An academy (
Attic Greek
Attic Greek is the Greek language, Greek dialect of the regions of ancient Greece, ancient region of Attica, including the ''polis'' of classical Athens, Athens. Often called classical Greek, it was the prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige diale ...
: Ἀκαδήμεια;
Koine Greek
Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...
Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of
secondary
Secondary may refer to: Science and nature
* Secondary emission, of particles
** Secondary electrons, electrons generated as ionization products
* The secondary winding, or the electrical or electronic circuit connected to the secondary winding i ...
or
tertiary
Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago.
The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...
higher learning (and generally also
research
Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...
or honorary membership). The name traces back to
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
's school of
philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
, founded approximately 385 BC at
Akademia, a
sanctuary
A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred place, such as a shrine. By the use of such places as a haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This secondary use can be categorized into human sanctuary, a saf ...
of
Athena
Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of ...
, the goddess of
wisdom
Wisdom, sapience, or sagacity is the ability to contemplate and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense and insight. Wisdom is associated with attributes such as unbiased judgment, compassion, experiential self-knowledge, ...
and
skill
A skill is the learned ability to act with determined results with good execution often within a given amount of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills. For example, in the domain of wo ...
, north of
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
, Greece.
Etymology
The word comes from the ''Academy'' in
ancient Greece
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...
, which derives from the
Athenian
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
hero
A hero (feminine: heroine) is a real person or a main fictional character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or Physical strength, strength. Like other formerly gender-specific terms (like ...
, ''
Akademos
Academus or Akademos (; Ancient Greek: Ἀκάδημος), also Hekademos or Hecademus (Ἑκάδημος) was an Attic hero in Greek mythology. Academus, the place lies on the Cephissus, six stadia from Athens.
Place origins
Academus, the sit ...
''. Outside the city walls of
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
, the
gymnasium was made famous by
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
as a center of learning. The sacred space, dedicated to the goddess of wisdom,
Athena
Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of ...
, had formerly been an
olive
The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'', meaning 'European olive' in Latin, is a species of small tree or shrub in the family Oleaceae, found traditionally in the Mediterranean Basin. When in shrub form, it is known as ''Olea europaea'' ...
grove, hence the expression "the groves of Academe".
In these gardens, the philosopher
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
conversed with followers. Plato developed his sessions into a method of teaching philosophy and in 387 BC, established what is known today as the
Old Academy
The Academy (Ancient Greek: Ἀκαδημία) was founded by Plato in c. 387 BC in Athens. Aristotle studied there for twenty years (367–347 BC) before founding his own school, the Lyceum. The Academy persisted throughout the Hellenistic p ...
.
By extension, ''academia'' has come to mean the accumulation, development and transmission of
knowledge
Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinc ...
across generations as well as its practitioners and transmitters. In the 17th century, British, Italian and French scholars used the term to describe types of institutions of higher learning.
Origins
Original Academy
![Raffael 058](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/Raffael_058.jpg)
Before ''Akademia'' was a school, and even before
Cimon
Cimon or Kimon ( grc-gre, Κίμων; – 450BC) was an Athenian ''strategos'' (general and admiral) and politician.
He was the son of Miltiades, also an Athenian ''strategos''. Cimon rose to prominence for his bravery fighting in the naval Batt ...
enclosed its precincts with a wall, it contained a sacred grove of olive trees dedicated to
Athena
Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of ...
, the goddess of
wisdom
Wisdom, sapience, or sagacity is the ability to contemplate and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense and insight. Wisdom is associated with attributes such as unbiased judgment, compassion, experiential self-knowledge, ...
, outside the city walls of ancient
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
. The archaic name for the site was ''Hekademia'', which by classical times evolved into ''Akademia'' and was explained, at least as early as the beginning of the 6th century BC, by linking it to an Athenian
hero
A hero (feminine: heroine) is a real person or a main fictional character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or Physical strength, strength. Like other formerly gender-specific terms (like ...
, a legendary "
Akademos
Academus or Akademos (; Ancient Greek: Ἀκάδημος), also Hekademos or Hecademus (Ἑκάδημος) was an Attic hero in Greek mythology. Academus, the place lies on the Cephissus, six stadia from Athens.
Place origins
Academus, the sit ...
". The site of ''Akademia'' was sacred to
Athena
Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of ...
and other immortals.
Plato's immediate successors as "scholarch" of ''Akademia'' were
Speusippus
Speusippus (; grc-gre, Σπεύσιππος; c. 408 – 339/8 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher. Speusippus was Plato's nephew by his sister Potone. After Plato's death, c. 348 BC, Speusippus inherited the Academy, near age 60, and remained ...
(347–339 BC),
Xenocrates
Xenocrates (; el, Ξενοκράτης; c. 396/5314/3 BC) of Chalcedon was a Greek philosopher, mathematician, and leader (scholarch) of the Platonic Academy from 339/8 to 314/3 BC. His teachings followed those of Plato, which he attempted to d ...
(339–314 BC),
Polemon (314–269 BC),
Crates (–266 BC), and
Arcesilaus (–240 BC). Later scholarchs include
Lacydes of Cyrene,
Carneades
Carneades (; el, Καρνεάδης, ''Karneadēs'', "of Carnea"; 214/3–129/8 BC) was a Greek philosopher and perhaps the most prominent head of the Skeptical Academy in ancient Greece. He was born in Cyrene. By the year 159 BC, he had begu ...
,
Clitomachus, and
Philo of Larissa ("the last undisputed head of the Academy"). Other notable members of ''Akademia'' include
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
,
Heraclides Ponticus
Heraclides Ponticus ( grc-gre, Ἡρακλείδης ὁ Ποντικός ''Herakleides''; c. 390 BC – c. 310 BC) was a Greek philosopher and astronomer who was born in Heraclea Pontica, now Karadeniz Ereğli, Turkey, and migrated to Athens. He ...
,
Eudoxus of Cnidus
Eudoxus of Cnidus (; grc, Εὔδοξος ὁ Κνίδιος, ''Eúdoxos ho Knídios''; ) was an ancient Greek astronomer, mathematician, scholar, and student of Archytas and Plato. All of his original works are lost, though some fragments are ...
,
Philip of Opus Philip (or Philippus) of Opus ( el, Φίλιππος Ὀπούντιος), was a philosopher and a member of the Academy during Plato's lifetime. Philip was the editor of Plato's ''Laws''. Philip of Opus is probably identical with the Philip of Medm ...
,
Crantor
Crantor ( el, Κράντωρ, ''gen''.: Κράντορος; died 276/5 BC) was a Greek philosopher and scholarch (leader) of the Old Academy, probably born around the middle of the 4th century BC, at Soli in Cilicia (modern-day Turkey).
Life
Cra ...
, and
Antiochus of Ascalon.
Neoplatonic Academy of Late Antiquity
After a lapse during the early Roman occupation, ''Akademia'' was refounded as a new institution of some outstanding Platonists of late antiquity who called themselves "successors" (''
diadochoi'', but of Plato) and presented themselves as an uninterrupted tradition reaching back to Plato. However, there cannot have actually been any geographical, institutional, economic or
personal continuity
Personal identity is the unique numerical identity of a person over time. Discussions regarding personal identity typically aim to determine the necessary and sufficient conditions under which a person at one time and a person at another time ca ...
with the original Academy in the new organizational entity.
[Gerald Bechtle, Bryn Mawr Classical Review of Rainer Thiel, ''Simplikios und das Ende der neuplatonischen Schule in Athen''. Stuttgart, 1999](_blank)
(in English).
The last "Greek" philosophers of the revived ''Akademia'' in the 6th century were drawn from various parts of the
Hellenistic
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
cultural world and suggest the broad
syncretism
Syncretism () is the practice of combining different beliefs and various school of thought, schools of thought. Syncretism involves the merging or religious assimilation, assimilation of several originally discrete traditions, especially in t ...
of the common culture (see ''
koine
Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...
''): Five of the seven ''Akademia'' philosophers mentioned by Agathias were
Syriac in their cultural origin: Hermias and Diogenes (both from Phoenicia), Isidorus of Gaza,
Damascius of Syria,
Iamblichus
Iamblichus (; grc-gre, Ἰάμβλιχος ; Aramaic: 𐡉𐡌𐡋𐡊𐡅 ''Yamlīḵū''; ) was a Syrian neoplatonic philosopher of Arabic origin. He determined a direction later taken by neoplatonism. Iamblichus was also the biographer of ...
of Coele-Syria and perhaps even
Simplicius of Cilicia.
The
emperor
An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...
Justinian
Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565.
His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovat ...
ceased the school's funding in AD 529, a date that is often cited as the end of
Antiquity
Antiquity or Antiquities may refer to:
Historical objects or periods Artifacts
*Antiquities, objects or artifacts surviving from ancient cultures
Eras
Any period before the European Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries) but still within the histo ...
. According to the sole witness, the historian
Agathias, its remaining members looked for protection under the rule of
Sassanid
The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named ...
king
Khosrau I in his capital at
Ctesiphon
Ctesiphon ( ; Middle Persian: 𐭲𐭩𐭮𐭯𐭥𐭭 ''tyspwn'' or ''tysfwn''; fa, تیسفون; grc-gre, Κτησιφῶν, ; syr, ܩܛܝܣܦܘܢThomas A. Carlson et al., “Ctesiphon — ܩܛܝܣܦܘܢ ” in The Syriac Gazetteer last modi ...
, carrying with them precious scrolls of literature and philosophy, and to a lesser degree of science. After a peace treaty between the Persian and the Byzantine empire in 532 guaranteed their personal security (an early document in the history of
freedom of religion
Freedom of religion or religious liberty is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. It also includes the freedom ...
