Academies and Society in Southern Sung China

Conclusion

Conclusion  Benjamin Schwartz noted long ago the tension between the demands of personal self-cultivation and public service that was central to Confucianism .1 After the examination system was introduced in the T’ang, education was tied to the process of recruitment and selection for government office, thus privileging public service over personal self-cultivation . To prepare for the examinations, however, many students sought instruction from scholars in secluded retreats who carried on a tradition of private education that was linked to personal self-cultivation . The origins of academies lie in this tradition of private education, transformed during the Five Dynasties-Northern Sung era, when academies developed as schools where students were trained for recruitment into the government bureaucracy. The role of academies in state education was eclipsed by government schools once the Northern Sung state began to support an official school system, beginning in the mid-eleventh century. When the relationship between the examination system and schools became a subject of controversy in the context of Northern Sung politics, the examination system itself was a target of some critics. By the late twelfth century many critics of the examination system—and by extension, government schools— were also involved with the revival of academies. Men who founded or restored academies in this period voiced objections to the kind of education provided by official schools, arguing that the content of the examinations determined what was taught in these schools, thus undermining the broader humanistic goal of cultivating human character . Chu Hsi and other True Way thinkers associated with the academy movement sharply criticized both the examination system and government schools for distorting learning in the interests of seeking “profit and salary.” Chang Shih’s stress on the “completion of human talents” rather than pedantic literary exercises designed to secure examination success exemplifies the attitude of many True Way thinkers that the goal of education ought to be the cultivation of 199  human character. Not all commentary on contemporary education put the blame for what was wrong on the examination system, however. A wide spectrum of thinkers, including such diverse figures as Yeh Shih, Lu Yu, Chen Te-hsiu, and Lu Chiu-yuan, saw the examination system as simply a method of recruitment and selection, and therefore not the root of the problem.2 The real problem lay in the education of the shih and their failure to take seriously their responsibility as a cultural elite. The tension in Confucianism noted by Schwartz was reflected in a deep undercurrent of ambivalence that infused the academy movement in the thirteenth century and that was related to uncertainty over the proper role of the shih. Ambivalence was suggested, for example , by the use of White Deer Grotto Academy’s regulations as a model at Illumined Way for the conduct of school sacrifices and rites at the shrine to Ch’eng Hao, while instructions concerning study, discipline , and testing mirrored those at the prefectural school.3 Although the Southern Sung ideal of academy life may have originated in criticism of the examinations,4 by the thirteenth century academies were absorbed into the examination culture of Southern Sung society. Even Marchmount Hill, after its revival in the late twelfth century, was clearly tied to the prefectural school, despite the academy’s close association with Chang Shih. Both Marchmount Hill and White Deer Grotto, Chu Hsi's premier academy, were restored only with the approval and support of government authorities, and both provided training that prepared students to take the examinations. Other, less famed, academies, such as Purple Iris or White Egret Islet, were virtually indistinguishable from prefectural schools. There was a contradiction between the legacy of private education and the benefits of state recognition and support, between the ideal of the personal teacher-student relationship fostered by the academy and the institutional character of a formal school supported by the government.5 Although some academies retained the character of private schools, the granting of name plaques by the court and the allocation of land and other kinds of support were incentives that compromised the private nature of academies as the legacy of an earlier tradition. The politics of the academy movement reflected this C o n c l u s i o n  200  contradiction and were evident already in the negotiations surrounding the restoration of White Deer Grotto by Chu Hsi.6 The politicization of the academy movement as a whole, however, was...