Picture Day Friday: A Medieval University Class

A medieval university class c. 1350. Not very different today, is it, including that student asleep in the third row?

Nalanda University of India

In its heyday, the ancient University of Nalanda was the premier education institution of higher learning in the world, long before the universities of Oxford, Heidelberg, or Bologna even came into existence.

Nalanda was started in the 5th century, and it took 200 years for the original Nalanda to flourish into a leading center of learning. It was primarily a religious institution and taught Buddhism, medicine, philosophy, and mathematics. Thousands of students and scholars came from all over the world to study and to teach there. Extensive dormitories and kitchen facilities served to keep up with the influx of people. Big lecture halls as well as small ones served to meet the needs of the various courses taught there. The university was destroyed by invaders in 1193, leaving behind only ruins as testimonial to its glorious past.

An international effort by modern-day scholars is working towards achieving their vision to rebuild Nalanda into a world-class university once again. The Nalanda Mentor Group is chaired by Nobel Laureate, Professor Amartya Sen, who is also the university's chancellor. They draw inspiration from the essence of the old Nalanda: A place where cutting-edge knowledge was produced.

The first students arrive this year. Modern Nalanda will be teaching the modern subjects of humanities, economics, management, sustainable development, Asian integration, and oriental languages. As before, professors and students from all over the world have been attracted to Nalanda's storied past and ambitious present. They want to participate in the forefront of history in the making.

Picture Day Friday: Beeton's Complete Letter Writer

The Lost Treasures of the Library of Alexandria

The Library of Alexandria in Egypt has always been considered as one of the greatest libraries of the ancient world. "Oppression and fear of learning have obliterated almost all memories of ancient Alexandria," writes Carl Sagan in Cosmos. "Yet this place was once the brain and glory of the greatest city on the planet, the first true research institute in the history of the world." (Carl Sagan may be forgiven a lot, including his blindness towards the ancient, advanced civilizations of the East, namely, China and India.)

Scholars of Alexandria explored philosophy, literature, chemistry, biology, medicine, physics, astronomy, geography, mathematics, engineering, and history. "Science and scholarship had come of age [in Alexandria]," writes Sagan. Open-minded pursuit of knowledge for the sake of learning, questioning, refuting or digesting was the order of the day among the diverse peoples of the city. Encouraged by Alexander the Great, his namesake city, Alexandria became the center of learning, culture, and also commerce. The library also served as home to a host of international scholars, who were provided with research, travel, and lodging stipends for themselves and their families.

The Greek kings, who succeeded Alexander, were also serious about learning and research. The library consisted of research halls, a large dining hall, fountains and colonnades, botanical gardens, a zoo, dissecting rooms, an observatory, and meeting rooms where scholars could gather for critical discussion and debate. The library itself is known to have an acquisitions department and a cataloguing department located close to the stacks.

Of course, the heart of the library, as with any library, were the books. The original founders and succeeding directors combed the world's civilizations for books. They bought up libraries, copied books that could not be bought, wrested books from personal libraries, and yes, also stole ones that were otherwise unavailable. The scholars also produced new works that were An estimated half a millions books, in the form of papyrus scrolls, were shelved there.

Thus, the destruction of the Library of Alexandria led to an immeasurable loss of knowledge that affects us to this day. We know some of what we lost—some of it took nearly two thousand years to rediscover—some we don't know how to figure out, and most of it is gone forever. Imagine what we could've known of history, astronomy, biology, and engineering had the texts survived!

[Credit for these images goes to Living Moon.]

Picture Day Friday: Little Free Library

The mission of Little Free Library is to promote literacy and the love of reading by building free book exchanges worldwide.

It all started three years ago, when "Todd Bol came up with an idea to remember his mother, a teacher who had loved books and encouraged people to read. At his home in Hudson, WI, he built a box, made it waterproof and filled it with books. It looked like a miniature one-room schoolhouse, with a sign underneath that said 'Free Book Exchange.' Bol put it on a post outside of his house and invited neighbors to take a book, and return a book. 'People of all ages, men, women, kids came up and just loved the library,' Bol said. 'They got excited and they started coming up to me saying, "I’ll build one, do you need books?"'" And the idea took off. Now there are Little Free Libraries in at least 28 states and six countries. (More coverage on this story is HERE.)

Picture Day Friday

Alphabet letters from the medieval illuminated manuscript Book of Kells. Thanks to angieink.blogspot.com and michellegrayburngd.blogspot.com for the images. Click on each pictures to see a larger version.

Universities: Modern & Medieval

The origins of the idea of what a university is supposedly can be found in two European schools of thought. The Socratic-Platonic form believed that academies had the ideal of knowledge or truth as an aim. The Sophist form focused on the "know how," i.e., the utility of knowledge as the high road to success. Most modern universities subscribe to both schools of thought.

The first European universities that espoused public discussion of ideas and ideals were established in the medieval period in Bologna, Paris, and Oxford. These universities were free in the sense that open discussions were encouraged while the scholars remained protected from the rest of the society. "As self-governed organizations, the universities were granted freedom of research and teaching. In exchange, they spread knowledge which enhanced the reputation, wealth, and political importance of the community that sheltered them." The universities had as their highest goals the quest for truth and teaching.

However, the modern maxim of "publish or perish" has stifled the search for originality. The search for truth has been widely succeeded by the search for funding and money. "The more specialized the research becomes, the less its results become accessible to the public." And in all of this, teaching comes last, which is a tragedy for future scholars.

To solve some of the major problems faced by our universities, it behooves us to look back to the medieval universities and the ideas that allowed them to flourish. "The best remedy against the modern crisis is to regain the simplicity present at the heart of the original universities: of in and for the community while maintaining the global interests of society."

[All quotes are taken from Why the medieval idea of a community-oriented university is still modern.]

Picture Day Friday

Children of Korphe at their weekday studies in their tiny village on the windswept, bone-chilling cold Pamir mountains of Baltistan in northwest Pakistan.

One day, a lost, sick mountaineer stumbled into Korphe. He was taken in and cared for by these people who had nothing. When he was leaving, Greg Mortensen asked the wise man Haji Ali what he could do in return. Ali said, "Listen to the wind." Hearing the children's voices at their recitation, Mortensen understood. The children had a teacher who showed up thrice a week for a few hours, and they wrote in the dirt with sticks.

A year later, Mortensen returned with stones and stonemasons, and together, the village raised a school building equipped with books, pencils, and teachers.

Pennies for Peace is a program of the non-profit organization Central Asia Institute, founded by Greg Mortenson, for building more such schools in the region. He's the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace...One School At A Time.

The mission of Central Asia Institute focuses on community-based education, especially for girls, in the mountains of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other Central Asian countries. Research from the developing world reveals that a fifth grade education for a girl improves not only the basic indexes of health for her and her family, but also helps her spread the value of education within her community. Literacy, for both boys and girls, provides better economic opportunities in the future and neutralizes the power of extremist leaders.

For more than a year now, we've been saving all our change and sending periodic checks to Pennies for Peace. In addition, we donate, along with company match, a chunk of money. We've read and re-read and re-read again Greg Mortensen's books for adults and children.

One man...can do...so much.