), some members found sanctuary in the
pagan
Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Judaism. ...
stronghold of
Harran
Harran (), historically known as Carrhae ( el, Kάρραι, Kárrhai), is a rural town and district of the Şanlıurfa Province in southeastern Turkey, approximately 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of Urfa and 20 kilometers from the border cr ...
, near
Edessa
Edessa (; grc, Ἔδεσσα, Édessa) was an ancient city (''polis'') in Upper Mesopotamia, founded during the Hellenistic period by King Seleucus I Nicator (), founder of the Seleucid Empire. It later became capital of the Kingdom of Osroene ...
. One of the last leading figures of this group was Simplicius, a pupil of Damascius, the last head of the Athenian school.
It has been speculated that ''Akademia'' did not altogether disappear.
[Richard Sorabji, (2005), ''The Philosophy of the Commentators, 200–600 AD: Psychology (with Ethics and Religion)'', page 11. Cornell University Press] After his exile, Simplicius (and perhaps some others), may have travelled to
Harran
Harran (), historically known as Carrhae ( el, Kάρραι, Kárrhai), is a rural town and district of the Şanlıurfa Province in southeastern Turkey, approximately 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of Urfa and 20 kilometers from the border cr ...
, near
Edessa
Edessa (; grc, Ἔδεσσα, Édessa) was an ancient city (''polis'') in Upper Mesopotamia, founded during the Hellenistic period by King Seleucus I Nicator (), founder of the Seleucid Empire. It later became capital of the Kingdom of Osroene ...
. From there, the students of an academy-in-exile could have survived into the 9th century, long enough to facilitate the Arabic revival of the Neoplatonist commentary tradition in
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...
.
Ancient and medieval institutions
Ancient world
Greece and early Europe
In ancient Greece, after the establishment of the original Academy,
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
's colleagues and pupils developed spin-offs of his method.
Arcesilaus, a Greek student of Plato established the
Middle Academy
The Academy (Ancient Greek: Ἀκαδημία) was founded by Plato in c. 387 BC in Classical Athens, Athens. Aristotle studied there for twenty years (367–347 BC) before founding his own school, the Lyceum (classical), Lyceum. The Academy ...
.
Carneades
Carneades (; el, Καρνεάδης, ''Karneadēs'', "of Carnea"; 214/3–129/8 BC) was a Greek philosopher and perhaps the most prominent head of the Skeptical Academy in ancient Greece. He was born in Cyrene. By the year 159 BC, he had begu ...
, another student, established the
New Academy
The Academy (Ancient Greek: Ἀκαδημία) was founded by Plato in c. 387 BC in Athens. Aristotle studied there for twenty years (367–347 BC) before founding his own school, the Lyceum. The Academy persisted throughout the Hellenistic p ...
. In 335 BC,
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
refined the method with his own theories and established the
Lyceum in another gymnasium.
Africa
The
Musaeum,
Serapeum and
library of Alexandria
The Great Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world. The Library was part of a larger research institution called the Mouseion, which was dedicated to the Muses, th ...
Egypt was frequented by
intellectual
An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator or a ...
s from Africa, Europe and Asia studying various aspects of philosophy, language and mathematics.
The
University of Timbuktu was a medieval university in
Timbuktu
Timbuktu ( ; french: Tombouctou;
Koyra Chiini: ); tmh, label=Tuareg, script=Tfng, ⵜⵏⴱⴾⵜ, Tin Buqt a city in Mali, situated north of the Niger River. The town is the capital of the Tombouctou Region, one of the eight administrativ ...
, present-day Mali, which comprised three schools: the Mosque of Djinguereber, the Mosque of Sidi Yahya, and the Mosque of Sankore. During its zenith, the university had an average attendance of around 25,000 students within a city of around 100,000 people.
China
In China a higher education institution
Shang Xiang
Shang Xiang ({{zh, c=上庠, p=shàng xiáng, w=Shang Hsiang) was a school founded in the Yu Shun (虞舜) era in China. Shun (2257 BCE–2208 BCE), the Emperor of the Kingdom of Yu (虞, or 有虞/Youyu), founded two schools. One was Shang Xiang ( ...
was founded by
Shun
Shun may refer to one of the following:
*To shun, which means avoiding association with an individual or group
* Shun (given name), a masculine Japanese given name
*Seasonality in Japanese cuisine (''shun'', 旬)
Emperor Shun
* Emperor Shun ( ...
in the
Youyu era before the 21st century BC. The Imperial Central Academy at
Nanjing
Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...
, founded in 258, was a result of the evolution of Shang Xiang and it became the first comprehensive institution combining education and research and was divided into five faculties in 470, which later became
Nanjing University
Nanjing University (NJU; ) is a national public research university in Nanjing, Jiangsu. It is a member of C9 League and a Class A Double First Class University designated by the Chinese central government. NJU has two main campuses: the Xianl ...
.
In the 8th century another kind of institution of learning emerged, named
Shuyuan
The ''Shuyuan'' (), usually known in English as Academies of Classical Learning or simply Academies, were a type of school in Imperial China. Unlike national academies and district schools, ''shuyuan'' were usually private establishments built away ...
, which were generally privately owned. There were thousands of Shuyuan recorded in ancient times. The degrees from them varied from one to another and those advanced Shuyuan such as
Bailudong Shuyuan
The White Deer Grotto Academy (, Gan: Pak-Luk-Tung Su-yon, sometimes translated as White Deer Cave Academy or White Deer Hollow Academy) is a former school at the foot of Wulou Peak in Lushan, now in Jiujiang, Jiangxi province. It was one of th ...
and
Yuelu Shuyuan
The Yuelu Academy (also as known as the ''Yuelu Academy of Classical Learning'', ) is on the east side of Yuelu Mountain in Changsha, Hunan province, on the west bank of the Xiang River. As one of the four most prestigious academies over the las ...
(later become
Hunan University) can be classified as higher institutions of learning.
South Asia
Taxila
Taxila or Takshashila (; sa, तक्षशिला; pi, ; , ; , ) is a city in Punjab, Pakistan. Located in the Taxila Tehsil of Rawalpindi District, it lies approximately northwest of the Islamabad–Rawalpindi metropolitan area and ...
or
Takshashila
Taxila or Takshashila (; sa, तक्षशिला; pi, ; , ; , ) is a city in Punjab, Pakistan. Located in the Taxila Tehsil of Rawalpindi District, it lies approximately northwest of the Islamabad–Rawalpindi metropolitan area and ...
, in ancient
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
, modern-day Pakistan, was an early centre of learning, near present-day
Islamabad
Islamabad (; ur, , ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's ninth-most populous city, with a population of over 1.2 million people, and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital T ...
in the city of
Taxila
Taxila or Takshashila (; sa, तक्षशिला; pi, ; , ; , ) is a city in Punjab, Pakistan. Located in the Taxila Tehsil of Rawalpindi District, it lies approximately northwest of the Islamabad–Rawalpindi metropolitan area and ...
. It is considered one of the ancient universities of the world. According to scattered references which were only fixed a millennium later it may have dated back to at least the 5th century BC. Some scholars date Takshashila's existence back to the 6th century BC.
["History of Education", ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', 2007.] The school consisted of several monasteries without large dormitories or lecture halls where the religious instruction was most likely still provided on an individualistic basis. Takshashila is described in some detail in later
Jātaka
The Jātakas (meaning "Birth Story", "related to a birth") are a voluminous body of literature native to India which mainly concern the previous births of Gautama Buddha in both human and animal form. According to Peter Skilling, this genre is ...
tales, written in Sri Lanka around the 5th century AD.
It became a noted centre of learning at least several centuries BC, and continued to attract students until the destruction of the city in the 5th century AD. Takshashila is perhaps best known because of its association with Chanakya. The famous
treatise
A treatise is a formal and systematic written discourse on some subject, generally longer and treating it in greater depth than an essay, and more concerned with investigating or exposing the principles of the subject and its conclusions."Treat ...
Arthashastra
The ''Arthashastra'' ( sa, अर्थशास्त्रम्, ) is an Ancient Indian Sanskrit treatise on statecraft, political science, economic policy and military strategy. Kautilya, also identified as Vishnugupta and Chanakya, is ...
(
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
for The knowledge of
Economics
Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services.
Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...
) by Chanakya, is said to have been composed in Takshashila itself. Chanakya (or Kautilya), the
Maurya Emperor
Chandragupta and the
Ayurvedic
Ayurveda () is an alternative medicine system with historical roots in the Indian subcontinent. The theory and practice of Ayurveda is pseudoscientific. Ayurveda is heavily practiced in India and Nepal, where around 80% of the population rep ...
healer
Charaka studied at Taxila.
[Radha Kumud Mookerji (2nd ed. 1951; reprint 1989). ''Ancient Indian Education: Brahmanical and Buddhist'' (p. 478-489). Motilal Banarsidass Publ. .]
Generally, a student entered Takshashila at the age of sixteen. The
Vedas
upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''.
The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the ...
and the
Eighteen Arts
Eighteen or 18 may refer to:
* 18 (number), the natural number following 17 and preceding 19
* one of the years 18 BC, AD 18, 1918, 2018
Film, television and entertainment
* ''18'' (film), a 1993 Taiwanese experimental film based on the short s ...
, which included skills such as
archery
Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 The word comes from the Latin ''arcus'', meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In m ...
,
hunting
Hunting is the human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products (fur/hide (skin), hide, ...
, and
elephant
Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae an ...
lore, were taught, in addition to its
law school
A law school (also known as a law centre or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for becoming a lawyer within a given jurisdiction.
Law degrees Argentina
In Argentina, ...
,
medical school
A medical school is a tertiary educational institution, or part of such an institution, that teaches medicine, and awards a professional degree for physicians. Such medical degrees include the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS, M ...
