Europe is blessed with a long history of achievement. Not many places had advanced Universities in 1636AD. Utrecht in the Netherlands did. To recognize 300 years, instead of say showing an old building, why not call fourth the Roman Goddess of Wisdom Minerva, to show that the value of learning is even a longer and richer tradition. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
Minerva appears in the seals of many Universities, perhaps the most prominent one the University of Heidelberg in Germany. Usually she appears with her pet owl. The owl is missing here and also on the Seal of the Utrecht University itself. Another odd place that Minerva appears is on the money of the Confederate States of America. In Roman times, Minerva had a secondary role as a Patron of strategic defensive warfare, something the the Confederacy was deeply involved in.
Todays stamp is issue A35, a 6 cent stamp issued by the Netherlands on May 15th, 1936. It was a two stamp issue in different denominations. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.
At it’s founding, Utrecht was the third university in the Netherlands. It was hoped that the University would give the city more stability, the Rhone River was constantly shifting and threatening flooding. The University started small with just a few dozen students and offered Philosophy training to all plus advanced teaching in Theology, Medicine, and the Law. Very unusually for the time, Utrecht admitted a female student prominent young artist Anna Maria van Schurman. In Lecture Halls she sat behind a screen so she could not be seen by other male students.
Around 1850, Utrecht was able to achieve some prominence in the field of the hard sciences. The school innovated the use of laboratories for learning. By then the leaders were all male, but who knows what went on behind the screens.
Today the Utrecht University has 31,000 students. According to the Shanghai Ranking, it is the best University in the Netherlands, the 13th best in Europe, and the 49th best in the world. I wonder how Minerva would feel that such world rankings now emanate from Shanghai.
Well my drink is empty. There is still some time to decide, but I wonder how the Netherlands will remember 400 years of Utrecht in 2036. I hope they don’t just print up the Shanghai Rankings on a stamp. Yes more modern and I suppose it is important where young Chinese decide to apply or not apply. Somewhere though, we seem to have lost some of the majesty. Come again tomorrow for another story to be learned from stamp collecting.