Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 71.djvu/449

Rh had forty working members resident in Paris. There were ten associate or free members, in training for vacancies in the active membership. There were eight foreign associate members and fifty corresponding members. This academy was suppressed by the Convention in 1793 and did not reopen under the Directory in 1795.

It was reconstructed by Napoleon in 1803 under the title of 1716, and its old field, the study of language, assigned to it. It now gives, through carefully selected committees, special attention to the study of Greek and Roman antiquities, as well as to those connected with French history, to Assyriology, Egyptology, epigraphy and the literary history of France. It looks after the French schools in Rome and Athens, which under its guidance have made important antiquarian researches and discoveries in Greece, the Grecian islands, Italy, Asia Minor, North Africa and Syria. Its Mémoires are full of extremely valuable information. Its activity along its various lines of study and research is unabated, and the means for the enlargement of its work, in addition to government support, are constantly increasing.

It grants several prizes, but no one of them is so highly esteemed and so eagerly sought for as the one which secures its holder two years' residence and study in Rome and Athens. The prize is won in a severe examination and against many competitors. It was through the influence of members of the school at Athens, and under their personal direction, that the temple at Delphi was uncovered, and that many other interesting remains of Grecian antiquity have been brought to light. To no one of the academies connected with the institute are students of history, the classics, antiquities of every sort and oriental languages, more deeply indebted than to the academy of inscriptions. Some of its members have been among the leading scholars of the nineteenth century. Its standard of work is very high, as one who will read the jubilee history of the school in Athens will discover. Nor is its work of less interest or importance to-day than it has been in the past. While granting prizes every year there is one prize, the Louis Fould, worth 20,000 francs, which prior to 1896 had never been awarded. It is offered once in three years for a satisfactory history of the arts of design, their origin and progress, and their transmission through different peoples to the time of Pericles. The subject is so difficult and the scholarship required so extensive and accurate that few can hope to win it.

The Academy of Sciences, regarded by scientific men as the most important part of the institute, and whose history will be related more fully in other articles, was founded by Minister Colbert in 1666. It grew out of informal gatherings of scientific men who met from time