, and school of
military science
Military science is the study of military processes, institutions, and behavior, along with the study of warfare, and the theory and application of organized coercive force. It is mainly focused on theory, method, and practice of producing mil ...
.
[
]
Nalanda
Nalanda (, ) was a renowned ''mahavihara'' (Buddhist monastic university) in ancient Magadha (modern-day Bihar), India.[Bihar
Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Be ...]
, India. It was founded in 427 in northeastern India, not far from what is today the southern border of Nepal. It survived until 1197 when it was set upon, destroyed and burnt by the marauding forces of . It was devoted to Buddhist studies, but it also trained students in fine arts, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, politics and the art of war.
The center had eight separate compounds, 10 temples, meditation halls, classrooms, lakes and parks. It had a nine-story library where monks meticulously copied books and documents so that individual scholars could have their own collections. It had dormitories for students, perhaps a first for an educational institution, housing 10,000 students in the university's heyday and providing accommodation for 2,000 professors. Nalanda University attracted pupils and scholars from Korea, Japan, China, Tibet, Indonesia, Persia and Turkey.
Persia
The geographical position of Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
allowed it to absorb cultural influences and ideas from both west and east. This include the spread of the Greek form of schools in the new Hellenistic cities built in Persia after the invasion of Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, wikt:Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Maced ...
.
Under the Sasanians
The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named ...
, Syriac became an important language of the administration and intellectuals, rivaling Greek. Several cities developed centers of higher learning in the Sasanian Empire, including Mosul
Mosul ( ar, الموصل, al-Mawṣil, ku, مووسڵ, translit=Mûsil, Turkish: ''Musul'', syr, ܡܘܨܠ, Māwṣil) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. The city is considered the second large ...
, al-Hira
Al-Hirah ( ar, الحيرة, translit=al-Ḥīra Middle Persian: ''Hērt'' ) was an ancient city in Mesopotamia located south of what is now Kufa in south-central Iraq.
History
Kingdom of the Lakhmids
Al-Hirah was a significant city in pre-Is ...
, and Harran
Harran (), historically known as Carrhae ( el, Kάρραι, Kárrhai), is a rural town and district of the Şanlıurfa Province in southeastern Turkey, approximately 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of Urfa and 20 kilometers from the border cr ...
(famous for the Pythagorean School of the Sabians
The Sabians, sometimes also spelled Sabaeans or Sabeans, are a mysterious religious group mentioned three times in the Quran (as , in later sources ), where it is implied that they belonged to the 'People of the Book' (). Their original ident ...
). The Grand School was the main center of learning in the Persian capital Ctesiphon
Ctesiphon ( ; Middle Persian: 𐭲𐭩𐭮𐭯𐭥𐭭 ''tyspwn'' or ''tysfwn''; fa, تیسفون; grc-gre, Κτησιφῶν, ; syr, ܩܛܝܣܦܘܢThomas A. Carlson et al., “Ctesiphon — ܩܛܝܣܦܘܢ ” in The Syriac Gazetteer last modi ...
, but little is known about it. Perhaps the most famous center of learning in Persia was the Academy of Gundishapur, teaching medicine, mathematics, astronomy, and logic. The academy was later instrumental in founding the Muslim city of Baghdad as a center of learning, and serving as the model for the first Muslim hospital (''bimaristan
A bimaristan (; ), also known as ''dar al-shifa'' (also ''darüşşifa'' in Turkish) or simply maristan, is a hospital in the historic Islamic world.
Etymology
''Bimaristan'' is a Persian word ( ''bīmārestān'') meaning "hospital", with '' ...
'') at Damascus.
Islamic world
Founded in Fes
Fez or Fes (; ar, فاس, fās; zgh, ⴼⵉⵣⴰⵣ, fizaz; french: Fès) is a city in northern inland Morocco and the capital of the Fès-Meknès administrative region. It is the second largest city in Morocco, with a population of 1.11 mi ...
, University of Al-Karaouine in the 9th century and in Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
, Al-Azhar University
, image = جامعة_الأزهر_بالقاهرة.jpg
, image_size = 250
, caption = Al-Azhar University portal
, motto =
, established =
*970/972 first foundat ...
in the 10th century, and in Mali, the University of Timbuktu in about 1100. Mustansiriya Madrasah in Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...
, Iraq was established in 1227 as a madrasah
Madrasa (, also , ; Arabic: مدرسة , pl. , ) is the Arabic word for any type of educational institution, secular or religious (of any religion), whether for elementary instruction or higher learning. The word is variously transliterated '' ...
by the Abbasid Caliph
The Abbasid caliphs were the holders of the Islamic title of caliph who were members of the Abbasid dynasty, a branch of the Quraysh tribe descended from the uncle of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, Al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib.
The family came t ...
al-Mustansir. Its library had an initial collection of 80,000 volumes, given by the Caliph. The collection was said to have grown to 400,000 volumes.
Medieval Europe
In Europe, the academy dates to the ancient Greeks and Romans in the pre-Christian era. Newer universities were founded in the 12th and 13th centuries, and the European institution of academia took shape. Monks and priests moved out of monasteries to cathedral cities and other towns where they opened the first schools dedicated to advanced study.
The most notable of these new schools were in Bologna
Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...
, Salamanca, Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
and Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
, while others were opened throughout Europe.
The seven liberal arts
Liberal arts education (from Latin "free" and "art or principled practice") is the traditional academic course in Western higher education. ''Liberal arts'' takes the term ''art'' in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically the ...
—the Trivium
The trivium is the lower division of the seven liberal arts and comprises grammar, logic, and rhetoric.
The trivium is implicit in ''De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii'' ("On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury") by Martianus Capella, but the ...
(Grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...
, Rhetoric
Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate parti ...
, and Logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...
), and the Quadrivium
From the time of Plato through the Middle Ages, the ''quadrivium'' (plural: quadrivia) was a grouping of four subjects or arts—arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy—that formed a second curricular stage following preparatory work in the ...
(Arithmetic
Arithmetic () is an elementary part of mathematics that consists of the study of the properties of the traditional operations on numbers— addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, exponentiation, and extraction of roots. In the 19th ...
, Geometry
Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...
, Music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...
, and Astronomy
Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...
)—had been codified in late antiquity
Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English ha ...
. This was the basis of the curriculum in Europe until newly available Arabic texts and the works of Aristotle became more available in Europe in the 12th century.
It remained in place even after the new scholasticism of the School of Chartres and the encyclopedic work of Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known wi ...
, until the humanism of the 15th and 16th centuries opened new studies of arts and sciences.
Renaissance academies in Italy
With the Neoplatonist revival that accompanied the revival of humanist studies, ''academia'' took on newly vivid connotations.
15th-century ''academies''
During the Florentine Renaissance, Cosimo de' Medici
Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici (27 September 1389 – 1 August 1464) was an Italian banker and politician who established the Medici family as effective rulers of Florence during much of the Italian Renaissance. His power derived from his wealth ...
took a personal interest in the new Platonic Academy
The Academy (Ancient Greek: Ἀκαδημία) was founded by Plato in c. 387 BC in Classical Athens, Athens. Aristotle studied there for twenty years (367–347 BC) before founding his own school, the Lyceum (classical), Lyceum. The Academy ...
that he determined to re-establish in 1439, centered on the marvellous promise shown by the young Marsilio Ficino
Marsilio Ficino (; Latin name: ; 19 October 1433 – 1 October 1499) was an Italian scholar and Catholic priest who was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance. He was an astrologer, a reviver of ...
. Cosimo had been inspired by the arrival at the otherwise ineffective Council of Florence
The Council of Florence is the seventeenth ecumenical council recognized by the Catholic Church, held between 1431 and 1449. It was convoked as the Council of Basel by Pope Martin V shortly before his death in February 1431 and took place in ...
of Gemistos Plethon, who seemed a dazzling figure to the Florentine intellectuals. In 1462 Cosimo gave Ficino a villa at Careggi
The Villa Medici at Careggi is a patrician villa in the hills near Florence, Tuscany, central Italy.
History
The villa was among the first of a number of Medici villas, notable as the site of the Platonic Academy founded by Cosimo de' Medici, w ...
for the academy's use, situated where Cosimo could see it from his own villa, and drop by for visits. The academy remained a wholly informal group, but one which had a great influence on Renaissance Neo-Platonism
Platonism, especially in its Neoplatonist form, underwent a revival in the Renaissance as part of a general revival of interest in classical antiquity. Interest in Platonism was especially strong in Florence under the Medici.
History
During the s ...
.
In Rome, after unity was restored following the Western Schism, humanist circles, cultivating philosophy and searching out and sharing ancient texts tended to gather where there was access to a library. The Vatican Library
The Vatican Apostolic Library ( la, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, it, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City. Formally es ...
was not coordinated until 1475 and was never catalogued or widely accessible: not all popes looked with satisfaction at gatherings of unsupervised intellectuals. At the head of this movement for renewal in Rome was Cardinal Bessarion, whose house from the mid-century was the centre of a flourishing academy of Neoplatonic philosophy and a varied intellectual culture. His valuable Greek as well as Latin library (eventually bequeathed to the city of Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
after he withdrew from Rome) was at the disposal of the academicians. Bessarion, in the latter years of his life, retired from Rome to Ravenna
Ravenna ( , , also ; rgn, Ravèna) is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. It was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire from 408 until its collapse in 476. It then served as the cap ...
, but he left behind him ardent adherents of the classic philosophy.
