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Plato founded the Academy sometime between 390-380 BCE in Athens (Figure 1). Fundamentally, the school served as a place where Plato's philosophies would be taught.<ref>For more on the founding of the Academy, see: Press, Gerald A. 2007. Plato: A Guide for the Perplexed. Guides for the Perplexed. London ; New York: Continuum.</ref> The Academy was initially located in area that was a grove or garden of olive trees that included statues and nearby buildings. The term academy derives from Academus or Hecademus, a mythical hero the garden was dedicated to. This term becomes both the term for Plato's school but also our word for academy and academic.
[[File:Plato Academy MAN Napoli Inv124545.jpg|thumbnail|Figure 1. The Academy as depicted in a mosaic.]]
The idea of the Academy was to have an institution where dedicated scholars would meet, discuss, and lecture about the nature of the universe.<ref>For a history on the Academy, see: Reale, Giovanni, John R. Catan, and Giovanni Reale. 1990. Plato and Aristotle. A History of Ancient Philosophy, Giovanni Reale ; 2. Albany, NY: State Univ. of New York Press.</ref> Plato believed that knowledge was not attained by only contemplation but through discussion, teaching, and research. Plato initially gave many of the lectures and seminars, where he would also field questions from his select audience of scholars. The subjects focused upon were mathematics, natural science, astronomy, dialectics, philosophy, and politics. Plato was joined by other well known philosophers at the academy, including Aristotle before he founded his own Academy after he had a falling out with Palto's philosophies. While initially the academy functioned as a school that taught Plato's philosophies about the natural world, this changed by the mid-3rd century BCE.
==Continuity of the Academy==
