " Are stunned to death, deafened all " Whilst you bawl. " The bench and bar " Ring and lar." * •• • • • • • •' " Whilst we " Scorn and hate, execrate, abominate " Thee the brawler and embroller of the nation and the state." There were no newspapers in those days, but it looks as if Aristophanes felt the want and did his best to supply what was lacking. Some such thougiits as these passed through my mind as I stood looking at the place wliere the auiiitors sat who first heard this chorus and at the open space where the chorus itself marched, and wheeled and sang. " This, again, is the place where •' The lofty, grave tragedli'ns taught " In Chorus or Iambic, teachers best " Of moral prudence, with delight received " In brief sententious precepts, while they " Of fate, and chance, and change la human life, " High actions and high passions best describ- ipg." There is one chorus in the CEdipus ColoniPUS of Sophocles which no one that has read seems ever able to forget, that one in which he describet the nightin- gales singing under the deep foliage of the groves at Colonos, shaded from the sun and sheltered from all the storms. Tliis must inevitably occur to the visitor of the theatre, and it was the thought of .« this that sent me another day on an ex- cursion to ' , C0L0N08 ITHELK, although I knew that the groves had dis- appeared. It is about a mile and a half outside the present city. But althouf^h the small hill of (Jolonoa is nuw covered witli grass and dintinguislied only by white marble tombstones mark- ing the graves of two foreigners, Lenor- mant and Ottfried MuUer, quite close to it there are deep, dark olive groves watere^l by the Kephissos now as in ancient times. Even at the present liay Attica owes much to the Kephissos, which nur urea these groves along its banks over a strip of country about ten miles long by two broad ; a strip all the more striking Irom the brown, bare, treeless face of the rest of the land. In my short stay 1 had no opportunity ot bearing the nightingales. I was all the more pleased, therefore, when at dinner in the hotel one day, a lady present at the table remarked that the singing of tiie night- ingales in the Royal gardens (which liad thick dark groves such as described by Sophocles) was wurth going some dis- tance to hear. This lady was eviaently quite unconscious of the associations con- nected withthesenightingales, but wheni mentioned the incident afterwards to a friend in London, " What," he called out, "the descendants ot Sophocles, night- ingales." I tried to uret a chance to hear them myself, but failed. However, the nightingales are still to be heard not only in the Royal gardens, but in the groves on the banks ot the Kephissos. An additional inducement for a visit to Colonos is the fact that not far from it were the celebrated groves of Academus. KEPHISSOS. As an example of the straits to which commentators are driven, who cannot make a personal visit to the scenes they describe, I may offer the following note : Wunder, a well-known German scholar, in a note on the CEdip. Colon. 1. 687, states that the Kephissos flows into the sea not far from Eleusis, using the present tense (1849), and then gravely points out an error of Strabo. who lived at the besrin- ning of the Christian era, for confounding it with a stream that flowed into tne ^Pbaleric Bay. This he .does on the authority of a learned archtcologist — " virum antiquitais peritissimum" — who had visited the place i". 1678. Ar a mat- ter of fact at kbe present time the Kep- liissos hasn't a chance of getting to the sea at all, or even to Athens, every drop of it being absorbed beforehand in irrigating the soil on each side. Water is too precious there to be allowed to waste it- self in the Aegean. The observations of lady travellers who cannot be suspected ot having read the Greek dramatists in the original are sometimes more valuable or interesting tlian those 'of men. Thev cannot be charged with prejudice. I liave already given one example. Let me mention another. The Athenians were very proud of a quality in their air, which they indicated by the adjective " lam- pros." meaning " clear " or " pellucid." The term is used in a well known chorus in the "Medea" of Euripides when he speaks of the Athenians as "descendants of Erechtheus, ever walking with elastic step through the most PELLUCID AIR." "Dia lamprotatou aitheros." It is prob- ably to the quality indicated here that the sharp definition of the shadows cast by bodies in the sunlight is to be attributed. A lady remarked to me that they were like those cast by the electric light. It was very gratifying to hear such an ob- servation, confirming my own, made by one whose" judgment was not warj£)- ed by previous association or ideas. 