The next generation of humanists were bolder admirers of pagan culture, especially in the highly personal academy of Pomponius Leto, the natural son of a nobleman of the Sanseverino * Sanseverino (family): The Sanseverino are one of the historical families most famous in the Kingdom of Naples and all of Italy, having 300 strongholds, 40 counties, nine marquisates, twelve duchies and ten principalities primarily distributed in ...
family, born in Calabria
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but known by his academic name, who devoted his energies to the enthusiastic study of classical antiquity, and attracted a great number of disciples and admirers. He was a worshipper not merely of the literary and artistic form, but also of the ideas and spirit of classic paganism, which made him appear a condemner of Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
and an enemy of the Church. In his academy every member assumed a classical name. Its principal members were humanists, like Bessarion's protégé Giovanni Antonio Campani Giovanni Antonio Campani called Campanus (27 February? 1429 – 15 July 1477), a protégé of Cardinal Bessarion, was a Neapolitan-born humanist at the court of Pope Pius II, whose funeral oration he wrote, followed by a biography, flattering bu ...
(Campanus), Bartolomeo Platina
Bartolomeo Sacchi (; 1421 – 21 September 1481), known as Platina (in Italian ''il Platina'' ) after his birthplace (Piadena), and commonly referred to in English as Bartolomeo Platina, was an Italian Renaissance humanist writer and gastro ...
, the papal librarian, and Filippo Buonaccorsi
Filippo Buonaccorsi, called Callimachus, Callimico, Bonacurarius, Caeculus, Geminianensis (Latin: ''Philippus Callimachus Experiens'', ''Bonacursius''; , 2 May 1437 – 1 November 1496) was an Italian humanist, writer and diplomat active in Pola ...
, and young visitors who received polish in the academic circle, like Publio Fausto Andrelini of Bologna who took the New Learning to the University of Paris
, image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of Arms
, latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis
, motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin)
, mottoeng = Here and a ...
, to the discomfiture of his friend Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' wa ...
. In their self-confidence, these first intellectual neopagans
Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, is a term for a religion or family of religions influenced by the various historical pre-Christian beliefs of pre-modern peoples in Europe and adjacent areas of North Afric ...
compromised themselves politically, at a time when Rome was full of conspiracies fomented by the Roman barons and the neighbouring princes: Paul II (1464–71) caused Pomponio and the leaders of the academy to be arrested on charges of irreligion, immorality, and conspiracy against the Pope
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
. The prisoners begged so earnestly for mercy, and with such protestations of repentance, that they were pardoned. The Letonian academy, however, collapsed.
In Naples, the '' Quattrocento'' academy founded by Alfonso of Aragon and guided by Antonio Beccadelli was the ''Porticus Antoniana'', later known as the '' Accademia Pontaniana'', after Giovanni Pontano.
16th-century literary-aesthetic academies
The 16th century saw at Rome a great increase of literary and aesthetic academies, more or less inspired by the Renaissance, all of which assumed, as was the fashion, odd and fantastic names. We learn from various sources the names of many such institutes; as a rule, they soon perished and left no trace. In the 1520s came the '' Accademia degli Intronati'', for the encouragement of theatrical representations. There were also the academy of the " Vignaiuoli", or " Vinegrowers" (1530), and the ' (1542), founded by Claudio Tolomei
Claudio Tolomei (1492 in Asciano – 1556 in Rome) was an Italian philologist. His name in Italian is identical to that of Claudius Ptolemaeus, the 2nd-century Greek astronomer. He belonged to the prominent Tolomei family of Siena, and became a bi ...
under the patronage of Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici. These were followed by a new academy in the " Orti" or Farnese gardens. There were also the academies of the " Intrepidi" (1560), the " Animosi" (1576), and the "Illuminati
The Illuminati (; plural of Latin ''illuminatus'', 'enlightened') is a name given to several groups, both real and fictitious. Historically, the name usually refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on ...
" (1598); this last, founded by the Marchesa Isabella Aldobrandini Pallavicino
A marquess (; french: marquis ), es, marqués, pt, marquês. is a nobleman of high hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The German language equivalent is Markgraf (margrave). A woman w ...
. Towards the middle of the 16th century there were also the academy of the "Notti Vaticane
Notti may refer to:
* a type of tteok in Korean cuisine
* a surname; notable people with the name include:
** Emil Notti (born 1933), American engineer, activist and politician
** Emilio Notti (1891–1982), Italian painter
See also
*Netti (disam ...
", or "Vatican Nights
Vatican may refer to:
Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum
The Holy See
* The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...
", founded by St. Charles Borromeo; an "Accademia di Diritto civile e canonico", and another of the university scholars and students of philosophy (Accademia Eustachiana
Accademia (Italian for "academy") often refers to:
* The Galleria dell'Accademia, an art museum in Florence
* The Gallerie dell'Accademia, an art museum in Venice
Accademia may also refer to:
Academies of art
* The Accademia Carrara di Belle ...
). As a rule these academies, all very much alike, were merely circles of friends or clients gathered around a learned man or wealthy patron, and were dedicated to literary pastimes rather than methodical study. They fitted in, nevertheless, with the general situation and were in their own way one element of the historical development. Despite their empirical and fugitive character, they helped to keep up the general esteem for literary and other studies. Cardinals, prelates, and the clergy in general were most favourable to this movement, and assisted it by patronage and collaboration.
In Florence, the Medici again took the lead in establishing the Accademia e Compagnia delle Arti del Disegno in 1563, the first of the more formally organised art academies that gradually displaced the medieval artists' guild
A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...
s, usually known as the Guild of Saint Luke
The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Evangelist Luke, the patron saint of artists, who was ide ...
, as the bodies responsible for training and often regulating artists, a change with great implications for the development of art, leading to the styles known as Academic art
Academic art, or academicism or academism, is a style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art. Specifically, academic art is the art and artists influenced by the standards of the French Académie d ...
. The private Accademia degli Incamminati set up later in the century in Bologna
Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...
by the Carracci The Carracci were a family of Italian artists. Notable members include:
* Agostino Carracci (1557–1602), Italian painter and printmaker
* Annibale Carracci (1560–1609), Italian Baroque painter and brother of Agostino Carracci
* Ludovico Carra ...
brothers was also extremely influential, and with the Accademia di San Luca
The Accademia di San Luca (the "Academy of Saint Luke") is an Italian academy of artists in Rome. The establishment of the Accademia de i Pittori e Scultori di Roma was approved by papal brief in 1577, and in 1593 Federico Zuccari became its fir ...
of Rome (founded 1593) helped to confirm the use of the term for these institutions.
17th- and 18th-century academies in Europe
Gradually academies began to specialize on particular topics (arts, language, sciences) and began to be founded and funded by the kings and other sovereigns (few republics had an academy). And, mainly, since 17th century academies spread throughout Europe.
Literary-philosophical academies
In the 17th century the tradition of literary-philosophical academies, as circles of friends gathering around learned patrons, was continued in Italy; the " Umoristi" (1611), the " Fantastici (1625), and the " Ordinati", founded by Cardinal Dati and Giulio Strozzi
Giulio Strozzi (1583 - 31 March 1652) was a Venetian poet and libretto writer. His libretti were put to music by composers like Claudio Monteverdi, Francesco Cavalli, Francesco Manelli, and Francesco Sacrati. He sometimes used the pseudonym Luigi ...
. About 1700 were founded the academies of the " Infecondi", the " Occulti", the " Deboli", the " Aborigini", the " Immobili", the "Accademia Esquilina
Accademia (Italian for "academy") often refers to:
* The Galleria dell'Accademia, an art museum in Florence
* The Gallerie dell'Accademia, an art museum in Venice
Accademia may also refer to:
Academies of art
* The Accademia Carrara di Belle ...
", and others. During the 18th century many Italian cities established similar philosophical and scientific academies. In the first half of the 19th century some of these became the national academies of pre-unitarian states: the academy of Accesi became the Panomitan Academy of Buon Gusto (Trento
Trento ( or ; Ladin and lmo, Trent; german: Trient ; cim, Tria; , ), also anglicized as Trent, is a city on the Adige River in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol in Italy. It is the capital of the autonomous province of Trento. In the 16th centu ...
); the academy of Timidi became the Royal Academy of Mantua
Mantua ( ; it, Mantova ; Lombard language, Lombard and la, Mantua) is a city and ''comune'' in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the Province of Mantua, province of the same name.
In 2016, Mantua was designated as the Italian Capital of Culture ...
; the Accademia dei Ricovrati
The Accademia Galileiana, or "Galilean academy", is a learned society in the city of Padua in Italy. The full name of the society is , "Galilean academy of science, letters and the arts in Padova". It was founded as the in Padua in 1599, on the ...
became the Galileiana Academy of Arts and Science
The Accademia Galileiana, or "Galilean academy", is a learned society in the city of Padua in Italy. The full name of the society is , "Galilean academy of science, letters and the arts in Padova". It was founded as the in Padua in 1599, on the ...
( Padova); the academy of Dissonanti became the Royal Academy of Modena
Modena (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language#Dialects, Modenese, Mòdna ; ett, Mutna; la, Mutina) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern I ...
and the academy of Oscuri became the Royal Academy of Lucca.
Academies of the arts
The Académie de peinture et de sculpture in Paris, established by the monarchy in 1648 (later renamed) was the most significant of the artistic academies, running the famous Salon
Salon may refer to:
Common meanings
* Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments
* French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home
* Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment
Arts and entertainment
* Salon (P ...
exhibitions from 1725. Artistic academies were established all over Europe by the end of the 18th century, and many, like the Akademie der Künste
The Academy of Arts (german: Akademie der Künste) is a state arts institution in Berlin, Germany. The task of the Academy is to promote art, as well as to advise and support the states of Germany.
The Academy's predecessor organization was fo ...
in Berlin (founded 1696), the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid (founded 1744), the Imperial Academy of Arts
The Russian Academy of Arts, informally known as the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts, was an art academy in Saint Petersburg, founded in 1757 by the founder of the Imperial Moscow University Ivan Shuvalov under the name ''Academy of the Thre ...
in Saint Petersburg (1757), the Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...
in London (1768) and the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan (1776) still run art schools and hold large exhibitions, although their influence on taste greatly declined from the late 19th century.
