Keep learning and still have a life

America's Statue of Liberty bears a torch and tablet inscribed with the date of the Declaration of Independence. The satue was designed in the late nineteenth century by Frenchmen Edouard Rene de Laboulaye and Frederic Bartholdi, who were inspired by Libertas, the goddess of freedom, who was worshipped in ancient Rome. Liberty was not the only popular symbol of America at the same time: the figure of Columbia had already supplanted a Native American princess as a symbol. The mythical Britannia is a man-made legend created to unify the English, Welsh, Scottish and the Irish in the seventeenth century. First mooted as a symbol under the reign of Elizabeth I, Britannia was revived under the leadership of Queen Victoria. Britain is depicted as a young woman holding Poseidon's three-pronged trident representing naval power.  Marianne (seen holding the French flag) is a symbol of liberty and reason in France. First mooted during the French revolution, she became a potent