1 have said that the Pnyx is about half a mile from the Theatre ot Dionysos. The same road which brings us to the lat- ter runs westward along the base of the Acropolis, or, to speak a little more accu- rately, passes along the kind of valley whicii lies between the Acropolis and the hill on the opposite side called anciently the Mouseion. It then takes a bend to the right before we reach the Pnyx. As we pass along the road we see some distance upwards on the hill to our right three openings in the rock closed with wooden doors which go by the nameof the prison of SOCRATES. . These are really three chambers cut in the rock and connected by internal passages, but what reasons there may be for calling them the prison of Socrates, I J do not know. They do, however, forcibly remind us that we are not far from the place where Uocratea spent ho (treat a part of his time, the famous Agora, or market-place, of ancient Athens, in which he used to enter so freely into conversation with any one who would talk to him, and try to make the other conscious how very little he knew. This must have been trying at times even to the KOSsip-lovinK Athenians, and it is r )t, perhaps, so surprisinti; that tliey eventually poisoned nim. But he had iiiade his nanie immortal be- fore his death, althoutth henever wrote anything himself. We herein Montreal are indebted to him for one of the endowed professorial chairs which we possess. It is not called by his name, it is true, being in fact termed the Frothingham Chair of Moral Philosophy, but then, asHocrates was the founder of Moral Philosophy, he is suffi- ciently commemorated in the title. Since mention has been madeot one chair, it may not be out of place to point out how much of our university work really originated with the Greeks, more especially as Athens was undoubt- edly the first university. In addition to Mental and Moral philosophy we owe Matiiematics and Logic entirely to the Greeks, some of their very text books being in use to the present day. T*ie Natural Sciences owe their beginnimr to Aristotle, the founder of one of the four schools or coUesres that owed their exist- ence to the initial movenoent ol Socrates. We cannot say that we owe much of the Physi(ral Sciences to the i, for in these their efforts were fruitless. Yet they de- serve great credit for their attempts. They directed their attention to these, even before those above mentioned, nnd this is to a certain extent commemorated in the term NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, which we really owe to the Greeks, as may be shown by a quotation from Diovrenes' Laerteiss in his " Lives of the Philoso- phers," althoueb Germans and others sneer at this use of the word Philosophy as if it were a British usage only. Hence the practice on the continent of Europe and In the United States of denoting by the term " Physics" what we call " Na- tural Pbilosopby." As regards MTKRATl'RK the Greeks bad, of course, no such accumulation of treasures tm we pos- sess. They werQ, in fact, themselves bet^inning the creation of the liter- ature of modern Europe. But that they had a true feeling of the necessity for its (cultivation is exemplified in an anecdote told of Alkibiades, who was, as we know, u pupil of Socrateti. It in said that be once found a schoolmaster wl.o hadn't a copy of Homer, and his indignation was excessive. In modern times he might have relieved his feelings by belaboring the school commissioners ni the news- papers, or, as he was wealthy, he might have founded a chair for the literature of his < .other tongue, such as our Molson chair of English literature ; but it was only the time of Socrates, and the col- leges did not then exist. For want of a better means possibly, he expressed his opinion, somewhat emphatically, by beat- ing the schoolmaster. ButtO' return to the AGORA Its boundaries are somewhat ill-defined, and when in Athens I was a good deal puzzled by Baedeker's descrip- tion of its position. This did not at all agree with my recollections of other works. Of course I had but few bcoks with me and had to depend largely on memory., But among () her associations to guide me I had very vividly before my mind a picture of the chattenncr Athenian citizens loitoring in the Agora when they ought t«> have been in the Puyx, and of the lively scene that took place when they were chased in ny the Scythian policemen armed with ropes colored with red dhre. Anv one struck with these and f mnd with the mark of the ochre upon him was fined. This I could not rc'oncile with Baedeker's account. He seems to have ignored