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A History of (Mainly) Elite Education
What with the end of college education, because AI, I wondered about the history of education. Starting with elite education.
Let’s start with King Tutenkhamun in Egypt, born 1342 BC. Google AI:
As a royal prince and subsequent pharaoh, King Tutankhamun received elite private tutoring from court scribes and priests. Because he ascended the throne around the age of nine, his education blended intense religious instruction—aimed at reinstating the traditional gods—with practical training in administration, statecraft, and military leadership.
And of course, there was Alexander the Great, born 366 BC. Google AI:
Before his formal academic training, Alexander was raised in the royal court, where he learned to read, write, ride, hunt, and play the lyre.
Then he and his pals, including Ptolemy, got a personal education from Aristotle, including philosophy, literature, science, medicine, practical statecraft and warfare.
So much for the kings. But Aristotle also ran the Lyceum, where students learned from walking around the grounds with Aristotle. Google AI:
Students and researchers explored a vast range of subjects, including natural science, zoology, physics, politics, and logic.
That’s all very well, but whatabout education before the invention of writing? Google AI says that “children learned directly from their families and communities. The curriculum focused entirely on survival, practical trades, and the transfer of cultural heritage.”
Observation and Imitation of parents and elders
Oral Tradition via storytelling, poetry, and song
Apprenticeship to master craftspeople, healers, or spiritual leaders
Moral and Social Values from elders and shamans through legends, ceremonies, and tribal rituals
Seems to me that education is still like that, only with writing and printing and electronics it is much easier to get an education.
With writing came libraries, at Pergamon and Alexandria. Once he got back from teaching the Iranians a lesson Ptolemy set up a library in Alexandria and scoured the world for manuscripts. He also had Hebrew scholars from Jerusalem come and translate the Bible into Greek. One product of the Alexandrian system was Hypatia, born in 350ish AD. She was a mathematician and philosopher.
Whatabout ancient Rome? Wikipedia:
Education in ancient Rome progressed from an informal, familial system of education in the early Republic to a tuition-based system during the late Republic and the Empire.
Whatabout Anglo-Saxon Britain? Google AI:
Education in Anglo-Saxon Britain was primarily an ecclesiastical privilege overseen by the church to train clergy and scribes. While the masses learned practical life skills through apprenticeships at home, formal monastic and cathedral schools offered a sophisticated Latin-based curriculum that made English scholarship among the finest in Europe.
Not much different from education in the Middle Ages. Google AI:
Formal schooling was largely reserved for the elite and aspiring clergy, with curriculum focused on Latin and religious studies. The majority of the population received no formal schooling, instead learning trades and agrarian skills through hands-on work.
In Elizabethan England, per Google AI, the elite had private tutors, the middle class in the cities learned the 3 Rs in Petty School and then “Latin, rhetoric, and classical literature” in Grammar School.
Then there is colonial America, per Google AI.
In the Puritan northeast, “Towns were legally required to establish schools and grammar schools to teach literacy and prepare boys for university.”
In the middle colonies, each church ran its school and “apprenticeships were very common.”
In the South education was reserved for the “plantocracy.”
Then we get to the 19th century and, eventually, government schools for all.
Whatabout universities? Wikipedia says they represented a move away from schools designed purely for the education of priests, starting with the University of Bologna in 1088 AD. So we can see them developing over time from schools to inculcate the state religion into schools to inculcate the secular ideology of the secular educated class.
My purpose in going through this is to think about the effect of AI.
Back in the day, without writing, education was about oral tradition and apprenticeship. But with writing and priests we got the highest stratum getting an education. But education was expensive: one teacher and a few students for Alexander the Great. One teacher and many students for the rest of us.
And it seems to me that with printing, we get an expansion of education, with libraries not just at Alexandria and in monasteries. Still, education and university is still an elite thing.
In the machine age we get universal education. But still with one teacher and many students. Even now, in the electronic age, we still have one teacher and many students.
But when we see teachers complaining that students are writing their assignments using AI, I suggest we are getting to the point where:
We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Teachers.
Or at least, not so many. Because today all a teacher needs to do is set up an assignment and let the kids use their laptops to research the answer using AI.
Yes, but, you say. This means that the kids don’t really learn anything; they just learn how to look up things on AI.
But I say that as long as the students know how to look up a topic on AI, then stop panicking and let the world turn.
For instance, I just whipped up a History of Education using Google AI and Wikipedia by entering search requests like “education in Elizabethan England.” I didn’t have to go examine the parchment scrolls in the library of Alexandria — or even the books at the local university library.
