--- title: Learning through the ages: schools, universities, libraries and science — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Learning through the ages: schools, universities, libraries and science», a lesson of the history course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Ryan moans about homework, so his teacher shows him a story from Sumer, about 4,000 years old, whe --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/64-learning-through-the-ages-schools-universities-libraries-and-science/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/) / Learning through the ages: schools, un… # Learning through the ages: schools, universities, libraries and science Lesson 64 of the history course of Mova's primary school: 21 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/history/64-learning-through-the-ages-schools-universities-libraries-and-science/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/64-learning-through-the-ages-schools-universities-libraries-and-science/0/) — Ryan moans about homework, so his teacher shows him a story from Sumer, about 4,000 years old, where a schoolboy gets punished for messy work and his dad has to sweeten the teacher. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/64-learning-through-the-ages-schools-universities-libraries-and-science/1/) — Ryan says «mood», slang for «same here, I feel that». - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/64-learning-through-the-ages-schools-universities-libraries-and-science/2/) — Maya's friend says the Library of Alexandria burned in one night and all ancient knowledge was lost. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/64-learning-through-the-ages-schools-universities-libraries-and-science/3/) — What really happened: it was damaged by fire in 48 BCE and probably faded slowly over centuries as money and scholars left. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/64-learning-through-the-ages-schools-universities-libraries-and-science/4/) — Historians still argue about the details. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/64-learning-through-the-ages-schools-universities-libraries-and-science/5/) — Yasmin says the oldest university is in Fez, Morocco; Tom says Oxford. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/64-learning-through-the-ages-schools-universities-libraries-and-science/6/) — Al-Qarawiyyin in Fez was founded in 859 by a woman, Fatima al-Fihri, long before Oxford; but who is «first» depends on what you count as a university, so it is a real argument. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/64-learning-through-the-ages-schools-universities-libraries-and-science/7/) — Think of your library card: free books for anyone. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/64-learning-through-the-ages-schools-universities-libraries-and-science/8/) — For most of history that was a dream. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/64-learning-through-the-ages-schools-universities-libraries-and-science/9/) — Most children worked on farms or in workshops, many girls got no school at all, and most people learned a trade by watching and doing, like Patrick's plumber uncle. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/64-learning-through-the-ages-schools-universities-libraries-and-science/10/) — Zoe's teacher says science means being ready to be wrong, and Zoe finds it lowkey weird, meaning a bit strange. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/64-learning-through-the-ages-schools-universities-libraries-and-science/11/) — But that is the trick: test an idea, and change it if the test says no. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/64-learning-through-the-ages-schools-universities-libraries-and-science/12/) — In Sumer about 4,000 years ago, boys trained as scribes in «tablet houses», copying signs again and again; most children did not go to school. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/64-learning-through-the-ages-schools-universities-libraries-and-science/13/) — The Library of Alexandria in Egypt was founded around 300 BCE, was damaged by a fire in 48 BCE and probably declined slowly over centuries; the details are argued about. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/64-learning-through-the-ages-schools-universities-libraries-and-science/15/) — For most of history most children worked; laws making school required for all came in many countries in the 1800s and 1900s, and about 250 million children are still out of school today. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/64-learning-through-the-ages-schools-universities-libraries-and-science/16/) — For centuries many girls got little or no schooling; today nearly as many girls as boys go to primary school, but in Afghanistan girls have been banned from secondary school since 2021. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/64-learning-through-the-ages-schools-universities-libraries-and-science/17/) — In France, Diderot and others published the Encyclopédie from 1751 to collect knowledge for ordinary readers; Wikipedia, started in 2001, is written by volunteers and free. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/64-learning-through-the-ages-schools-universities-libraries-and-science/18/) — In Britain a law of 1850 let towns fund free public libraries, and Andrew Carnegie paid for about 2,500 library buildings around 1900. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/64-learning-through-the-ages-schools-universities-libraries-and-science/19/) — For centuries most people learned jobs as apprentices, living and working with a master for years, while guilds of bakers, weavers and builders set the rules. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/64-learning-through-the-ages-schools-universities-libraries-and-science/20/) — Medieval universities trained mostly priests, lawyers and doctors; they used Latin and words from guilds: a «master» could teach, like a master craftsman, and students could travel between countries. - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/64-learning-through-the-ages-schools-universities-libraries-and-science/21/) — Ibn al-Haytham in Cairo, around the year 1000, tested ideas about light with experiments; science is a way of checking ideas, not just a list of facts. - ← previous: [Writing, laws and money: how strangers learned to trust each other](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/63-writing-laws-and-money-how-strangers-learned-to-trust-each-other/) - next →: [Light, machines and medicine: how the last 250 years changed a normal day](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/) - ↑ back to [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/)