Recall the famous word concerning Plato — InternetStranger

No, I don't recall ever hearing that. Do you have a link to the source?

It's Alfred North Whitehead, of course, it's clear Aristotle was the student of Plato. Slightly less obvious is that Plato was the great synthesizer of the early Greeks, the first to bring it all together, and, more importantly perhaps, the first philosopher that we have more or less in his total output. The leap is to ask, what does it mean to set up a university? If it means, one needs a model for the curriculum, what to study, how to divide the sciences under study, and so forth, it comes clear why philosophy was known historically as the Queen of the Sciences, which meant, the collective title for all the sciences inclusive. Of course, in former times, grammar was as much a science as music, rhetoric, astronomy, or maths. The simple definition of science is something that is teachable that requires speech, rather than a handicraft. For this reason Plato and his epigones could set the older model, prior to the rise of the modern idea of science.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/academy/

From the above link, but also available through other sources.

"Sextus Empiricus enumerates five divisions of the followers of Plato. He makes Plato founder of the first Academy, Aresilaus of the second, Carneades of the third, Philo and Charmides of the fourth, Antiochus of the fifth. Cicero recognizes only two Academies, the Old and the New, and makes the latter commence as above with Arcesilaus. In enumerating those of the old Academy, he begins, not with Plato, but Democritus, and gives them in the following order: Democritus, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Parmenides, Xenophanes, Socrates, Plato, Speusippus, Xenocrates, Polemo, Crates, and Crantor. In the New, or Younger, he mentions Arcesilaus, Lacydes, Evander, Hegesinus, Carneades, Clitomachus, and Philo (Acad. Quaest. iv. 5). If we follow the distinction laid down by Diogenes, and alluded to above, the Old Academy will consist of those followers of Plato who taught the doctrine of their master without mixture or corruption; the Middle will embrace those who, by certain innovations in the manner of philosophizing, in some measure receded from the Platonic system without entirely deserting it; while the New will begin with those who relinquished the more questionable tenets of Arcesilaus, and restored, in come measure, the declining reputation of the Platonic school."

This might interest you as well, although I doubt that what it says really shows that his model of education is used much today.
http://infed.org/mobi/plato-on-education/

"This might interest you as well, although I doubt that what it says really shows that his model of education is used much today."

Of course I wasn't asserting that it is, or ever was, as it were, simply the model. Because there is change and modification. Evolution if you like. You know, at one point millions of years ago our ancestors selected for sexual differentiation, such still exists in much modified form. The history must still be there, as something genuine still unfolding. As ground. On the other hand, one can show many of the first beginning's features are still quite powerful, almost in the same form, such as the method of making taxonomies. Many things are so basic that we don't consider they had once to be invented, such as grammar, for instance. This is, so I am told, quite starkly true also of the wheel, which didn't exist in South America at the time of the Conquest.

It's Alfred North Whitehead, of course, — InternetStranger

I wondered why I had not heard it before, because that is not what was said. Again you have quoted incorrectly.

"The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them. His personal endowments, his wide opportunities for experience at a great period of civilization, his inheritance of an intellectual tradition not yet stiffened by excessive systematization, have made his writing an inexhaustible mine of suggestion. ... "

Slightly less obvious is that Plato was the great synthesizer of the early Greeks, the first to bring it all together, and, more importantly perhaps, the first philosopher that we have more or less in his total output. — InternetStranger

It is also pretty well known that a lot of the work that has been attributed to Plato was not actually written by him but was attributed to him because the author was unknown and the style of writing was similar to his.

"Again you have quoted incorrectly."

Interpreted, if you will. According to the present needs. That's why I said "The leap is to ask, what does it mean to set up a university?". In order to show the connection between the (modified) remark, and the issue under discussion.

"It is also pretty well known that a lot of the work that has been attributed to Plato was not actually written by him but was attributed to him because the author was unknown and the style of writing was similar to his."

For the purposes of the present point I think it's sufficient to use Plato as the title of a tradition. Embodied in the Academy which is said to have fallen in the sixth century common era. After all, the epigones, the copiers, are part of that tradition. They utilize his model, as Plato followed the ways of Socrates, the first Greek thinkers, and whatever he heard of the Persians, Egyptians and others.

You scratch at the surface for superficial comprehension and try to peddle that as wisdom. Real comprehension takes real work and I just don't see the effort in you. So I am happy to facilitate snarky remarks, but I don't feel you are worth serious thought.

Ouch!