Page:Notes on the Present and Future of the Archaeological Collections of the University of Oxford.djvu/8

 Of the immense importance of Archæological Collections to those engaged in the teaching or in the study of classical authors, or of ancient and mediæval History, little need he said, as it is evident to all. Two illustrations only will suffice. The History of Egypt is written upon her ancient monuments, and the student of Herodotus who has before his eyes a well-arranged collection of Egyptian antiquities will learn more of the arts, manners, customs, mythology, and religion of the ancient Egyptians in a week than he would in months employed in the study of hooks. Works of ancient art are indeed the flesh and sinews which cover and give life to the dry hones of History; the flowers which sweeten and embellish the waste places of laborious study. How interesting and instructive, moreover, to the students of mediæval English History would he a fine collection of the local antiquities of Oxford and its neighbourhood, and how it would help them to re-people the Past, and to realize the actual state of the University and City in the Middle Ages! These obvious truths, forgotten or disregarded in Oxford, are recognized and acted on elsewhere. Cambridge spends her hundreds a year in augmenting and improving the collections of the Fitzwilliam Museum; even Aberdeen is buying medals, and the generous Head Master of Winchester is at his own expense forming a cabinet of coins, the better to teach History to the lads of his noble school. Oxford alone does nothing, or, if she does anything, does it in the spirit of jealousy and rivalry; her counsels are divided; there is no central or controlling authority; every man's hand is against his brother; and the result, so far as Archaeology is concerned, is complete chaos.

But further, Archaeology, in order to be of any real use, must be taught and studied as a whole.