The American School of Athens.

The managers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens feel that the time has come when they can confidently appeal to all friends of sound learning in the United States for the means of placing that institution on a solid and permanent foundation.

The School is now in the middle of its fifth year of work, with increased numbers and with every prospect of increasing usefulness. Up to this time it has occupied a hired house, and has been entirely supported by the annual contributions of twelve or fourteen colleges, from which house rent, the appropriation of the library, and incidental expenses have been paid, each college in turn sending a professor to Athens as director for one year without expense to the School. Under this temporary arrangement the School has already done much good work, which has been cordially recognized both at home and abroad. With the coming year a new era begins. We are henceforth to have a home of our own. The government of Greece has shown such warm interest in our enterprise, that a valuable piece of land on Mount Lycabettus, containing about an acre an a half, has been granted to the School by a royal edict, issued July 25, 1886.

That this generous gift might not be useless, the liberality of our friends at home supplied us with the means of building and furnishing a house; and we are now erecting a fitting home for the School, which will be ready for occupation next October. But we are still without provisions for the regular expenses of the School, especially for the salary of a permanent director. It was obvious from the beginning that our School could never aspire to the rank and importance which the French and German schools at Athens have long maintained, and could never undertake continuous and serious work, while its head was continually changing, and there was only temporary provision for even this changing directorship. The ground of the present appeal is the necessity for immediate action in order that we may secure a most efficient permanent director. Dr. Charles Waldstein, the accomplished archaeologist, who now holds two important positions at the University of Cambridge, England, as lecturer on archaeology and director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, but who is better known to us as a citizen of New York and a former student in Columbia College, has been asked to take the directorship of the School at Athens in October, 1888, when Professor Merriam's appointed year of office will end, on the condition that a permanent endowment for the School shall be secured before that time. Dr. Waldstein has accepted the invitation with this condition. It is obvious that there is no time to lose, if we are to avail ourselves of this opportunity. It should certainly be an object of national pride not only to secure the permanent establishment of an institution which is so full of promise to American scholarship, but at the same time to reclaim for his country a scholar who has gained laurels in the service of a foreign university. America cannot afford to let her scholars seek employment among strangers while they are so much needed for the instruction of her own students.

The School at Athens needs a fund of at least $100,000, to enable it to pay a proper salary to its director, to keep its library abreast of constantly advancing requirements, to meet other annual expenses, to take its due part occasionally in exploration and excavation, and to publish the results of its work. While the older French and German schools at Athens have been maintained for many years by the liberality of the two governments which founded them, we are proud to feel that we have a never-failing source of beneficence, richer and wiser in its liberality than any public treasury, to which we can turn with confidence. The willingness and even eagerness of our men of wealth to take the place which ancient governments fill in Europe as patrons of learning is one of our national glories, to which each year of history adds new lustre. We must all feel a pride in the words with which the distinguished English scholar, Dr. Lightfoot, the bishop of Durham, recently urged his countrymen to emulate our example in establishing a School at Athens. He said, at a public meeting in London in 1885:

"It now touches our honor as Englishmen very nearly that this scheme should be carried out without delay. France and Germany have long been in the field. France has her School and Germany her Institute; and even America has forestalled us in this race. That new country, notwithstanding the vast and absorbing interests of the present, notwithstanding the boundless hopes of the future, has been eager to claim her part in the heritage. While all the civilized nations of the world, one after another, have established their literary councils in Athens, shall England alone be unrepresented at the centre of Hellenic culture?"

These words have had the desired effect, and a British School now stands on the slope of Lycabettus on land adjoining that of the American School. But the words of Bishop Lightfoot, with but slight change, may now appeal powerfully to our own national pride and honor. Above all things, we must not, at this late day, allow ourselves to play the part of the sleeping hare in this friendly race.

Under the circumstances, and especially in view of the importance of securing Dr. Waldstein as the permanent director of the School, the trustees appeal confidently to all who value sound scholarship, and to all who feel pride in the national reputation which Americans have gained as promoters of learning, to give their aid, according to their means, in establishing the American School at Athens on a substantial and lasting foundation.

James Russell Lowell, Martin Brimmer, Henry Drisler, Basil L. Gildersleeve, William W. Goodwin, Henry G. Marquand, Charles Eliot Norton, Frederic J. de Peyster, Henry C. Potter, William M. Sloane, Samuel D. Warren, John Williams White, Theodore D. Woolsey, Trustees of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

Contributions may be sent to Mr. Frederic J. de Peyster, 7 East 42d street, New York, or to Samuel D. Warren, 220 Devonshire street, Boston.