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The quadrivium comprised the four subjects taught in medieval universities after the trivium. The word is Latin, meaning "the four ways" or "the four roads," the completion of the Liberal arts.

At many ancient universities (eg Oxford) this would have been the principal postgraduate course leading to the degree of Master of Arts. After the MA the student could enter for Bachelor's degrees of the higher faculties, such as Music. To this day some of the postgraduate degree courses lead to the degree of Bachelor.

In medieval educational theory the trivium consisted of grammar, rhetoric, and logic. These were considered preparatory fields for the quadrivium, made up of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. In turn, the quadrivium was considered preparatory work for the serious study of philosophy and theology.

The quadrivium could be considered as the study of number: arithmetic was pure number, geometry was number in spaceThe word space has many meanings, including: Physics The definition of space in physics is contentious. Various concepts used to try to define space have included: the structure defined by the set of "spatial relationships" between objects a manifold defi, music number in timeFor alternate uses of "time", see Time (disambiguation). Time quantifies or measures the interval between events, or the duration of events. Time has long been perceived as a dimension in which each event has a definite (but not necessarily unique) positi, and astronomy number in space and timeIn special relativity and general relativity, time and three-dimensional space are treated together as a single four-dimensional manifold called spacetime . A point in spacetime may be referred to as an event . Each event has four coordinates t x y z ; or.

This schema is sometimes referred to as classical educationClassical education as understood and taught in the middle ages of western civilization is roughly based on the ancient Greek concept of Paideia. China had a completely different tradition of classical education, based in large part on Confucian and Taois, but it is more accurately a development of the 12th and 13th centuries rather than an organic growth from the educational systems of antiquity.

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