§ 84. The case is different with Alexandria, concerning which much has been written and recorded. But, in the first place, it is hardly correct to speak of education in Alexandria as strictly Hellenic, or even Hellenistic. It was the meeting-ground of all the faith and dogma of the old world. The Egyptian, Jewish, and Syrian elements were so strong there that, considering the absence of all old Hellenic traditions in this newest of all Greek-speaking towns, we could hardly use it as a fair specimen of the good and evil in old Greek training. We may add that up to the days of the great theological controversies--days so graphically pictured in Kingsley’s “Hypatia”--we know comparatively little about the students of Alexandria. All our information clusters about the teachers. As we might expect, Alexandria was regarded as the university of progress, the laboratory of positive science, in contrast to the conservative and literary Athens. Nevertheless, even all the sound literary criticism of those days comes from Alexandria. For it is plain that the Ptolemies intended it not as a training-place for youth so much as a home for research, richly endowed with the means and materials for serious study--first of all, an ample library, then handsome buildings, retirements, and adequate endowments. These conceptions, and the success in their execution, are profoundly interesting in the history of education, but are beyond the scope of the present work. FOOTNOTES: [61] Βίοι σοφ. ii. 32, 2. [62] The picture of Athens given in the Acts of the Apostles (ch. xvii.) shows that the city was full of people cultivated in philosophy and letters, but indisposed to pursue any serious calling. They lived in the agora all day, as in a great club, looking out for gossip and news. If any one desires to see a modern parallel, I refer him to the Hall and Library of the Four Courts in Dublin--the most agreeable place in the world to visit; for there the bar of Ireland, many of them for want of briefs, occupy themselves with all the scandal of the day. Nay, even those who are busy refresh themselves, in passing, with five minutes’ talk, and are never too hurried to enjoy a good story when it is offered to them. There is even a great deal of real business done in this desultory and peripatetic way. Whether a new system of philosophy or a new religion would find a hearing is perhaps doubtful, and marks the difference between the old Greek and the modern idler.