Academies and Society in Southern Sung China

Introduction

Introduction  In 1259, Ma Kuang-tsu, prefect of Chien-k’ang (modern Nanking), assembled his colleagues to attend the opening convocation lecture in Spring Wind Hall at Illumined Way Academy, where the audience was said to number in the hundreds.1 Chou Ying-ho, a protégé of Ma Kuang-tsu and headmaster of the academy, delivered the lecture.2 Chou Ying-ho drew the topic for his talk from the opening passage of the Confucian Analects (“To learn with a constant perseverance and application”), exhorting his audience to take Confucius and the sages of antiquity as their guides in learning.3 He also quoted the eleventhcentury philosopher Ch’eng Hao, whose shrine was the foundation of the academy and whose writings were printed there in the same year (1259) for distribution to students. Chou Ying-ho donated his salary to subsidize the costs of printing the entire corpus of Ch’eng Hao’s works, which filled 167 woodblocks and were stored along with other classical texts in the academy library.4 Like the official government school and other public buildings, Illumined Way Academy was built on a central north-south axis, was surrounded by a wall, and was entered through a main gate at the south side. Along with the library and lecture hall, other main buildings on the academy campus included the Hall of Repose, which housed images of Confucius and his disciples and was used for the performance of school rites,5 and the Hall of Reverence, a place for eating and tea drinking. There were six student dormitories, residences for administrators and teachers, and other facilities, including a kitchen, storehouse, and bathhouse. The academy was supported by government allocations of land, grain, and cash, which provided student stipends and staff salaries.6 The regulations for the administration of Illumined Way were adapted from the late twelfth-century rules for White Deer Grotto Academy, as were the school rites held on the first and fifteenth of each lunar month in spring and autumn.7 In addition to stipulating 1  when and how school rites should be performed, the regulations at Illumined Way were concerned with the formal qualifications for student admission and with establishing standards for both academic work and behavior: Every ten days the headmaster entered the hall and gathered the students to receive lecture tallies. Lectures were repeated according to the regulations. There were thirty-eight lectures on the classics, and sixteen on the histories. They were all recorded on the lecture register. Each month there were three examinations: the first ten-day period [examination] was quesI n t r o d u c t i o n  2  Diagram of Illumined Way Academy, ca. 1250s The main gate is shown at the bottom (south). Directly inside is the shrine to Ch’eng Hao, followed by Spring Wind Hall. Behind that is the entrance to a garden with a pond, leading to the offices of the headmaster on the right (east) and the dean on the left (west). North of this is the Hall of Reverence and, finally , the Hall of Repose. Four student dormitories are located outside this inner structure, two on the west and two on the east. Source: Chou Ying-ho, comp., Ching-ting Chien-k’ang chih, Diagrams, 17. tions on the classics; the middle one was questions on histories ; the final one was preparation for the examinations. Those who excelled were recorded in the dormitory record of moral achievement. The Rector was in charge of keeping records of whether or not students improved their moral achievement. When going out or coming in, the regular students always had to wear a long gown. There was a register for requests for leave. Those who went out without registering were punished. As soon as they were received by the academy, the scholars and colleagues were not allowed to go out or request visits. Those who transgressed were criticized and punished. Those involved in litigations were given up to one day off. Those requesting over three months’ leave were recorded as lacking by the Dean and would not be allowed to participate. If without reason they did not visit the shrine, attend lectures, or prepare their lessons, up to three demerits were recorded in the register. If students went out in disregard of the rules, they would not be allowed to participate again.8 This brief glimpse of academy life in thirteenth...