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The [[University of Constantinople]], founded as an institution of higher learning in 425 and reorganized as a corporation of students in 849 by the regent [[Bardas]] of emperor [[Michael III]], is considered by some to be the earliest institution of higher learning with some of the characteristics we associate today with a university (research and teaching, auto-administration, academic independence, et cetera). If a university is defined as "an institution of higher learning" then it is preceded by several others, including the Academy that it was founded to compete with and eventually replaced. If the original meaning of the word is considered "a corporation of students" then this could be the first example of such an institution.<ref>Professor Jerome Bump, [http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/OriginUniversities.html The Origin of Universities], [[University of Texas at Austin]]</ref>
The [[University of Constantinople]], founded as an institution of higher learning in 425 and reorganized as a corporation of students in 849 by the regent [[Bardas]] of emperor [[Michael III]], is considered by some to be the earliest institution of higher learning with some of the characteristics we associate today with a university (research and teaching, auto-administration, academic independence, et cetera). If a university is defined as "an institution of higher learning" then it is preceded by several others, including the Academy that it was founded to compete with and eventually replaced. If the original meaning of the word is considered "a corporation of students" then this could be the first example of such an institution.<ref>Professor Jerome Bump, [http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/OriginUniversities.html The Origin of Universities], [[University of Texas at Austin]]</ref>


The first higher education institution in [[Middle Ages|medieval Europe]] were the [[University of Salerno]] (9th century), the [[Preslav Literary School]] and [[Ohrid Literary School]] in the Macedonian Kingdom (9th century).
The first higher education institution in [[Middle Ages|medieval Europe]] were the [[University of Salerno]] (9th century), the [[Preslav Literary School]] and [[Ohrid Literary School]]{{fact}} in the Macedonian Kingdom (9th century).


== Asia ==
== Asia ==

Revision as of 20:10, 14 March 2010

Rafael's School of Athens, depicting Plato's Academy.

Ancient higher-learning institutions which give learning an institutional framework date back to ancient times and can be found in many cultures. These ancient centres were typically institutions of philosphical education and religious instruction. They are to be distinguished from the modern Western-style university which is an organizational form originating in medieval Europe and adopted in other world regions since the onset of modern times.

Europe

The Platonic Academy (sometimes referred to as the University of Athens[1][2]), founded ca. 387 BC in Athens, Greece, by the philosopher Plato, lasted nine centuries with interruptions.[3] His successor Aristotle founded the Peripatetic school whose members met at the Lyceum gymnasium in Athens.

In early medieval Europe, bishops sponsored cathedral (or episcopal) schools and monasteries sponsored monastic schools, chiefly dedicated to the education of clergy. The earliest evidence of a European episcopal school is that established in Visigothic Spain at the Second Council of Toledo in 527.[4] These early episcopal schools, with a focus on an apprenticeship in religious learning under a scholarly bishop, have been identified in Spain and in about twenty towns in Gaul during the sixth and seventh centuries.[5] In addition to these episcopal schools, there were monastic schools which educated monks and nuns, as well as future bishops, at a more advanced level.[6] Around the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, some of them developed into autonomous universities. A notable example is when the University of Paris grew out of the schools associated with the Cathedral of Notre Dame, the Monastery of Ste. Geneviève, and the Abbey of St. Victor.[7][8]

The University of Constantinople, founded as an institution of higher learning in 425 and reorganized as a corporation of students in 849 by the regent Bardas of emperor Michael III, is considered by some to be the earliest institution of higher learning with some of the characteristics we associate today with a university (research and teaching, auto-administration, academic independence, et cetera). If a university is defined as "an institution of higher learning" then it is preceded by several others, including the Academy that it was founded to compete with and eventually replaced. If the original meaning of the word is considered "a corporation of students" then this could be the first example of such an institution.[9]

The first higher education institution in medieval Europe were the University of Salerno (9th century), the Preslav Literary School and Ohrid Literary School[citation needed] in the Macedonian Kingdom (9th century).

