There’s a plain Jane reason why that
four-year sheepskin is called a “bachelor’s degree.”
In the 11th century, the men
who went to college for their first degree attained a respectable mastery of
knowledge, but it wasn’t enough to set them up for good jobs.
Hence, they were generally unable to
support a family, and thus remained bachelors until they went further in their
studies.
In common parlance, they earned the “bachelor’s”
degree.
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| Seal of University of Bologna |
The first Western university was the
University of Bologna in Italy, established in 1088. The University of Paris
opened its doors about 60 years later, and the University of Oxford was created
in 1167.
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| 1644 sketch of Harvard's first seal |
There is some high-toned dispute about
the founding date of the first American “university.” Harvard, without a doubt,
was established in 1636 as the first “institution of higher learning” in the
English colonies.
DelanceyPlace.com cites Kevin Madigan’s
Medieval Christianity in explaining the impact of universities on the development
of Western civilization, starting about the mid-point of the Middle Ages.
By the way, the academic powerhouse we
think of as a “university” was originally an outgrowth of the medieval guilds,
and the name “university” is shorthand for universitas magistrorum et scholarium, that is, a "community of teachers and scholars.”
Sometimes a university is more than that, and sometimes,
less. That’s a story for another time.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016
All rights reserved.
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