Leguminous family, but is placed in a different section. Robinia Pseud-acacia, or false acacia, is cultivated in the milder parts of Britain, and forms a large tree, with beautiful pea-like blossoms. The tree is sometimes called the locust tree.
ACADEMIES. The word “academy” is derived from “the olive grove of Academe, Plato’s retirement,” the birthplace of the Academic school of philosophy (see under Academy, Greek). The schools of Athens after the model of the Academy continued to flourish almost without a break for nine centuries till they were abolished by a decree of Justinian. It was not without significance in tracing the history of the word that Cicero gave the name to his villa near Puteoli. It was there that he entertained his cultured friends and held the symposia which he afterwards elaborated in Academic Questions and other philosophic and moral dialogues.
“Academy,” in its modern acceptation, may be defined as a society or corporate body having for its object the cultivation and promotion of literature, of science and of art, either severally or in combination, undertaken for the pure love of these pursuits, with no interested motive. Modern academies, moreover, have, almost without exception, some form of public recognition; they are either founded or endowed, or subsidized, or at least patronized, by the sovereign of the state. The term “academy” is very loosely used in modern times; and, in essentials, other bodies with the title of “society” or “college,” or even “school,” often embody the same idea; we are only concerned here, however, with those which, bearing the title of academy, are of historical importance in their various spheres.
Early History.—The first academy, as thus defined, though it might with equal justice claim to be the first of universities, was the museum of Alexandria founded at the beginning of the 3rd century B.C. by the first of the Ptolemies. There all the sciences then known were pursued, and the most learned men of Greece and of the East gathered beneath its spacious porticos. Here, too, was the nucleus of the famous library of Alexandria.
Passing over the state institute for the promotion of science founded at Constantinople by Caesar Bardas in the 9th century, and the various academies established by the Moors at Granada, at Corduba and as far east as Samarkand, we come to the academy over which Alcuin presided, a branch of the School of the Palace established by Charlemagne in 782. This academy was the prototype of the learned coteries of Paris which Molière afterwards satirized. It took all knowledge for its province; it included the learned priest and the prince who could not write his own name, and it sought to solve all problems by witty definitions.
The David of Alcuin’s academy (such was the name that the emperor assumed) found no successors or imitators, and the tradition of an Oxford academy of Alfred the Great has been proved to rest on a forgery. The academy of arts founded at Florence in 1270 by Brunetto Latini was short-lived and has left no memories, and modern literary academies may be said to trace their lineage in direct descent from the troubadours of the early 14th century. The first Floral Games were held at Toulouse in May 1324, at the summons of a gild of troubadours, who invited “honourable lords, friends and companions who possess the science whence spring joy, pleasure, good sense, merit and politeness” to assemble in their garden of the “gay science” and recite their works. The prize, a golden violet, was awarded to Vidal de Castelnaudary for a poem to the glory of the Virgin. In spite of the English invasion and other adversities the Floral Games survived till, about the year 1500, their permanence was secured by the munificent bequest of Clémence Isaure, a rich lady of Toulouse. In 1694 the Académie des Jeux Floraux was constituted an academy by letters patent of Louis XIV.; its statutes were reformed and the number of members raised to 36. Suppressed during the Revolution it was revived in 1806, and still continues to award amaranths of gold and silver lilies, for which there is keen competition.
Provence led the way, but Italy of the Renaissance is the soil in which academies most grew and flourished. The Accademia Pontaniana, to give it its subsequent title, was founded at Florence in 1433 by Antonio Beccadelli of Palermo and fostered by Laurentius Valla. Far more famous was the Accademia Platonica, founded c. 1442 by Cosimo de’ Medici, which numbered among its members Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Machiavelli and Angelo Poliziano. It was, as the name implies, chiefly occupied with Plato, but it added to its objects the study of Dante and the purification of the Italian language, and though it lived for barely half a century, yet its influence as a model for similar learned societies was great and lasting.
Modern Academies.—Academies have played an important part in the revival of learning and in the birth of scientific inquiry. They mark an age of aristocracies when letters were the distinction of the few and when science had not been differentiated into distinct branches, each with its own specialists. Their interest is mainly historical, and it cannot be maintained that at the present day they have much direct influence on the advancement of learning either by way of research or of publication. For example, the standard dictionaries of France, Germany and England are the work, not of academies, but of individual scholars, of Littré, Grimm and Murray. Matthew Arnold’s plea for an English academy of letters to save his countrymen from the note of vulgarity and provinciality has met with no response. Academies have been supplanted, socially by the modern club, and intellectually by societies devoted to special branches of science. Those that survive from the past serve, like the Heralds’ College, to set an official stamp on literary and scientific merit. The principal academies of Europe, past and present, may be dealt with in various classes, according to the subjects to which they are devoted.
I. Scientific Academies
Austria.—The Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften at Vienna, originally projected by Leibnitz, was founded by the emperor Ferdinand I. in 1846, and has two classes—mathematics and natural science, and history and philology.
Belgium and the Netherlands.—A literary society was founded at Brussels in 1769 by Count Cobenzl, the prime minister of Maria Theresa, which after various changes of name and constitution became in 1816 the Académie impériale et royale des sciences et belles-lettres, under the patronage of William I. of the Netherlands. It has devoted itself principally to natural history and antiquities. The Royal Institute of the Low Countries was founded in 1808 by King Louis Bonaparte. It was replaced in 1851 by the Royal Academy of Sciences at Amsterdam, to which in 1856 a literary section was added.
Denmark.—The Kongelige danske videnskabernes selskab (Royal Academy of Sciences) at Copenhagen owes its origin to Christian VI., who in 1742 invited six Danish numismatists to arrange his cabinet of medals. Historians and antiquaries were called in to assist at the sittings, and the commission developed into a sort of learned club. The king took it under his protection, enlarged its scope by the addition of natural history, physics and mathematics, and in 1743 constituted it a royal academy with an endowment fund.
France.—The old Académie des sciences had the same origin as the more celebrated Académie française. A number of men of science had for some thirty years met together, first at the house of P. Marsenne, then at that of Montmort, a member of the Council of State, afterwards at that of Melchisédec Thévenot, the learned traveller. It included Descartes, Gassendi, Blaise and Etienne Pascal. Hobbes, the author of Leviathan, was presented to it during his visit to Paris in 1640. Colbert conceived the idea of giving an official status to this learned club. A number of chemists, physicians, anatomists and eminent mathematicians, among whom were Christian Huyghens and Bernard Frenicle de Bessy (1605–1675), the author of a famous treatise on magic squares, were chosen to form the nucleus of the new society. Pensions were granted by Louis XIV. to each of the members, and a fund for instruments and experiment was placed at their disposal. They began their session on the 22nd of December 1666 in the Royal Library, meeting twice a