A fundamental feature of academic discipline in the artistic academies was regular practice in making accurate drawings from antiquities, or from casts of antiquities, on the one hand, and on the other, in deriving inspiration from the other fount, the human form. Students assembled in sessions drawing the draped and undraped human form, and such drawings, which survive in the tens of thousands from the 17th through the 19th century, are termed ''académies'' in French.
Similar institutions were often established for other arts: Rome had the Accademia di Santa Cecilia
The Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia ( en, National Academy of St Cecilia) is one of the oldest musical institutions in the world, founded by the papal bull ''Ratione congruit'', issued by Sixtus V in 1585, which invoked two saints prom ...
for music from 1585; Paris had the Académie Royale de Musique from 1669 and the Académie Royale d'Architecture from 1671.
Linguistic academies
The Accademia degli Infiammati
The Accademia degli Infiammati ("Academy of the Burning Ones") was a short-lived but influential philosophical and literary academy in Padua, in northern Italy. It was founded in 1540 by Leone Orsini, and was dissolved somewhere between 1545 and 1 ...
of Padova and the Accademia degli Umidi, soon renamed the Accademia Fiorentina
The Accademia Fiorentina was a philosophical and literary academy in Florence, Italy during the Renaissance.
History
The Accademia Fiorentina was founded in Florence on 1 November 1540 as the Accademia degli Umidi, or "academy of the wet ones ...
, of Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
were both founded in 1540, and were both initially concerned with the proper basis for literary use of the ''volgare'', or vernacular language of Italy, which would later become the Italian language
Italian (''italiano'' or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Together with Sardinian, Italian is the least divergent language from Latin. Spoken by about 85 m ...
. In 1582 five Florentine literati gathered and founded the Accademia della Crusca
The Accademia della Crusca (; "Academy of the Bran"), generally abbreviated as La Crusca, is a Florence-based society of scholars of Italian linguistics and philology. It is one of the most important research institutions of the Italian language ...
to demonstrate and conserve the beauty of the Florentine vernacular tongue, modelled upon the authors of the Trecento. The main instrument to do so was the ''Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca
The ''Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca'' was the first dictionary of the Italian language, published in 1612 by the Accademia della Crusca. It was also only the second dictionary of a modern European language, being just one year later ...
''. The Crusca long remained a private institution, criticizing and opposing the official Accademia Fiorentina.
The first institution inspired by the Crusca was the Fruitbearing Society for German language, which existed from 1617 to 1680.
The Crusca inspired Richelieu
Richelieu (, ; ) may refer to:
People
* Cardinal Richelieu (Armand-Jean du Plessis, 1585–1642), Louis XIII's chief minister
* Alphonse-Louis du Plessis de Richelieu (1582–1653), French Carthusian bishop and Cardinal
* Louis François Armand ...
to found in 1634 the analogous Académie française
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
with the task of acting as an official authority on the French language
French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Nor ...
, charged with publishing the official dictionary of that language. The following year the Académie received letters patent from the king Louis XIII as the only recognized academy for French language.
In its turn the state established Académie was the model for the Real Academia Española
The Royal Spanish Academy ( es, Real Academia Española, generally abbreviated as RAE) is Spain's official royal institution with a mission to ensure the stability of the Spanish language. It is based in Madrid, Spain, and is affiliated with ...
(founded in 1713) and the Swedish Academy
The Swedish Academy ( sv, Svenska Akademien), founded in 1786 by King Gustav III of Sweden, Gustav III, is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, Royal Academies of Sweden. Its 18 members, who are elected for life, comprise the highest Swedish lang ...
(1786), which are the ruling bodies of their respective languages and editors of major dictionaries. It also was the model for the Russian Academy
The Russian Academy or Imperial Russian Academy (russian: Академия Российская, Императорская Российская академия) was established in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1783 by Empress Catherine II of Russia ...
, founded in 1783, which afterwards merged into the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Academies of sciences
After the short-lived Academia Secretorum Naturae The first scientific society, the Academia Secretorum Naturae was founded in Naples in 1560 by Giambattista della Porta, a noted polymath. In Italian it was called ''Accademia dei Segreti'', the Academy of the Mysteries of Nature, and the members re ...
of Naples, the first academy exclusively devoted to sciences was the Accademia dei Lincei
The Accademia dei Lincei (; literally the "Academy of the Lynx-Eyed", but anglicised as the Lincean Academy) is one of the oldest and most prestigious European scientific institutions, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rom ...
founded in 1603 in Rome, particularly focused on natural sciences.
In 1657 some students of Galileo
Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He was ...
founded the Accademia del Cimento
The Accademia del Cimento (Academy of Experiment), an early scientific society, was founded in Florence in 1657 by students of Galileo, Giovanni Alfonso Borelli and Vincenzo Viviani and ceased to exist about a decade later. The foundation of Acade ...
(Academy of Experiment) in Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
, focused on physics and astronomy. The foundation of academy was funded by Prince Leopoldo and Grand Duke
Grand duke (feminine: grand duchess) is a European hereditary title, used either by certain monarchs or by members of certain monarchs' families. In status, a grand duke traditionally ranks in order of precedence below an emperor, as an approxi ...
Ferdinando II de' Medici. This academy lasted after few decades.
In 1652 was founded the Academia Naturae Curiosorum by four physicians. In 1677, Leopold I, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a Polity, political entity in Western Europe, Western, Central Europe, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, dissolution i ...
, recognised the society and in 1687 he gave it the epithet ''Leopoldina'', with which is internationally famous.[Self-produced overview of the Leopoldina](_blank)
(accessed May 27, 2005), p. 7–8;
(accessed May 27, 2005)
So, it became the academy of sciences for the whole Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a Polity, political entity in Western Europe, Western, Central Europe, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, dissolution i ...
.
On 28 November 1660, a group of scientists from and influenced by the Invisible College (gathering approximately since 1645) met at Gresham College and announced the formation of a "College for the Promoting of Physico-Mathematical Experimental Learning", which would meet weekly to discuss science and run experiments. In 1662 Charles II of England
Charles II (29 May 1630 – 6 February 1685) was King of Scotland from 1649 until 1651, and King of England, Scotland and Ireland from the 1660 Restoration of the monarchy until his death in 1685.
Charles II was the eldest surviving child of ...
signed a Royal Charter
A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, bu ...
which created the "Royal Society of London", then "Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge".
In 1666 Colbert gathered a small group of scholars to found a scientific society in Paris. The first 30 years of the academy's existence were relatively informal, since no statutes had as yet been laid down for the institution. In contrast to Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
, the academy was founded as an organ of government. In 1699, Louis XIV
, house = Bourbon
, father = Louis XIII
, mother = Anne of Austria
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
, death_date =
, death_place = Palace of Vers ...
gave the academy its first rules and named it Académie royale des sciences.
Although Prussia was a member of Holy Roman Empire, in 1700 Prince-elector
The prince-electors (german: Kurfürst pl. , cz, Kurfiřt, la, Princeps Elector), or electors for short, were the members of the electoral college that elected the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
From the 13th century onwards, the prince ...
Frederick III of Brandenburg
Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a states of Germany, state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well as the country of Poland. With an ar ...
founded its own Prussian Academy of Sciences upon the advice of Gottfried Leibniz, who was appointed president.
During the 18th century many European kings followed and founded their own academy of sciences: in 1714 the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Bologna, in 1724 the Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...
, in 1731 the Royal Dublin Society
The Royal Dublin Society (RDS) ( ga, Cumann Ríoga Bhaile Átha Cliath) is an Irish philanthropic organisation and members club which was founded as the 'Dublin Society' on 25 June 1731 with the aim to see Ireland thrive culturally and economi ...
, in 1735 in Tuscany
Tuscany ( ; it, Toscana ) is a Regions of Italy, region in central Italy with an area of about and a population of about 3.8 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence (''Firenze'').
Tuscany is known for its landscapes, history, art ...
, in 1739 the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ( sv, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien) is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special ...
, in 1742 the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
{{Infobox organization
, name = The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
, full_name =
, native_name = Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab
, native_name_lang =
, logo = Royal ...
, in 1751 the Göttingen Academy of Sciences, in 1754 in Erfurt
Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits i ...
, in 1759 the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities
The Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (german: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften) is an independent public institution, located in Munich. It appoints scholars whose research has contributed considerably to the increase of knowledg ...
, in 1763 the Academia Theodoro-Palatina
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, f ...
in Heidelberg
Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...
, in 1779 the Sciences Academy of Lisbon, in 1783 the Royal Society of Edinburgh
The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...
, in 1782 the Accademia dei Quaranta The Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze (), or more formally L'Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze detta dei XL, and also called the Accademia dei XL (), is Italy's national academy of science. Its offices are located within the Villino Rosso, at the co ...
in Rome, in 1784 in Turin
Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...
.
This kind of academy lost importance after the university reform begun with the foundation of the University of Berlin
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative o ...
, when universities were provided with laboratories and clinics, and were charged with doing experimental research.
Academic societies
Academic societies or learned societies began as groups of academics who worked together or presented their work to each other. These informal groups later became organized and in many cases state-approved. Membership was restricted, usually requiring approval of the current members and often total membership was limited to a specific number. The Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
founded in 1660 was the first such academy. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
was begun in 1780 by many of the same people prominent in the American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...
. Academic societies served both as a forum to present and publish academic work, the role now served by academic publishing, and as a means to sponsor research and support academics, a role they still serve. Membership in academic societies is still a matter of prestige in modern academia.
