Athenian Text-Books of Science

Abstract

THE University of Athens has existed for no more than thirty-seven years. Two of its four Faculties, —the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Philosophy, require a knowledge of natural philosophy and chemistry. It is difficult to understand how these subjects could have been taught at first, for the students by no means often understand French, and no Greek books on science then existed. No doubt the professors taught as Plato and Aristotle taught; and the note-book of the student had to be his text-book. But matters have changed since then: the demand for text-books in Greek has caused them to appear; slowly indeed, for we have seen but iew books on science, but we may hope that the original textbooks which are now beginning to appear are the first of a continuous series. Do not let it be imagined that the works whose titles are given above are the only works on science we could find in all Athens. There is a big book on Physics by M. Damaskenos, who has also written on trigonometry and meteorology; there are various memoirs by M. Stroumpos on the refraction of light; on the internal constitution of flame; on the fundamental principles of hydrostatics, &c. The University is tolerably well supplied with physical and chemical apparatus, and in good time, we hope, some good student-work will be done there.