Imperial China's Last Classical Academies: Social Change in the Lower Yangzi, 1864-1911 (review)

Reviews 169 Barry C. Keenan. Imperial China's Last ClassicalAcademies: Social Change in the Lower Yangzi, 1864-1911. With an introduction byFrederic Wakeman, Jr. Berkeley: University ofCalifornia, Institute ofEast Asian Studies, 1994. xii, 199 pp. Paperback $16.00, isbn 1-55729-041-5. This book has a dual purpose: to explore the operation ofclassical-learning schools in a period ofsocial transition in the latter part ofthe nineteenth century, and to show how developments in the local patronage ofeducation, along with provincial parliaments and merchant associations, contributed, toward the end of the Qing dynasty, to provincial claims of autonomous rule, which in turn constituted the grassroots support for the new republic in 1912. Keenan begins his study at the end of the Taiping Rebellion, when die Qing government sought to ease the social disruption caused by the rebellion through the reestablishment of schools, especially in the Lower Yangzi region where the devastation had been heavy. The total number ofacademies in Jiangsu Province rose from seventy in 1820 to 168 in 1900. And in southern Jiangsu alone, the number ofacademies rose from forty-seven in 1820 to 110 in 1900. The students at these academies were usually shengyuan who were preparing for the provinciallevel examination itself, or who were going to take the annual examination to maintain their shengyuan status in order to qualify for the provincial-level examination . Their stay in the schools was indefinite, and they received a stipend while they were there. The directors ofthe schools were government-appointed scholars who had usually worked in the government previously in some capacity. Although the purpose ofthe Qing government in establishing these schools was to restore social stability through cultural revival and to train prospective government personnel, the founders of the schools often continued die pre-Taiping emphasis on scholarship in the Han classics and refused to turn the schools into mere preparatory grounds for the imperial examinations. Keenan singles out for discussion three classical academies in southern Jiangsu Province: Nanjing (Southern Quintessence) Academy in Jiangyin, Longmen Academy in Shanghai, and Zhongshan Academy in Jiangning (Nanjing). He points out a new orientation in these schools that was in contrast to the practice of early Qing scholarship. Against the ineffective domestic and foreign policies of the government, the founders, including Zeng Guofan, governor ofJiangsu, Anhui, and Jiangxi (1864-1872), his successor Zuo Zongtang (1881-1884), and the early di-©1996 by University rectors 0fSouthern QuintessenceAcademy, emphasized a combination ofthe ' ll s study ofthe Han classics with a moral outiook and an eye for practical statecraft, the latter two objectives achievable through self-cultivation in Song Confucian 170 China Review International: Vol. 3, No. ?, Spring 1996 learning. In a discussion of die curriculum of these classical academies, Professor Keenan focuses primarily on the examinations and essay competitions that were the means to retain and give awards to students in the academies. The topics of these examinations were the classics, antiquities, and statecraft. The emphasis, however, was on scholarship. The essays on the classics written by many students at the Southern Quintessence Academy were included in the collection Huangqingjingjie xubian (Continuation of the Qing exegesis of the classics), compiled by Wang Xianqian, director of education at Jiangsu Province, and published by the printing house at Southern Quintessence Academy, continuing an early Qing tradition of academic research in the classics. A cultural elitism was obvious from the beginning. Southern Quintessence and Zhongshan were established as research academies, although despite this a small number of graduates became mathematicians later in life. Practical learning in all three academies was expressed through an emphasis on Confucian learning; as Huang Yizhou, second director of Southern Quintessence Academy, put it: clear scholarship was the foundation ofthe affairs of a country. This scholarship came from the Way, pointed out by Confucius, clarified by Zhu Xi, and rendered understandable through philological exegesis (pp. 87, 91). To protect this cultivation of an elite culture from the shortsighted self-interest of the local gentry, the founders barred local financial patronage ofthe three academies. Financing for the academies came from, among other sources, the collection of likin, a commercial tax levied on the merchants by the county prefect, and from Zuo Zongtang's appropriation ofthe...