Military academies
At first such institutions only trained the Artillery
Artillery is a class of heavy military ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during siege ...
and Military Engineering
Military engineering is loosely defined as the art, science, and practice of designing and building military works and maintaining lines of military transport and military communications. Military engineers are also responsible for logistics be ...
officers, like the ''Aula da Artilharia'' (founded in 1641) and the ''Aula de Fortificação'' (1647) in Lisbon, the Real Accademia di Savoia in Turin (opened in 1678), the Imperial Artillery Military Academy of Saint Petersburg (1698), the Royal Military Academy Woolwich (1741), the ''Real Colegio de Artilleria'' in Segovia (1764).
Starting at the end of the 16th century in the Holy Roman Empire, France, Poland and Denmark, many Knight academies were established to prepare the aristocratic youth for state and military service. Many of them lately turned into gymnasiums
A gymnasium, also known as a gym, is an indoor location for athletics. The word is derived from the ancient Greek term " gymnasium". They are commonly found in athletic and fitness centres, and as activity and learning spaces in educational ins ...
, but some of them were transformed into true military academies.
The Royal Danish Military Academy
The Royal Danish Military Academy ( da, Hærens Officersskole) educates and commissions all officers for the Royal Danish Army. The Military Academy function was initiated in 1713 by request of King Frederick IV on inspiration from the Naval Aca ...
began to educate all officers
An officer is a person who has a position of authority in a hierarchical organization. The term derives from Old French ''oficier'' "officer, official" (early 14c., Modern French ''officier''), from Medieval Latin ''officiarius'' "an officer," fro ...
for the Royal Danish Army
The Royal Danish Army ( da, Hæren, fo, Herurin, kl, Sakkutuut) is the land-based branch of the Danish Defence, together with the Danish Home Guard. For the last decade, the Royal Danish Army has undergone a massive transformation of structures ...
by request of King Frederick IV in 1713.
The École Militaire was founded by Louis XV of France
Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached ...
in 1750 with the aim of creating an academic college for cadet officers from poor families. The construction began in 1752, but the school did not open until 1760.
The Theresian Military Academy
The Theresian Military Academy (german: Theresianische Militärakademie, TherMilAk) is a military academy in Austria, where the Austrian Armed Forces train their officers. Founded in 1751, the academy is located in the castle of Wiener Neustadt ...
was founded on 14 December 1751 by Maria Theresa of Austria. Per year the academy accepted 100 noblemen and 100 commoners to start their education there.
These were the model for the subsequent military academies throughout Europe, like the ''Reale Accademia Militare'' of Naples in 1787 and the Military Academy Karlberg in 1792.
Modern use of the term ''academy''
The term is used widely today to refer to anything from schools to learned societies to funding agencies
Funding is the act of providing resources to finance a need, program, or project. While this is usually in the form of money, it can also take the form of effort or time from an organization or company. Generally, this word is used when a firm uses ...
to private industry associations.
National academies are bodies for scientists, artists or writers that are usually state-funded and often are given the role of controlling much of the state funding for research into their areas, or other forms of funding. Some use different terms in their name – the British Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
for example. The membership typically comprises distinguished individuals in the relevant field, who may be elected by the other members, or appointed by the government. They are essentially not schools or colleges, though some may operate teaching arms. The Académie Française
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
was the most influential pattern for these. Finland even has two separate "academies": Academy of Finland The Academy of Finland ( fi, Suomen Akatemia, sv, Finlands Akademi) is a governmental funding body for scientific research in Finland. It is based in Helsinki. Yearly, the Academy administers over 260 million euros to Finnish research activities. O ...
is a government-run funding agency, Suomalainen tiedeakatemia is a learned society.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motio ...
, which presents the annual Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
, is an example of a purely industry body using the name. College-type specialized academies include the Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke of ...
of the United Kingdom; the United States Military Academy
The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a fort, since it sits on strategic high groun ...
at West Point, New York; the United States Naval Academy
The United States Naval Academy (US Naval Academy, USNA, or Navy) is a federal service academy in Annapolis, Maryland. It was established on 10 October 1845 during the tenure of George Bancroft as Secretary of the Navy. The Naval Academy ...
; United States Air Force Academy
The United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) is a United States service academy in El Paso County, Colorado, immediately north of Colorado Springs. It educates cadets for service in the officer corps of the United States Air Force and Uni ...
; and the Australian Defence Force Academy
The Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) is a tri-service military Academy that provides military and academic education for junior officers of the Australian Defence Force in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), Australian Army and Royal Aus ...
. In emulation of the military academies, police in the United States are trained in police academies.
Because of the tradition of intellectual brilliance associated with this institution, many groups have chosen to use the word "academy" in their name, especially specialized tertiary educational institutions. In the early 19th century "academy" took the connotations that " gymnasium" was acquiring in German-speaking lands, of school that was less advanced than a college (for which it might prepare students) but considerably more than elementary. Early American examples are the prestigious preparatory schools of Phillips Andover Academy, Phillips Exeter Academy
(not for oneself) la, Finis Origine Pendet (The End Depends Upon the Beginning) gr, Χάριτι Θεοῦ (By the Grace of God)
, location = 20 Main Street
, city = Exeter, New Hampshire
, zipcode ...
and Deerfield Academy
Deerfield Academy is an elite coeducational preparatory school in Deerfield, Massachusetts. Founded in 1797, it is one of the oldest secondary schools in the United States. It is a member of the Eight Schools Association, the Ten Schools Admissi ...
. In England, "academy" had a specialized meaning for schools, but the Edinburgh Academy was more like the American examples. Academy was also used very loosely for various commercial training schools for dancing and the like.
Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...
organized public subscription performances of his music in Vienna in the 1780s and 1790s, he called the concert
A concert is a live music performance in front of an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, choir, or band. Concerts are held in a wide variety a ...
s "academies". This usage in musical terms survives in the concert orchestra Academy of St Martin in the Fields and in the Brixton Academy, a concert hall in Brixton, South London.
Academies proliferated in the 20th century until even a three-week series of lectures and discussions would be termed an "academy". In addition, the generic term "the academy" is sometimes used to refer to all of academia, which is sometimes considered a global successor to the academy of Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
.
French regional academies overseeing education
In France, regional academic councils called academies are responsible for supervising all aspects of education in their region. The academy regions are similar to, but not identical to, the standard French administrative regions. The rector of each academy is a revocable nominee of the Ministry of Education. These academies' main responsibility is overseeing primary
Primary or primaries may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels
* Primary (band), from Australia
* Primary (musician), hip hop musician and record producer from South Korea
* Primary Music, Israeli record label
Works
* ...
and secondary education, but public universities are in some respects also answerable to the academy for their region. However, French private universities are independent of the state and therefore independent of the regional academies.
Russian research academies
In Imperial Russia
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended th ...
and Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
the term "academy", or Academy of Sciences was reserved to denote a state research establishment, see Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...
. The latter one still exists in Russia, although other types of academies (study and honorary) appeared as well.
English school types
Tertiary education
From the mid-seventeenth to the 19th centuries, educational institutions in England run by nonconformist
Nonconformity or nonconformism may refer to:
Culture and society
* Insubordination, the act of willfully disobeying an order of one's superior
*Dissent, a sentiment or philosophy of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or entity
** ...
groups that did not agree with the Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
teachings were collectively known as " the dissenting academies". As a place at an English public school or university generally required conformity to the Church of England, these institutions provided an alternative for those with different religious views and formed a significant part of England's educational system.
University College London
, mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £143 million (2020)
, budget = ...
(UCL) was founded in 1826 as the first publicly funded English university to admit anyone regardless of religious adherence; and the Test and Corporation Acts, which had imposed a wide range of restrictions on citizens who were not in conformity to the Church of England, were abolished shortly afterwards, by the Catholic Relief Act of 1829.
Primary and secondary education
In 2000, a form of "independent state schools", called " academies", were introduced in England. They have been compared to US charter schools.[Rebecca Smithers, '']The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', July 6, 2005
"Hedge fund charity plans city academies"
They are directly funded from central government rather than through local councils, and are partly privately sponsored. Often the sponsors are from business, but some are sponsored by universities and charities. These schools have greater autonomy than schools run by the local councils. They are usually a type of secondary school, but some are "all through" schools with an integral primary school. Some of the early ones were briefly known as "city academies"—the first such school opening on 10 September 2002 at the Business Academy Bexley
Harris Garrard Academy (formerly Business Academy Bexley) is a 4–18 mixed, all-through school and sixth form with academy status in Thamesmead, Erith, Greater London, England. It was established in 2002 and is part of the Harris Federation. ...
.
The Queen's Speech, which followed the 2010 general election, included proposals for a bill to allow the Secretary of State for Education to approve schools, both Primary and Secondary, that have been graded "outstanding" by Ofsted
The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) is a Non-ministerial government department, non-ministerial department of Government of the United Kingdom, His Majesty's government, reporting to Parliament of the U ...
, to become academies. This was to be through a simplified streamlined process not requiring sponsors to provide capital funding.
In 2012, the UK government began forcing some schools which had been graded satisfactory or lower into becoming academies, unilaterally removing existing governing bodies and head teachers in some cases. An example was Downhills Primary School in Haringey, where the head teacher refused to turn the school into an academy. OFSTED were called in to assess the school, failed it, and both the head and the governing body were removed and replaced with a Government-appointed board despite opposition from the school and parents.
United States
Prior to the twentieth century, education was not as carefully structured in the United States as it is in the twenty-first. There was not a rigid division between high school and colleges. In many cases, educational records were not kept nor diplomas issued.
