HIYPATIA, THE MAIDEN PHI-
LOSOPHER.

ALEXANDER THE Great “builded better than he
knew.” Doubtless he felt that, in those days of
growing commerce, the sea-coast of Egypt was the
proper location for a great commercial city; but he
could hardly have conjectured that Alexandria would
long survive all the noted cities of his day, and
carry down his name and his fame to a new world
of civilization to come in a far future age. When
Sparta had become a village, Athens a ruin, Babylon
an earth mound, Alexandria was to prosper still, and
survive for at least two thousand years as a live and
active mart. s

The Alexandria of the past became what it was
largely through the fostering care of the Ptolemies,
the successors of Alexander in the rule of Egypt.
They made it not only a city of prosperous trade,
great wealth, and architectural splendor, but a lead-
ing centre of learning, to which, as to a securo
haven, fled the culture of Athens and its sisters in
intellectual fame.

No monarch of all the past showed greater wisdom
than Ptolemy, tho one of Alexander’s generals to
whom, on the breaking up of the great empire, the
kingdom of Egypt fell. Making Alexandria his

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