Medieval curricula: Trivium and Quadrivium

 The three quotes that stood out to me the most from this reading was: 

1. “Paris, Oxford, and Cambridge "systematically discouraged all technical instruction, holding that a university education should be general and not technical."

I think that this quote is referring to how our education system, especially the prestigious institutions are failing to teach knowledge and theories for the sake of teaching and passing on this information. It is rather taught as a way to apply this knowledge to what the students are trying to do as an occupation in the future and making sure they are taught the necessary skills for it. I do understand that this is what institutions are set out to do, however, not everything in life is about learning for a specific outcome but instead learning should be a universal privilege that people can just ponder on and observe what has been taught to them. 

2. “Logistic was practical and utilitarian, a study for children and slaves; logic was a liberal art, a study for free men”

3. "The very word "liberal" implies that these arts belonged to the education of free man, not to the technological training of slaves."

The concept of liberal art was a concept used in Medevil Europe to denote the use of Liberal education. Which is a system of education, which aimed at the cultivation of free human beings by using the curriculum of the two parts: Trivium and Quadrivium. I think that this quote is what is based on this idea of Liberal education where free men were able to study for the purpose of being knowledgeable and for philosophical purposes rather than for them to be able to use this knowledge in a practical way for a specific job for example. I think that the people who were not free men, such as the slaves were focused on doing all the practical work such as farming and construction at the time. This also shows how the social system was very focused on Hierarchy and social status. 






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