Asia

In Iran, the Academy of Gundishapur was an important medical centre of the 6th and 7th centuries AD. In China, Taixue was established in 3 CE, while the precursor of Nanjing University (National Central University) was founded in 259 AD. There were several other learning institutions, called Guozijian, in ancient China. In Korea, Taehak was founded in 372 and Gukhak was established in 682. The Sungkyunkwan University was founded by the Joseon Dynasty in 1398 as the successor to Gukjagam from the Goryeo Dynasty (AD 992). It was reopened as a private Western-style university in 1946. In Japan,Daigakuryo was founded in 671 and Ashikaga Gakko was founded in 9th century and restored in 1432. In Vietnam, the Quoc Tu Giam (國子監, literally "National University") functioned for more than 700 years, from 1076 to 1779. In Sri Lanka, Sunethradevi Pirivena, a centre of Buddhist learning in Sri Lanka, founded circa 1415 AD.

India

Several sites on the Indian subcontinent were centres of learning in ancient times. Many were Buddhist monasteries. The Nalanda University was established in the 5th century AD in Bihar, India.[10] Further centers include Odantapuri, in Bihar (circa 550 - 1040), Somapura, now in Bangladesh (from the Gupta period to the Muslim conquest), Jagaddala, in Bengal (from the Pala period to the Muslim conquest), Nagarjunakonda, in Andhra Pradesh, Vikramaśīla, in Bihar (circa 800-1040), Sharada Peeth, in modern day Pakistan Administered Kashmir, Valabhi, in Gujarat (from the Maitrak period to the Arab raids), Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh (8th century to modern times), Kanchipuram, in Tamil Nadu, Manyakheta, in Karnataka, Puspagiri, in Orissa and Ratnagiri, in Orissa.

The ancient centers of higher learning of present-day Pakistan were located at Taxila, near Islamabad, Pakistan (7th century BCE-460) and Sharada Peeth, in Pakistan Administered Kashmir.

Islamic world

If the definition of a university is assumed to mean an institution of higher education and research which issues academic degrees at all levels (bachelor, master and doctorate) like in the modern sense of the word, then the medieval Madrasahs, or more specifically the Jami'ah, founded in the 9th century would be the first examples of such an institution.[11][12][13] The University of Al Karaouine in Fez, Morocco is thus recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest degree-granting university in the world with its founding in 859 by Fatima al-Fihri.[14] Also in the 9th century, Bimaristan medical schools were founded in the medieval Islamic world, where medical degrees and diplomas were issued to students of Islamic medicine who were qualified to be a practicing Doctor of Medicine.[12][15] Al-Azhar University, founded in Cairo, Egypt in 975, was a Jami'ah university which offered a variety of post-graduate degrees (Ijazah),[12] and had individual faculties[16] for a theological seminary, Islamic law and jurisprudence, Arabic grammar, Islamic astronomy, early Islamic philosophy, and logic in Islamic philosophy.[12]

However, George Makdisi stresses the point that the Madrasahs only ever knew a degree in Islamic religious law, the Sharia, and in no academic field.[17]

Debate on definition

The question whether ancient higher-learning institutions were universities depends on how a university is defined. If a university is defined as an "academic degree-granting higher education institution" then what is now the University of Al-Karaouine (established in 859)[18] and what is now Al-Azhar University (established in 975)[12] can claim to be the oldest universities since the University of Constantinople, which was refounded in the 9th century as a secular institute of higher learning to support the state administration, did not grant degrees, and neither did the many higher institutes of learning in pre-modern China.

However, medieval specialists have defined the term university to mean a higher institution that is also a legally autonomous corporation, and by this definition universities are the unique creation of the West European High Middle Ages. By this definition, neither Early Medieval cathedral or monastic schools, nor Byzantine, Islamic, Chinese or Indian institutions of higher learning were universities, since they lacked the corporate legal structure of the later Western European university. Medieval specialists have coined the term "Islamic college" for institutions such as the medieval Al-Azhar madrasa, precisely to clarify the point that, unlike the medieval European university, pre-modern Islamic colleges were not corporations.[19] Others have coined the term "Islamic university" to refer to the earlier Madrasahs which resembled later European universities.[20] Toby Huff summarizes the difference as follows: "From a structural and legal point of view, the madrasa and the university were contrasting types. Whereas the madrasa was a pious endowment under the law of religious and charitable foundations, the universities of Europe were legally autonomous corporate entities that had many legal rights and privileges. These included the capacity to make their own internal rules and regulations, the right to buy and sell property, to have legal representation in various forums, to make contracts, to sue and be sued."[21]

References

  • Riché, Pierre. Education and Culture in the Barbarian West: From the Sixth through the Eighth Century. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1978. ISBN 0-87249-376-8.

