University

The ancient world did not have universities. But it did have several centers for research and study at an advanced level that provided the opportunity for a limited amount of informal education. Plato (427–348 B.C.E.) after 388 B.C.E. founded an Academy in Athens in which men gathered to discuss broad philosophical issues through interrogation and dialogue. The Academy lasted until 529 C.E., albeit with many changes. Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.) had a circle of friends and pupils who gathered just outside Athens. After his death, Theophrastus (c. 372–c. 287 B.C.E. made it into a center, usually known as the Peripatetic School, for the study of the subjects that interested Aristotle, which meant practically everything from natural science to poetry, but especially philosophy. Neither the Academy nor the Peripatetic School, which lasted until the third century C.E., offered structured education or awarded degrees.

The museum and its library in Alexandria, Egypt, was the most important center for advanced learning in the Greco-Roman world. Museum meant a place where learned men cultivated the muses, not a collection of artifacts. Founded in A student consults with Plato. Mural painting by Puvis de Chavannes. While the ancient world did not have accredited universities, it did offer informal centers for education, such as the one founded in Athens, Greece, by Plato in the third century B.C.E.© BETTMANN/CORBIS the third century B.C.E. by Ptolemy I Soter (r. 305–283 B.C.E.), the museum provided support for writers but soon attracted scholars in many other fields, especially astronomy, mathematics, and philosophy. Ptolemy I added a library that attempted to obtain, or make copies of, the works of all known Greek authors. Scholars corrected and edited the texts, an important form of advanced academic scholarship. The museum of Alexandria had numerous scholars, some of whom attracted followers, but it did not offer formal education or confer degrees. The persecutions of Ptolemy VIII (r. 145–116 B.C.E.) drove some scholars away and ended the museum's greatest days, although it lasted until 651. The idea motivating Plato's Academy, Aristotle's Peripatetic School, and the museum and library of Alexandria was the advancement of high-level scholarship in many fields through the gathering of scholars and texts.

Between the eighth and eleventh centuries the Islamic world created the college, called masjid khan and later madrasa, a place where mature scholars taught law based on the Koran to younger men. Teachers, advanced students who assisted the master in teaching, and beginning students lived together for several years in inns attached to important mosques. But Islamic law colleges did not develop the corporate structure and legal identity of the university, and they did not influence the Christian West. Nor did Islam have organized institutions for medical and philosophical higher education. Distinguished Islamic scholars such as the medical scholar Ibn Sina (or Avicenna, 980–1037) and the philosopher and commentator on Aristotle, Ibn Rusd (Averroës, 1126–1198), did not hold teaching positions but were court physicians most of their adult lives. In similar fashion, Jewish students came to learn from eminent Jewish interpreters of the Talmud, the basic source for Jewish law, in German and northern French towns, especially in the twelfth century. But the Talmudic schools did not evolve into universities.