But suppose all I want to do is get a job in one of the trades. I wonder what would happen if I asked Google AI “how do I get qualified to work in the trades.”
This is not that hard.
| Tue, 19 May 2026 23:21:37 GMT |
Donroe Doctrine: Mike Waltz Did It
One thing that keeps ringing my bell is that President Trump by himself cannot be the author of all the strategic changes in the Trump 47 Administration.
Anyway, on Sunday I asked Grok who was pushing the Monroe Doctrine 2.0. And it said the following:
Vivek Ramaswamy
John Mearsheimer
Mike Waltz
OK, so Mike Waltz was National Security Advisor from January 20, 2025 to May 1, 2025. And then Trump made him UN Ambassador. Why?
On March 26, 2025, it was revealed by The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg that Waltz had inadvertently added him to a Signal group chat discussing the upcoming US strikes in Yemen targeting Houthi militia before they were publicly known.
And the global legacy media dove into the Signal chat thing like the partisan cheerleaders they are. So Trump moved Waltz to the UN.
Here’s Grok on Mike Waltz’s Donroe Doctrine advocacy:
As National Security Advisor in early 2025, he explicitly branded Trump administration priorities as “Monroe Doctrine 2.0.” In a notable Fox News appearance, he linked it to:
Taking on Mexican cartels.
Securing/controversial control over the Panama Canal.
Acquiring Greenland for Arctic security (countering Russo-Chinese threats).
Broader hemispheric dominance.
Leading of course to the Venezuela operation and the current pressure on the Castro regime in Cuba.
So, dear liberal friends, it looks like Mike Waltz got the Donroe Doctrine off and running anyway, despite your heroic effort to get rid of him.
But whatabout the Iran conflict? Grok thinks that Jared Kushner is behind it all.
Kushner “helped craft the Abraham Accords (normalizing Israel-Arab ties), which aimed to isolate Iran regionally.”
In early 2026 Kushner and Steve Witkoff led or participated in indirect U.S.-Iran nuclear discussions. Experts agreed that they were amateurs.
Kushner has been involved in post Epic Fury negotiations with Iran. Experts agree that he has conflicts of interest, because of his firm Affinity Partners.
OK. Now I get it. The whole point of Jared Kushner and the Abraham Accords has been to unite Israel and the Sunni Arabs so that, when the crunch came, they would be united with the United States against the mullah-cratic regime in Iran.
And I’d say it’s worked out pretty well so far. Especially now that Trump & Co. visited China last week and seemed to have got agreement that China wouldn’t be backing Iran.
What is interesting to me is that our Democratic friends are all saying that the Iran situation is a quagmire and Trump has botched it and bye-bye midterms.
I guess that we shall see. But gas prices.
| Tue, 19 May 2026 00:33:29 GMT |
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Christopher Chantrill
He runs usgovernmentspending.com, the go-to resource for government finance data, and is a frequent contributor to the American Thinker. He lives in Seattle, Washington. Click for more.
“I love this guy.” — Steve Ballmer
A Commoner Manifesto
Commoners have nothing to lose but their shame
Socialism promises equality but delivers scarcity.
Fixing roads is for poor people, while fixing the climate is for special people. — Zman
The simplest way to understand human society is as Three Layers such as Nobles, Yeomen, and Serfs.
My take on Three Layers is my Three Peoples Theory of Creatives, Responsibles, and Subordinates.
I believe that we moderns live in Three Worlds: the War World of politics, the Market World of the economy, and the Life World of family and neighborhood.
And the trouble with politics is that it reduces human society to a war against the enemy, as determined by Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt.
The world that we all live in today is the one created by the German Turn in philosophy, psychology, science, and meaning.
But our modern elite, the educated elite, has taken, I believe, a Wrong Turn and has imposed a cultural Great Reaction on the world, a lurch back to the primitive. This manifests in the elite’s conceited Activism Culture and its patronage of Subordinate people as its Little Darlings.
The principal reason for the elite’s Wrong Turn has been that it does not understand and does not want to understand how the Three Peoples’ Religions are necessarily different.
The root of the educated elite’s Wrong Turn is its conceit that it knows what the world needs. I think there is a better way; I call it “A Good Life Better than the Left”.
ABC of Politics – Activism Culture – “Anatomy of Revolution” – Allyism – Critical Theory – Downstream-ism – Dutch Finance – German Turn – Good Life – Great Reaction – Little Darlings – Perfect Plan – Women in the Public Square – Ruling Class – Three Layers – Three Peoples – Three Peoples Religion – Tribalism – Two Cultures – Wrong Turn
Today’s topic: Crane Brinton's The Anatomy of Revolution