tte fact that there was a new Agora as o'^ll as an old Agora, and to have confused the two. The old Agora, or the Agora, as it has been termed, was close to the Pnyx. THE AREOPAGUS. More than four centuries later than the time of Socrates in this same Agora (or market, as it is translated in the New Testament), which is now bare and deso- late, but was then filled with statues of gods and heroes, and illustrious men, and adorned with fine buildings, it is etMiy, to m hMMkteMli^M picture the Apostle Paul walking about and conversinj? with th-ise lie met, just as Sojrate-j used to do, and liere lie eiifoniitereit to t le spot sukigests another reason why the piiilosoplier.s of the Academy or the Lyceum are not mentioned. The simple explanation seems to he that the Juliette, if it may be so called of the .-(toict, the"Stoa Poikile," was in the Agora itself, and the " Garden " of Epicurus was not far ofl'. while the Academy and the Lyceum w re each about a mile and a half away in different directions, one to the north and one to tlie east. These philosophers invited St. Paul to go with them to the Areopagus, Mar's hill, which it close at hand, and it is this oc- currence that made the Areopagus the most interesting point to me in all Athens. It is otten spoken of as a separ- ate hill, but it is really only a projecting fipurof the hill on which the Acropolis was built. The ; ath and the steps leading up to it are about halt way between the Pnyx and the Theatre of Dionysos. The philosophers were evidently the professors in the university of Athens, arid here we have Christianity encoun- tering Paganism in its most intellectual and artistic forms. But the suppnorters of Paganism were theorists who didn't be- • lieve in their own tiieories. It has even been suggested that they may have yawn- ed overtheiy own lectures, and that it was a delicious troat to them to meet with a man who not only had a new system to propose, but actually believed in it him- self, and was urging it with red-hot zeal upon all comers. But it was incon- venient to listen to him amid the din of the Agora, and hence they invited him to ascend to the open space at the top of the Areopagus, where they could listen at their ease. It is a great pity that in our transla- tion of the speech of the Apostle the courtesy of the opening part is turned into something like rudeness by using the word " superstitious." Great rever- ence for religion was characteristic of the Athenians, and the city showed this in its numerous temples and statues to the gods. The Apostle compliments them On this feeling; THE PNVX is on a kind of artificial terrace on a bill, which slopes gently upwards to the plat- form of rock from which the orators spoKe. It is supported below by a nias- Hive btone wall and biiunded above by a w all about a dozen feet in height, cut out of the Solid roik. Here again I was thrown into a 8tate of doubt. 1 desired very muth to see the liemii or platforiii on which Demosthenes stood wtiile deliver- ing his Philippics and Olynthiacs, where also he failed so utterly in his first at- tempt at speaking tm state affairs that he was driven a»ay by the hooting and jeering of the auditors, just as Disraeli lar Spectrum, but he did not observe the darK lines in it, the importance of which is now kn(»wn to be so great Since the irtroiluction of Spect- rum analysis it has been said in hooks, over and over ayrain. that Newtcm did not think of, or at any rate emplov the best imethod for examininir the Spectrum, by usint; a narrow slit, and so did not dis- cover the lines. Now, I had tiie good luck to get a copy of Newton's Optics, »nd read it, and so to my sur- prise found Newtou saying in the most precise terns, that he had used the slit. At first 1 did not believe it possible that the error could be as widespread as it seemed, and published ncihing about the the matter for some '/ears. About ten years auto, thinking it necessary to notice it, I wrote to Nature as being the journal by which the attention cf scientific men might be most easily gained. In this, however, I seemed not to have succeeded, and I deemed it advisable to take up the subject aarain in a short paper rea'l before tht. Royal Society of Canada." This con- tained not only quotations show- ing the erroneous statements, and extracts from .Newton's Optics,which prov- ed them to be erroneous, but also an account of a repetition of Newton's own experiments in which dark lines were seen perfectly. Why Newton didn't see them is matter ot conjecture. Tho paper contained the suggestion that In order to meet the error fully it would be well to reprint Newton's Optics. This paper was pub- lished