AN ACADEMY

An academy (Greek) is an institution of higher learning, research, or honorary membership. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 385 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, north of Athens, Greece.

Before the Akademia was a school, and even before Cimon enclosed its precincts with a wall (Plutarch Life of Cimon xiii:7), it contained a sacred grove of olive trees dedicated to Athena, the goddess of wisdom, outside the city walls of ancient Athens (Thucydides ii:34). The archaic name for the site was Hekademia, which by classical times evolved into Akademia and was explained, at least as early as the beginning of the 6th century BC, by linking it to an Athenian hero, a legendary "Akademos". The site of the Academy was sacred to Athena and other immortals.

Plato's immediate successors as "scholarch" of the Academy were Speusippus (347-339 BC), Xenocrates (339-314 BC), Polemon (314-269 BC), Crates (ca. 269-266 BC), and Arcesilaus (ca. 266-240 BC). Later scholarchs include Lacydes of Cyrene, Carneades, Clitomachus, and Philo of Larissa ("the last undisputed head of the Academy").Other notable members of the Academy include Aristotle, Heraclides Ponticus, Eudoxus of Cnidus, Philip of Opus, Crantor, and Antiochus of Ascalon.

Modern use of the term academy : - Because of the tradition of intellectual brilliance associated with this institution, many groups have chosen to use the word "Academy" in their name. In the early 19th century "academy" took the connotations that "gymnasium" was acquiring in German-speaking lands, of school that was less advanced than a college (for which it might prepare students) but considerably more than elementary. Early examples are the prestigious preparatory schools of Phillips Andover Academy, Phillips Exeter Academy and Deerfield Academy. Amherst Academy expanded with time to form Amherst College.

Other national academies include the Académie Française; the Royal Academy and Royal Academy of Music of the United Kingdom; the International Academy of Science; the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York; the United States Naval Academy; United States Air Force Academy; and the Australian Defence Force Academy. In emulation of the military academies, police in the United States are trained in police academies. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presents the annual Academy awards.

Mozart organized public subscription performances of his music in Vienna in the 1780s and 1790s, he called the concerts "academies." This usage in musical terms survives in the concert orchestra Academy of St Martin in the Fields and in the Brixton Academy, a concert hall in Brixton, South London.

Academies proliferated in the 20th century until even a three-week series of lectures and discussions would be termed an "academy." In addition, the generic term "the academy" is sometimes used to refer to all of academia, which is sometimes considered a global successor to the Academy of Athens.