Notes

  1. ^ Cubberley, E.P. 2004. The History of Education. Kessinger Publishing. p. 40. [1]
  2. ^ Harvard Educational Review, Vol. 9 [2]
  3. ^ Harris, C.L. Evolution, genesis and revelations, with readings from Empedocles to Wilson. SUNY Press, 1981. p. 34. [3]
  4. ^ Riché, Education and Culture, pp. 126-7.
  5. ^ Riché, Education and Culture, pp. 282-90.
  6. ^ Riché, Education and Culture, pp. 290-8.
  7. ^ Pedersen, Olaf. The First Universities: Studium Generale and the Origins of University Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1997. pp. 130-31. ISBN 0-521-59431-6
  8. ^ Haskins, Charles Homer. The Rise of Universities. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Pr., 1957. pp. 12-16. ISBN 0-8014-9015-4
  9. ^ Professor Jerome Bump, The Origin of Universities, University of Texas at Austin
  10. ^ Altekar, Anant Sadashiv (1965). Education in Ancient India, Sixth, Varanasi: Nand Kishore & Bros.
  11. ^ Makdisi, George (April–June 1989), "Scholasticism and Humanism in Classical Islam and the Christian West", Journal of the American Oriental Society, 109 (2): 175–182 [175–77], doi:10.2307/604423{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date format (link)
  12. ^ a b c d e Alatas, Syed Farid (2006), "From Jami`ah to University: Multiculturalism and Christian–Muslim Dialogue", Current Sociology, 54 (1): 112–32, doi:10.1177/0011392106058837
  13. ^ Edmund Burke (June 2009), "Islam at the Center: Technological Complexes and the Roots of Modernity", Journal of World History, 20 (2), University of Hawaii Press: 165–186 [180-3], doi:10.1353/jwh.0.0045{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  14. ^ The Guinness Book Of Records, 1998, p. 242, ISBN 0-5535-7895-2
  15. ^ John Bagot Glubb:

    By Mamun's time medical schools were extremely active in Baghdad. The first free public hospital was opened in Baghdad during the Caliphate of Haroon-ar-Rashid. As the system developed, physicians and surgeons were appointed who gave lectures to medical students and issued diplomas to those who were considered qualified to practice. The first hospital in Egypt was opened in 872 AD and thereafter public hospitals sprang up all over the empire from Spain and the Maghrib to Persia.

    (cf. Quotations on Islamic Civilization)
  16. ^ Goddard, Hugh (2000), A History of Christian-Muslim Relations, Edinburgh University Press, p. 99, ISBN 074861009X
  17. ^ Makdisi, George (April–June 1989), "Scholasticism and Humanism in Classical Islam and the Christian West", Journal of the American Oriental Society, 109 (2): 175–182 [176], doi:10.2307/604423{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date format (link):

    There was no other doctorate in any other field, no license to teach a field, except that of the religious law. To obtain a doctorate, one had to study in a guild school of law.
  18. ^ The Guinness Book Of Records, 1998, p. 242, ISBN 0-5535-7895-2
  19. ^ Toby Huff, Rise of Early Modern Science:Islam, China and the West 2nd ed.(Cambridge, 2003) p. 133-139; p. 149-159; 179-189.
  20. ^ Edmund Burke (June 2009), "Islam at the Center: Technological Complexes and the Roots of Modernity", Journal of World History, 20 (2), University of Hawaii Press: 165-186 [180-3], doi:10.1353/jwh.0.0045{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  21. ^ Toby Huff, Rise of Early modern science, 2nd ed. p. 179.

See also

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