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Bernardo Gallegos
Page 04 - Part A
The great advances in knowledge made at
Alexandria were in mathematics, geography, and science. The method of
scientific investigation worked out by Aristotle at Athens was introduced
and used. Instead of speculating as to phenomena and causes, as had been
the earlier Greek practice, observation and experiment now became the
rule. Euclid (c. 323-283 B.C.) opened a school at Alexandria as early as
300 B.C., and there worked out the geometry which is still used in our
schools. Archimedes (287-212 B.C.), who studied under Euclid, made many
important discoveries and advances in mechanics and physics. Eratosthenes
(226-196 B.C.), librarian at Alexandria, is famous as a geographer [12]
and astronomer, and made some studies in geology as well. Ptolemy (b.?; d.
168 A.D.) here completed his Mechanism of the Heavens (_Syntaxis_) in 138
A.D., and this became the standard astronomy in Europe for nearly fifteen
hundred years, while his geography was used in the schools until well into
the fifteenth century. The map of the known world, shown in Figure 15, was
made by him. Hipparcus, the Newton of the Greeks, studied the heavens both
at Alexandria and Rhodes, and counted the stars and arranged them in
constellations. Many advances also were made in the study of medicine, the
Alexandrian schools having charts, models, and dissecting rooms for the
study of the human body, The functions of the brain, nerves, and heart
were worked out there.
Except in science and mathematics, though, the creative ability of the
earlier Greeks was now largely absent. Research, organization, and comment
upon what had previously been done rather was the rule. Still much
important work was done here. Books were collected, copied, and preserved,
and texts were edited and purified from errors. Here grammar, criticism,
prosody, and mythology were first developed into sciences. The study of
archaeology was begun, and the first dictionaries were made. The
translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek was begun for the benefit
of the Alexandrian Jews who had forgotten their Mother tongue, this being
the origin of the famous _Septuagint_ [13] version of the Old Testament.
It is owing to these Alexandrian scholars, also, that we now possess the
theory of Greek accents, and have good texts of Homer and other Greek
writers.
Source: THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION, by ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
[ Part A ]
[ Part B ]
[ Part C ]
[ Part D ]
[ Part E ]
[ Part F ]
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