Biyong, the central building of the Guozijian complex in Beijing, was built in 1783. Photo: TUCHONG

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Beijing used to be a military city before the Khitan-led Liao Dynasty (907–1125), exhibiting a low level of civilization and education. After the Liao Dynasty, especially during the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties (1271–1911), Beijing became the nation’s political and cultural center and developed a formal educational system consisting of shuyuan (academies, usually funded by private parties), fuxue (local public schools) and the Guozijian (Imperial College).

 

Academies—shuyuan
Shuyuan, known as academies, are a distinctive type of school in ancient China, often referring to private establishments. Shuyuan first appeared as institutions to preserve books. It dates back to the Tang Dynasty (618–907), when Emperor Xuanzong ordered a group of scholars to collate the classics in the Qianyuan Hall in the eastern capital Luoyang in 717. Later the hall was transformed into an academy known as the Lizheng Xiushuyuan. In the Song Dynasty (960–1279), shuyuan became academies where scholars could teach and study.

Beijing in the Liao Dynasty, though short of academies as influential as the Yuelu Academy and the White Deer Grotto Academy of the Southern Song Dynasty, attracted many talented people from different parts of the country and created some high-quality academies. The earliest academy in Beijing was the Taiji Academy, established in the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368). The Taiji Academy was set up under the proposal of Yang Weizhong (1205–1259), a politician who served in the Mongolian court. Yang collected the Confucian classics and recruited literati during the war between the Song Dynasty and Mongolia. He sent those people and books to Beijing to establish the academy. The Taiji Academy was modeled on the administration of the Yuelu and the White Deer Grotto academies and taught Neo-Confucian teachings. It had 8,000 books in collections available for students. Many students became Neo-Confucian scholars, including Xu Heng, Hao Jing and Yao Shu. The Taiji Academy played an important role in promoting the spread of Neo-Confucianism in the north, making Beijing the center of academic activities and culture in northern China at that time.

During the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), some academies in Beijing got involved in political issues, in particular the Shoushan Academy, which was founded in 1622 by Zou Yuanbiao, a censor of the Censorate (a high-level supervisory agency in ancient China). At that time, the government was completely dominated by a eunuch named Wei Zhongxian (1568–1627). When Zou pleaded with the court to impeach Wei and his fellows, Wei responded with a wide-ranging attack on Zou and his supporters, accusing them of gathering people in the academy under an ulterior motive. In the end, the Shoushan Academy only lasted for a year and a half before being shut down.

 Academies during the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) experienced two distinctive periods. Before 1732, policies were adopted to oppress these educational institutes. Academies were widely banned. Later, when rulers changed their attitude towards education, they began to encourage establishing new academies and meanwhile strengthened their control over them. So academies prevailed in Beijing again. A state-owned academy named Shoushan Yixue (Shoushan Charity School) was built in the south of the city and originally served as a school for the children of poor families from the towns of Daxing and Wanping. In 1750, it was transformed into an academy for candidates of the Metropolitan exams and Palace exams, including juren (qualified graduates who passed the second degree of the imperial examination) and gongsheng (talent selected from those who had passed the initial degree of the imperial examination; they got accepted into the Imperial Academy and would then be eligible to sit the provincial or even the national exam directly). This academy also got a new name as the Jintai Academy. Its president was usually a renowned scholar. Exams were held on the first and the fifteenth day of every lunar month, overseen by the magistrate of the Shuntian Fu (the local government of the Shuntian Prefecture, an administrative region equivalent to today’s Beijing) and other government officials, who selected outstanding students and recommended them to the court.

 

Local public schools—fuxue
Local public schools, which were generally known as fuxue, were funded and operated by local governments. Beijing’s education system first appeared during the pre-Qin period. However, strictly speaking, the first nationwide public school system in China was established during the Han Dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE), with local schools established in the prefectures and main cities, including Beijing. During the Wei, Jin, and Southern & Northern Dynasties (220–589), northern China suffered long-standing disunion and hostilities, severely disrupting the development of education. After the short-lived Sui Dynasty, the social and political stability of the Tang Dynasty finally boosted education.In the Liao Dynasty, the responsibility for education was delegated to local governments. Beijing began to have its own local public schools.

Education in Beijng continued to make progress in the Jurchen-led Jin Dynasty (1115–1234). During the reign of Emperor Shizong, educational institutes were established all over the country and teachers were appointed by the government. The local educational system of Beijing took shape. There were 17 fuxue within the country of Jin, with Beijing’s as the predominant one.

Beijing became the national capital during the Yuan Dynasty, earning a new name as Dadu. Its local public school was called Dadu Luxue (lu is a prefecture-like division). This academy was not only accessable to noble students but to all social classes. The Qing organization of local public schools was based on the three levels of territorial administration—fu (prefectures below the province), zhou and xian (subprefectures)—set up by the Ming Dynasty.

 

Central institution of higher learning
The earliest central institution of higher learning was established during the Liao Dynasty. The Liao had five capitals and equipped each one with a central academy. The one named Taixue (literally known as the Imperial University) was located in its southern capital (today’s Beijing). The educational system of higher learning in Beijng during the Jin Dynasty consisted of Guozixue, Taixue and the Jurchen Guozixue and the Jurchen Taixue. Guozixue was set up after Emperor Wanyan Liang moved the empire’s main capital to the former Liao capital, Yanjing (present-day Beijing) in 1151. It had 200 students recruited from imperial clan and upper rank officials’ families (government officials in imperial China were classified into nine ranks, separated into upper, middle and lower classes, each composed of three ranks, making nine in total). Taixue had 400 students, including the descendants of the officials higher than the fifth rank and some youth recommended by the local governments of other regions. The central public learning system featured the Jurchen Guozixue and the Jurchen Taixue expressly for cultivating the Jurchen youth.

The Yuan rulers were open-minded on conducting the educational programs. They established guozixue for the people of the Han, Mongol and Huihui (a generic term for China’s Muslims during the Yuan Dynasty). The Mongolian Guozixue adopted the model of the Han Guozixue, and mainly taught the descendants of the Mongolian aristocratic families. The students of the Huihui Guozixue was predominantly composed of the Huihui people with a few Han and Mongol people. They learned Persian in the Huihui Guozixue.

During the Ming Dynasty, these three guozixue were replaced by the Guozijian (“College for the sons of the state”), which was known as the highest institution of academic research and learning in China’s traditional educational system, with the function of the administration of education. The Guoziijan consisted of two sectors, with one located in Beijing and another in Nanjing.

In the Qing Dynasty, the Guozijian in Nanjing was relegated to a local public academy, and the one in Beijing was kept as the only central public academy. The Qing adopted the educational system of the Ming’s central public academies and its length of schooling was three years. Since the Qing rulers attached great importance to the Guozijian, its education was remarkably improved and became famous nationwide for having and producing many prominent scholars and intellectuals.

During the development of education in Beijing, both the government and individual were heavily involved in the support of schooling. The shuyuan, most of which were sponsored by private parties, were complementary to the state-owned academies. They together made Beijing a top education performer. As a consequence, Beijing advanced to become the cultural center of the nation.

 

The article was edited and translated from the magazine Qian Xian. Zhang Yanli is an associate research fellow at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences.

(edited by REN GUANHONG)