last summer while I was in Eu- rope, and copies were sent to different scientific men. By a curious coincidence I happened to meet one of them. Sir 'iieorge Stokes, the present occupant of Newton's chair and formerly President of the Royal Society as well as of the British Association, at the Dublin Tercen- tenary, at the very tine he had in his pocket a letter addressed to me, whom he supposed lo be in Canada. This he handed to me, and we had a conversation thereon. He thinks that the glass used by Newton was to blame. He had not been aware of the prevalence of the error, and of course knew that the common statement was incorrect. But it was at Edinburgh it the conversaziones, and on other occa- sions outside the sectional or scientific meetings proper that I had the best op- portunities for conversint? with hitn and Lord Kelvin and others of high scientific reputation, .^s a result I had a letter from Sir Georne Stokes about a fortnight airo in which he very kindly informed me that the Press Syndicate of Cam- briuae University before whom my suar- gestion had been broutrht would consider the uestion ot reprinting not merely Newton's Optics, but all Newton's Mathematical works at the same time. What will be the outcome of the conside- 18 ration I rannot tell ; but it is a great point gained to have the quention (onsidereii. Attention has been thus practically drawn to the suhjeit, and thiH exeniplilies the benefit of tiiese converBaziones as con- trasted with my cnminvinication to "Nature" in 1882. whiih beeins to have bad little 'esult, althou>:h [ have had rea- son to believe latterly I hat it had Hi>Die. Ho great was the pleasure that I felt in attendinii the sectinnal and other meet- ings, and 80 strongly did I ieel the] benefit from the discussions of tfie moat recent advances in science, that I could not help regretting greatly that I had so few- chances of attending the meetiuKs; and yet I was no worse off than other Canadians. I believe, indeed, that I van the only Canadian professor present in Section A. I saw professors present from the United States there, but none from Canada. For the other sections I cannot speak, al- though I suspect a similar statement rainht be made for them. Speajiing of my i egret to a well known member the thought was suggested that tne association might be induced to visit Canada again soon, and I proceeded to make enquiries for a visit in the year 1895 among the members individually, taking them as I casually met them, in order to test the general feeling. To my great delight I received favorable replies in every case but one. The one exception was going to Chicago in 1893. I may say that 1895 is the earl- iest possible vear, since meetings are ap- pointed for 1893 and 1894 at Nottingham and Oxford respectively. I found there was apparently nd chance of their coming to Montreal alter so short an interval as II years, but the suggestion of Toronto met with approval. The individual re- plies only confirmed an opinion expressed to me by one who was very likely to know the general feeling as well as it could be known without formal in- quiry. Since my return I have written to some of the leading educational and scientific men in Toronto, and the sugges- tion was, as might be expected from the reputation of Toronto, warmly taken up and now I am happy to be able to state that the Canadian Institute has resolved to take steps preparatory to sending an invitation to the British Association to meet in Toronto in 1895. They will give this invitation in their own name, but they give it not lor themselves alone, nor for Toronto ulone, hut for all Canaloes this in the expectation that it will be aided from every quarter of Canada, and not least from this city in which so much of the power and energy of Canada is centred. When I say this city, may I not include this University also, for the same power and energy which have made the city eminent have created and fostered the university aldOs and to promote its inter- ests still further they will do well indeed if they support the invitation to the British association to the utmost of their ability. A second visit to Canada would, in all proba- bility, lead to regular visits at stated intervals, and this for an association whicfi originally contemplated the Brit- ish isles as its limits, implies the practi- cal reduction of the Atlantic to the same category as the Irish Channel. It implies still more. If ever the Anglo-Saxon Olympiad be really established, though it may bpgin in England, yet it will na- turally tend to the most central point, the most convenient for the whole race, and where will that be in the future, if not in Canada ?