The Gift of Education: Back to “Schole,” Part One

 As students enter into another year at academic institutions, it is easy for them to take their condition for granted. Excitement tinged with fears of new challenges and heavy workloads have weighed on the minds of pupils for thousands of years. Yet how perfunctory and even mundane this opportunity of learning can seem at times. When students weigh the tantalizing prospect of a longer break against long hours of study and labor toward an often amorphous goal, they can often overlook the blessings of education.

English, in addition to many other European languages, borrowed or adapted words from Ancient Greek or Latin to describe academic life (along with many other areas of life). Our word academy dates back to  Plato’s school in Athens, which, in turn, derived its name from a mythological story supposed to have occurred at that site, Hekademia. Our word philosophy means “lover of wisdom” and was ascribed to people with a special interest in intellectual arts and the pursuit of truth.

Yet the love of wisdom was not sufficient to make an educated man. Free time and ample resources to support the pupil during his studies was requisite to produce a scholar. Our words school, scholar, and many other similar terms come from the Attic Greek word schole, meaning “leisure.” So vital was the freedom of time and money that the very idea of the place where one was educated derived from them.

What does this mean for you? If you are fortunate enough to have had any significant time in elementary, middle, or high school, not to mention college, you are in the infinitesimally small fraction of people who have had the ability to set aside time from subsistence to feed your inner man.

Education provides the guidance of the soul and mind in pursuit of that which transcends the mundane. Indeed, the term education itself is derived from educare, meaning “to lead out.” Lead out from what? From the Cave, the darkness of ignorance, the lack of form that is the unknown? Whichever metaphor we use, the role of schole ought to be the freeing of the mind from the tyranny of the present.

Ignorance is the great darkness that surrounds us on all sides. Every piece of knowledge is a new fort taken in enemy territory, a spearhead into a vast unknown. Much of this uncharted territory may never be grasped, but every fact firmly apprehended and judiciously applied is a small victory over our baser nature.

So the next time you take that AP Bio exam or pour over the details of the signing of Magna Carta, take one moment to reflect on your condition: one of temporal and material liberty nobly employed.

Be sure to check back next week for part two of this series on the gifts of education.