To humans, learning is like breathing–it comes naturally.  What a human learns, however, is not natural and depends on the needs of the individual, the time she lives in, and what is available for her to learn. A thousand years ago, ‘book’ knowledge was the province of the Church and of the elite (usually male).   Over the next two hundred years, formal education became more widespread.  Cambridge University, for example, was founded in 1209 by a group of men dissatisfied with Oxford. When a man went to the university, his education began with the seven liberal arts:  Latin grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music.   After he received his Master of Arts, he could choose to study law, medicine, philosophy, or theology, upon which he would receive his doctorate. Knowledge, however, is not necessarily just ‘book learning’.  While this afternoon my Read more…