7. THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD.--Egypt, in its flourishing period, having contributed to the civilization of Greece, became, in its turn, the pupil of that country. In the century following the age of Alexander the Great, under the rule of the Ptolemies, the philosophy and literature of Athens were transferred to Alexandria. Ptolemy Philadelphus, in the third century B.C., completed the celebrated Alexandrian Library, formed for the most part of Greek books, and presided over by Greek librarians. The school of Alexandria had its poets, its grammarians, and philosophers; but its poetry lacked the fire of genius, and its grammatical productions were more remarkable for sophistry and subtlety, than for soundness and depth of research. In the philosophy of Alexandria, the Eastern and Western systems combined, and this school had many distinguished disciples. In the first century of the Christian era, Egypt passed from the Greek kings to the Roman emperors, and the Alexandrian school continued to be adorned by the first men of the age. This splendor, more Grecian than Egyptian, was extinguished in the seventh century by the Saracens, who conquered the country, and, it is believed, burned the great Alexandrian Library. After the wars of the immediate successors of Mohammed, the Arabian princes protected literature, Alexandria recovered its schools, and other institutions of learning were established; but in the conquest of the country by the Turks, in the thirteenth century, all literary light was extinguished. 8. LITERARY CONDITION OF MODERN EGYPT.--For more than nine hundred years Cairo has possessed a university of high rank, which greatly increased in importance on the accession of Mehemet Ali, in 1805, who established many other schools, primary, scientific, medical, and military, though they were suffered to languish under his two successors. In 1865, when Ismail- Pacha mounted the throne as Khedive (tributary king), he gave powerful aid to the university and to public instruction everywhere. The number of students at the University of Cairo advanced to eleven thousand. The wife of the Khedive, the Princess Cachma-Afet, founded in 1873, and maintained from her privy purse, a school for the thorough instruction of girls, which led to the establishment of a similar institution by the Ministry of Public Instruction. This princess is the first in the history of Islam who, from the interior of the harem, has exerted her influence to educate and enlighten her sex. When the Khedive was driven into exile in 1879, the number of schools, nearly all the result of his energetic rule, was 4,817 and of pupils 170,000. Since the European intervention and domination the number of both has sensibly diminished, and a serious retrograde movement has taken place.