"Academia", in the United States, is an abstract term referring to post-secondary education, especially the most elite or liberal arts part of it. However, in the nineteenth century an academy, a much more common word in English, was what later became known as a high school; in most places in the U.S. there were no public schools above the primary level. Some older high schools, such as Corning Free Academy
Howard Greenley (1874–1963) was an architect who worked from the late 1800s well into the 20th century and known mainly for his work in New York City, Long Island, and Newport, Rhode Island. Greenley was a prominent figure in the architectural ...
, retained the term in their names (Corning Free Academy, demoted to a middle school
A middle school (also known as intermediate school, junior high school, junior secondary school, or lower secondary school) is an educational stage which exists in some countries, providing education between primary school and secondary school. ...
, closed in 2014). However, the United States Military Academy
The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a fort, since it sits on strategic high groun ...
is a college. A number of colleges began as (high school) academies.
In 1753, Benjamin Franklin established the academy and Charitable School of the Province of Pennsylvania. In 1755, it was renamed the college and Academy and Charitable School of Philadelphia. Today, it is known as the University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
. For the first time, academia was established as a secular institution. For the most part, church-based dogmatic points of view were no longer thrust upon students in the examination of their subjects of study. Points of view became more varied as students were free to wander in thought without having to add religious dimensions to their conclusions.
In 1819, Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...
and developed the standards used today in organizing colleges and universities across the globe. The curriculum was taken from the traditional liberal arts, classical humanism
Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry.
The meaning of the term "humani ...
and the values introduced with the Protestant Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
. Jefferson offered his students something new: the freedom to chart their own courses of study rather than mandate a fixed curriculum for all students. Religious colleges and universities followed suit.
The academy movement in the US in the early 19th century arose from a public sense that education in the classic disciplines needed to be extended into the new territories and states that were being formed in the Old Northwest, in western New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois. Dozens of academies were founded in the area, supported by private donations.
Germany
During the Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
in 18th-century Europe, the academy started to change in Europe. In the beginning of the 19th century Wilhelm von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (, also , ; ; 22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a Prussian philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin, which was named after ...
not only published his philosophical paper ''On the Limits of State Action'', but also directed the educational system in Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
for a short time. He introduced an academic system that was much more accessible to the lower classes. Humboldt's Ideal was an education based on individuality, creativity, wholeness, and versatility. Many continental European universities are still rooted in these ideas (or at least pay lip-service to them). They are, however, in contradiction to today's massive trend of specialization in academia.
Academic personnel
An ''academic'' is a person who works as a teacher or researcher at a university
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
or other higher education institution. An academic usually holds an advanced degree
An academic degree is a qualification awarded to students upon successful completion of a course of study in higher education, usually at a college or university. These institutions commonly offer degrees at various levels, usually including unde ...
. The term ''scholar
A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researche ...
'' is sometimes used with equivalent meaning to that of ''academic'' and describes in general those who attain mastery in a research discipline. It has wider application, with it also being used to describe those whose occupation was research prior to organized higher education.
Academic administrators such as university presidents
A chancellor is a leader of a college or university, usually either the executive or ceremonial head of the university or of a university campus within a university system.
In most Commonwealth and former Commonwealth nations, the chancellor is ...
are not typically included in this use of the term ''academic'', although many administrators hold advanced degrees and pursue scholarly research and writing while also tending to their administrative duties.
In the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, the term academic is approximately synonymous with that of the job title professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...
although in recent decades a growing number of institutions include librarian
A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users.
The role of the librarian has changed much over time, ...
s in the category of "academic staff".
In the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
, various titles of academic rank are used, typically research associate
Research associates are researchers (scholars and professionals) that usually have an advanced degree beyond a Master's degree.
In some universities/research institutes, such as Harvard/Harvard Medical School/Harvard School of Public Health, the ...
, research fellow (also senior research fellow and principal research fellow), lecturer
Lecturer is an List of academic ranks, academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. T ...
(also senior lecturer and principal lecturer), reader
A reader is a person who reads. It may also refer to:
Computing and technology
* Adobe Reader (now Adobe Acrobat), a PDF reader
* Bible Reader for Palm, a discontinued PDA application
* A card reader, for extracting data from various forms of ...
, and professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...
. The colloquial term don
Don, don or DON and variants may refer to:
Places
*County Donegal, Ireland, Chapman code DON
*Don (river), a river in European Russia
*Don River (disambiguation), several other rivers with the name
*Don, Benin, a town in Benin
*Don, Dang, a vill ...
is sometimes substituted for teaching staff at Oxford and Cambridge.
Structure
Academia is usually conceived as divided into '' disciplines'' or ''fields'' of study. These have their roots in the subjects of the medieval trivium
The trivium is the lower division of the seven liberal arts and comprises grammar, logic, and rhetoric.
The trivium is implicit in ''De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii'' ("On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury") by Martianus Capella, but the ...
and quadrivium
From the time of Plato through the Middle Ages, the ''quadrivium'' (plural: quadrivia) was a grouping of four subjects or arts—arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy—that formed a second curricular stage following preparatory work in the ...
, which provided the model for scholastic thought in the first universities in medieval Europe.
The disciplines have been much revised, and many new disciplines have become more specialized, researching smaller and smaller areas. Because of this, ''interdisciplinary
Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...
'' research is often prized in today's academy, though it can also be made difficult both by practical matters of administration and funding and by differing research methods of different disciplines. In fact, many new fields of study have initially been conceived as interdisciplinary, and later become specialized disciplines in their own right – a recent example is cognitive science.
Most academic institutions reflect the divide of the disciplines in their administrative
Administration may refer to:
Management of organizations
* Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal
** Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an administrative officer, administ ...
structure, being divided internally into ''departments'' or ''programs'' in various fields of study. Each department is typically administered and funded separately by the academic institution, though there may be some overlap and faculty members, research and administrative staff may in some cases be shared among departments. In addition, academic institutions generally have an overall administrative structure (usually including a president
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
and several deans) which is controlled by no single department, discipline, or field of thought. Also, the tenure system, a major component of academic employment and research in the US, serves to ensure that academia is relatively protected from political and financial pressures on thought.
Qualifications
The degree awarded for completed study is the primary academic qualification. Typically these are, in order of completion, associate's degree, bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...
(awarded for completion of undergraduate
Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-lev ...
study), master's degree
A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice. , and doctorate
A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...
(awarded after graduate or postgraduate
Postgraduate or graduate education refers to academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate ( bachelor's) degree.
The organization and stru ...
study). These are only currently being standardized in Europe as part of the Bologna process, as many different degrees and standards of time to reach each are currently awarded in different countries in Europe. In most fields the majority of academic researchers and teachers have doctorates or other terminal degrees, though in some professional
A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and skil ...
and creative fields it is common for scholars and teachers to have only master's degrees.
Academic conferences
Closely related to academic publishing is the practice of bringing a number of intellectuals in a field to give talks on their research at an academic conference, often allowing for a wider audience to be exposed to their ideas.
Conflicting goals
Within academia, diverse constituent groups have diverse, and sometimes conflicting, goals. In the contemporary academy several of these conflicts are widely distributed and common. A salient example of conflict is that between the goal to improve teaching quality and the goal to reduce costs. The conflicting goals of professional education programs and general education advocates currently are playing out in the negotiation over accreditation standards.
For example, the goals of research for profit and for the sake of knowledge often conflict to some degree.
Practice and theory
Putting theory into practice can result in a gap between what is learned in academic settings and how that learning is manifested in practical settings. This is addressed in a number of professional schools such as education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
and social work
Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social work ...
, which require students to participate in practica for credit. Students are taught to bridge the gap between theory and practice.
Not everyone agrees on the value of theory as opposed to practice. Academics are sometimes criticized as lacking practical experience and thus too insulated from the 'real world,' and some scholars avoid this criticism by labeling themselves as blue-collar scholar
A blue-collar scholar or blue-collar academic is a person who comes from a family or background of blue-collar workers who enters into the study and training of higher education as an undergraduate student or is an academician doing scholarly w ...
s to showcase their past lived experience related to their teaching and research. Academic insularity is colloquially criticized as being "ivory tower
An ivory tower is a metaphorical place—or an atmosphere—where people are happily cut off from the rest of the world in favor of their own pursuits, usually mental and esoteric ones. From the 19th century, it has been used to designate an e ...
"; when used pejoratively, this term is criticized as anti-intellectualism
Anti-intellectualism is hostility to and mistrust of intellect, intellectuals, and intellectualism, commonly expressed as deprecation of education and philosophy and the dismissal of art, literature, and science as impractical, politically mo ...
.
To address this split, there is a growing body of practice research
Practice research aka practice as research, practice based research or/and practitioner researcher is a form of academic research which incorporates practice in the methodology or research output.
Rather than seeing the relationship between pract ...
, such as the practice-based research network (PBRN) within clinical medical research
Medical research (or biomedical research), also known as experimental medicine, encompasses a wide array of research, extending from "basic research" (also called ''bench science'' or ''bench research''), – involving fundamental scientif ...
. Arts and humanities
Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...
departments debate how to define this emerging research phenomenon. There are a variety of contested models of practice research (practice-as-research, practice-based and practice through research), for example, screen media practice research.
Nepotism
Nepotism is frequent in academ
https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/sounding-board/academic-nepotism-good-thin
where it is frequent for professors to have their partners, and sometimes children, hired by the same faculty in which they work. Ironically, perhaps the most spectacular examples of such practice have occurred within the fields of ethics and analytic philosophy in general. David Shoemak
https://sites.google.com/site/dshoemakr/home], an associate editor of the noted journal 'Ethics', has been hired as Susan Linn Sage Professor of philosophy at Cornell's philosophy faculty while his father, Sydney Shoemak
is also Susan Linn Sage professor, now emeritus, at the same faculty. Thomas Byr
was a Phd student and then a post-doc at MIT's philosophy facul
while his father, Alex Byrne, was professor at the same facul
https://web.mit.edu/abyrne/www/byrneCV.pdf].
