Morals.-- Closely bound up with religion are the moral principles which have appeared frotn time to time. However much civilization has always depended on material progress for its advancement it is something very much more than that. Civilization is nothing less than athe Inunanization of man in society)) No matter how learned, or clever or powerful, a man is not dvilized unless he is in the best sense human. It was an epoch in the progress of man when Urulcagina B.C. 2800 swept the whole army of political and priestly officials from office because they were guilty of taking bribes, thwarting justice and imposing exor bitant taxes. The high moral obligations which the Hebrew prophets Insisted publicly that the people must meet, the rising protest against inhumanity in Greece, are simply so many added forces to the movement toward the ahumaniza tion of man in society)) The lack of moral strength has usually led to the downfall of the peoples that have been outwardly most civilized.
About a.c. 7000 the written word becomes a fact —only a sign perhaps to indi cate ownership, or a picture conveying some sort of information. Having once hit on the plan of conveying information by pictures, the pictures speedily became formalized, and still simpler forms of writing were devised.
This invention gave to life practically a new beginning. Man came to have a past as real as the present. A sense of permanence and con tinuity was given to life. All man's thoughts were widened. It opened the way out of the terrible ignorance which had held him down for nearly half a million years. From recording names and transactions and events man soon set to recording his thoughts, his speculations, and this set others thinking and speculating on many things. Man began to enjoy an intellectual life. There grew up a literature as for ex ample the Precepts of Ptah-hotep in Egypt, c. ac. 3900, by which the thoughts and achieve ments of one generation were passed on to the generations to come, thus making progress a surer thing. The value of the invention of writing is seen in the fact that when a man signed his name or his mark to a contract (s.c. 3000 and earlier most likely), he was held in the grip of an obligation to do what he had agreed. A new accuracy and truthfulness and honesty entered of necessity into human deal ings. With the growth of commerce and politics and religion there had to be persons to keep books in the commercial houses; the kings needed scribes to make record of the king's doings; the making and administration of laws must needs have men who write down the laws and the judgments of the courts; the temples must have men able to chronicle re ligious matters, and so men had to be trained for these semi-intellectual jobs. We can hardly speak of the existence of schools and yet what ever the limitations of the training given men to fill these semi-intellectual positions the effect must have been to increase the number of those who could read and write and create a desire on the part of an increasing number to be able to read and write. The school idea as we under
stand it is met with in Greece before B.C. 500. When old enough the boys were sent to a school conducted by some poor citizen, or an old soldier or a foreigner. Music -and writing were taught, and what perhaps was of greater importance the boys learned many passages from the old poets. Of inestimable importance in the story of civilization is the school of Athens, where Socrates, Plato, Zeno and Aris totle set forth political and social and philosoph ical ideas which exercised a marked in fluence upon the thought and character of the persons then living and all generations since. The rise of the gymnasium, B.C. 300 to B.C. 200, where the youth attended lectures on rhetoric, science, philosophy and mathematics was a notable step toward creating and setting the fashion for an educated citizenship. Not least influential of the pre-Christian scholastic insti tutions was the school of intellectuals gathered in Alexandria, s.c. 300 and after. Men came hither from all civilized countries to listen to lectures containing the latest thought in astron omy, physics, anatomy, medicine, grammar and religion. Here the Septuagint version of the Old Testament was compiled.
The founding of libraries is an item that deserves place in this summary. Copies of laws, of religious rituals, of medical prescriptions, commercial papers, and treaties between nations multiplied and were found in considerable num bers in all important cities of the ancient world. But so far as known Assurbanipal, R C. 668-626, grandson of Sennacherib, was the first to make a collection of the literature of the people and arrange it so that it could be used and was designed to be used. Of much greater import ance was the founding of the library at Alex andria by Ptolemy, ac. 304. The library was the creation of the gifted poet and philosopher Callimachus who originated the name ((book* and created the science of publishing correct editions of old works. Here too began the making of dictionaries.
Bibliography,- The material for the history of civilization is exceedingly voluminous. All histories of ancient peoples contain matter for this purpose. For those who wish to get at the origins, the series of British Museum guides ((The Antiquities of the Stone Age,' ((The Bronze Age,' The Early Iron Age,' The Egyptian Collections,' ((Babylonian and As syrian Collections' are authoritative; for the prehistoric period, Osborn, H. F., (Men of the Old Stone Age' ; Joly, N., (Man Before Metals) ; for the historic, Jastrow, M., Jr., The Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria' ; Bos cawen, W. St. C., The First of Empires) ; Breasted, J. H., 'Ancient Times' ; Petrie, W. M. F., 'History of Egypt) ; Morgan, L. H., 'Ancient Society' ; Tylor, 'Primitive Culture); for Greece, Botsford, G. W., and Sihler, E G., (Hellenic Civilization.)