[thaumasiotes]

> The university was originally for well-off children of aristocracy or those training for religious studies. Perhaps those students pursued "education" purely for education's sake... along with the "grand tour" of Europe, etc. Those young adults didn't have to get a job so the "purpose" of university schooling wasn't intermingled with impure motives of economics. (E.g. I get my rich dad's inheritance regardless of how well I learn Greek/Latin).

I'll restrict this comment to education for the aristocracy rather than religious functionaries. Its traditional function is well-understood, and bears little relationship to what you might think of as "education", the development of knowledge, today. The purpose of elite education is to acculturate the elite into a harmonious social group, with shared values and a shared cultural background -- such that, when two elites meet for the first time, they can interact comfortably and don't come across as off-putting to one another. So you have things like classics education; it doesn't really matter which texts are "classics", and their content is of no use in itself -- but as long as everyone has read the same "classic" works, they'll get each other's references and feel that they're all part of the same group.