Town and gown
Universities are often culturally distinct from the towns or cities where they reside. In some cases this leads to discomfort or outright conflict between local residents and members of the university over political, economic, or other issues. Some localities in the Northeastern United States, for instance, have tried to block students from registering to vote as local residents—instead encouraging them to vote by absentee ballot at their primary residence—in order to retain control of local politics. Other issues can include deep cultural and class divisions between local residents and university students. The film '' Breaking Away'' dramatizes such a conflict.
Academic publishing
History of academic journals
Among the earliest research journal
An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and d ...
s were the Proceedings of Meetings of the Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
in the 17th century. At that time, the act of publishing academic inquiry was controversial, and widely ridiculed. It was not at all unusual for a new discovery to be announced as an anagram
An anagram is a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase, typically using all the original letters exactly once. For example, the word ''anagram'' itself can be rearranged into ''nag a ram'', also the word ...
, reserving priority for the discoverer, but indecipherable for anyone not in on the secret: both Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...
and Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of mathema ...
used this approach. However, this method did not work well. Robert K. Merton
Robert King Merton (born Meyer Robert Schkolnick; July 4, 1910 – February 23, 2003) was an American sociologist who is considered a founding father of modern sociology, and a major contributor to the subfield of criminology. He served as th ...
, a sociologist, found that 92 percent of cases of simultaneous discovery in the 17th century ended in dispute. The number of disputes dropped to 72 percent in the 18th century, 59 percent by the latter half of the 19th century, and 33 percent by the first half of the 20th century. The decline in contested claims for priority in research discoveries can be credited to the increasing acceptance of the publication of papers in modern academic journals.
The Royal Society was steadfast in its unpopular belief that science could only move forward through a transparent and open exchange of ideas backed by experimental evidence. Many of the experiments were ones that we would not recognize as scientific today—nor were the questions they answered. For example, when the Duke of Buckingham was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Society
Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...
on June 5, 1661, he presented the Society with a vial of powdered "unicorn
The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead.
In European literature and art, the unicorn has for the last thousand years o ...
horn". It was a well-accepted 'fact' that a circle of unicorn's horn would act as an invisible cage for any spider
Spiders ( order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species ...
. Robert Hooke
Robert Hooke FRS (; 18 July 16353 March 1703) was an English polymath active as a scientist, natural philosopher and architect, who is credited to be one of two scientists to discover microorganisms in 1665 using a compound microscope that ...
, the chief experimenter of the Royal Society, emptied the Duke's vial into a circle on a table and dropped a spider in the centre of the circle. The spider promptly walked out of the circle and off the table. In its day, this was cutting-edge research.
Current status and development
Research journals have been so successful that the number of journals and of papers has proliferated over the past few decades, and the credo of the modern academic has become " publish or perish". Except for generalist journals such as ''Science
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
'' or ''Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...
'', the topics covered in any single journal have tended to be narrow, and readership and citation have declined. A variety of methods for reviewing submissions exist. The most common involves initial approval by the journal, peer review
Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
by two or three researchers working in similar or closely related subjects who recommend approval or rejection as well as request error correction, clarification or additions before publishing. Controversial topics may receive additional levels of review. Journals have developed a hierarchy, partly based on reputation but also on the strictness of the review policy. More prestigious journals are more likely to receive and publish more important work. Submitters try to submit their work to the most prestigious journal likely to publish it to bolster their reputation and .
Andrew Odlyzko, an academician with a large number of published research papers, has argued that research journals will evolve into something akin to Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
forums over the coming decade, by extending the interactivity of current Internet preprint
In academic publishing, a preprint is a version of a scholarly or scientific paper that precedes formal peer review and publication in a peer-reviewed scholarly or scientific journal. The preprint may be available, often as a non-typeset versio ...
s. This change may open them up to a wider range of ideas, some more developed than others. Whether this will be a positive evolution remains to be seen. Some claim that forums, like markets, tend to thrive or fail based on their ability to attract talent. Some believe that highly restrictive and tightly monitored forums may be the least likely to thrive.
Academic dress
Gowns have been associated with academia since the birth of the university in the 14th and 15th centuries, perhaps because most early scholars were priest
A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particu ...
s or church officials. Over time, the gowns worn by degree-holders have become standardized to some extent, although traditions in individual countries and even institutions have established a diverse range of gown styles, and some have ended the custom entirely, even for graduation ceremonies.
At some universities, such as the Universities of Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
and Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
, undergraduates may be required to wear gowns on formal occasions and on graduation. Undergraduate gowns are usually a shortened version of a bachelor's gown. At other universities, for example, outside the UK or US, the custom is entirely absent. Students at the University of Trinity College at the University of Toronto wear gowns to formal dinner, debates, to student government, and to many other places.
In general, in the US and UK, recipients of a bachelor's degree are entitled to wear a simple full-length robe without adornment and a mortarboard
The square academic cap, graduate cap, cap, mortarboard (because of its similarity in appearance to the mortarboard used by brickmasons to hold mortar) or Oxford cap is an item of academic dress consisting of a horizontal square board fixed upo ...
cap with a tassel. In addition, holders of a bachelor's degree may be entitled to wear a ceremonial hood at some schools. In the US, bachelor's hoods are rarely seen. Bachelor's hoods are generally smaller versions of those worn by recipients of master's and doctoral degrees.
Recipients of a master's degree in the US or UK wear a similar cap and gown but closed sleeves with slits, and usually receive a ceremonial hood that hangs down the back of the gown. In the US the hood is traditionally edged with a silk or velvet strip displaying the disciplinary color, and is lined with the university's colors.
According to The American Council on Education "six-year specialist degrees (Ed.S.
The Education Specialist, also referred to as Educational Specialist or Specialist in Education (Ed.S. or S.Ed.), is a specialist degree in education and terminal professional degree in the U.S. that is designed to provide knowledge and theory in t ...
, etc.) and other degrees that are intermediate between the master's and the doctor's degree may have hoods specially designed (1) intermediate in length between the master's and doctor's hood, (2) with a four-inch velvet border (also intermediate between the widths of the borders of master's and doctor's hoods), and (3) with color distributed in the usual fashion and according to the usual rules. Cap tassels should be uniformly black."
Recipients of a doctoral degree tend to have the most elaborate academic dress, and hence there is the greatest diversity at this level. In the US, doctoral gowns are similar to the gowns worn by master's graduates, with the addition of velvet stripes across the sleeves and running down the front of the gown which may be tinted with the disciplinary color for the degree received. Holders of a doctoral degree may be entitled or obliged to wear ''scarlet'' (a special gown in scarlet) on high days and special occasions. While some doctoral graduates wear the mortarboard cap traditional to the lower degree levels, most wear a cap or ''Tudor bonnet'' that resembles a tam o'shanter, from which a colored tassel is suspended.
In modern times, in the US and UK, gowns are normally only worn at graduation ceremonies, although some colleges still demand the wearing of academic dress on formal occasions (official banquets and other similar affairs). In the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was more common to see the dress worn in the classroom, a practice which has now all but disappeared. Two notable exceptions are Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
and a society at Sewanee Sewanee may refer to:
* Sewanee, Tennessee
* Sewanee: The University of the South
* ''The Sewanee Review'', an American literary magazine established in 1892
* Sewanee Natural Bridge
* Saint Andrews-Sewanee School
See also
* Suwanee (disambiguati ...
, where students are required to wear formal academic dress in the examination room.
See also
References
Bibliography
* A. Leight DeNeef and Craufurd D. Goodwin, eds. ''The Academic's Handbook''. 2nd ed. Durham and London: Duke University Press
Duke University Press is an academic publisher and university press affiliated with Duke University. It was founded in 1921 by William T. Laprade as The Trinity College Press. (Duke University was initially called Trinity College). In 1926 Du ...
, 1995.
* Christopher J. Lucas and John W. Murry, Jr. ''New Faculty A practical Guide for Academic Beginners''. New York: Modern Language Association, 1992.
* John A. Goldsmith, John Komlosk and Penny Schine Gold. ''The Chicago Guide to Your Academic Career''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.
* William Germano. ''Getting it Published: A Guide for Scholars (And Anyone Else)Serious about Serious Books''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
* Kemp, Roger L. "Town and Gown Relations: A Handbook of Best Practices," McFarland and Company, Inc., Jefferson, North Carolina, USA, and London, England, UK (2013). ().
Further reading
* Alan Cameron, "The last days of the Academy at Athens," in ''Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society'' vol 195 (n.s. 15), 1969, pp 7–29.
Gerald Bechtle, Bryn Mawr Classical Review of Rainer Thiel, ''Simplikios und das Ende der neuplatonischen Schule in Athen''. Stuttgart, 1999
(in English).
* John Glucker, ''Antiochus and the Late Academy'', Göttingen 1978.
* Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, 1981. ''Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture, 1500–1900'' (New Haven: Yale University Press)
External links
Academia.edu
– Online community of academic scholars. Despite the .edu ending, it is a profit-making company, not a non-profit educational establishment. (The .edu
The domain name .edu is a sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The domain was implemented in 1985 for the purpose of creating a domain name hierarchy for organizations with a focus on education, even abl ...
has not been allowed to be used this way since 2001; academia.edu antedates that.)
An Academic costume code and an Academic ceremony guide
eto.academy
Online community web schools
provided b
Palinurus: The Academy and the Corporation
a web site from the University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...
'IIRAJ' – International Institute of Research and Journals
'Magistri et Scholares' – Academic News and Resources
Plato's Academy
from the Hellenic Ministry of Culture
* Italian Academies Database (IAD): http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/ItalianAcademies/
Website of the Italian Academies 1525–1700 Project
{{Authority control
Plato
School types