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Σχολή

Etymology of the Word School

Our English word school comes to us through Old English scol from Latin schola from Greek σχολή schole. The word schole is akin to the Greek verb echein/schein ‘to have, to hold.’ Thus the prime and original meaning of σχολή in the most ancient Greek was ‘time held for yourself,’ that is, leisure time to use for learning important life insights, not job skills, but learning you chose to help you understand who you were and who you might become in an examined life. Greek σχολή and Latin schola came also to mean ‘sitting for a learned lecture from a philosopher’ and ‘school.’

Good luck trying to find that original meaning of school today in a North American high school or university, where such “pink” goals as ‘the meaning of my life’ would get you drummed out of your Greek letter society at once. Dolta Stigma Moo does not want any philosophizing going on when you could be learning sewer engineering, attending football games and, this week, enjoying fun hazing rituals like tasering nipples. Wadda ya mean: the meaning of life? Be a man! Grab an MBA! Run a big agricompany! Poison third-word children like a real stud!

Etymology of σχολή schole

Although schole can be translated as leisure, that is not what the word meant to literate Greeks of Athens in the time of Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle, in particular, spoke of σχολή ‘schole’ as the most useful of times, time you set aside for your learning. You, the elite individual, set this leisure time apart from daily routine, not for idleness, but for discussion, learning. Aristotle wrote: “We work in order to be at leisure.” Once at leisure, we try to learn what is valuable to know. In his Politics, Aristotle noted that “The first principle of all action is leisure. Both are required, but leisure is better than occupation and is its end.”

To Aristotle, leisure meant the opposite of do-nothing, thumb-twiddling, beer-guzzling, tv-watching downtime. Leisure was never idleness, but activity undertaken for its own sake: philosophy, aesthetic delectation, and religious worship are models. Some of us would have preferred that Ari left out wasting one’s time with religious worship.

An ancient Roman school

Ascholia?

Interestingly, the ancient Greek word for work, job, labour was: ascholia. It means literally ‘not leisure’ or ‘lack of leisure.’ The ancient Romans had a similar concept, using Latin roots. The Roman word for business was negotium, from which we get the English verb negotiate. Literally the Latin noun negotium means nec + otium = ‘not leisure.’

School All Over

Once introduced into European culture, Latin schola proved a popular word indeed, adopted in almost all the Romance, Teutonic and Celtic tongues: Old French escole, modern French école, Portuguese, Catalan escola, Spanish escuela, Italian scuola, Old High German scuola, modern German Schule, Dutch school, modern Frisian skoalle, Swedish skola, Danish skol, Modern Irish and Gaelic sgoil, Welsh ysgol, Breton skol, Russian школа ‘shkola’ and Modern Greek σχολείο ‘scholio.’ Of course, the modern Greek was not borrowed from Latin but was inherited directly from classical Greek σχολή.

A Schoolboys’ Rhyme from Victorian England

O Latin is a dead tongue,

As dead as it can be.

It killed the ancient Romans;

And now it’s killing me.