Research On The Relationship Between The Ancient Academy And The Imperial Examination

Ancient Academy (Shu-yuan书院) , a unique form of educational organization , which came forth in the late Tang Dynasty and grew up into the educational and academic center with perfect systems established after Song Dynasty. Since Imperial Examination(Ke-ju科举) came into being in Sui Dynasty, it had been increasingly important and was regarded as the chief system by the government for selecting officials, and as the main ladder for scholar to win promotion in the officialdom.Ancient Academy is closely related with Imperial Examination. Scholars at the end of T'ang Dynasty lived in seclusion to study in the mountain and forestry, which is the origin of Ancient Academy, a new educational organization. Ancient Academy is based on Imperial Examination. Ancient Academy became the base for spreading Neo-Confucianism. Ancient Academy not only served the Imperial Examination by cultivating talents but also laid theoretical basis for choosing more talents with both ability and moral integrity for Imperial Examination .The teaching of Ancient Academy was similar in contents with the teaching of Government Education after the Li Zong (宋理宗) came to throne. From then on, the main function of Ancient Academy returned to serve for Imperial Examination.In the Yuan Dynasty, the philosophy school of Er-cheng (二程 ) and Zhuxi 's (朱熹) had been spread by being instructed in Ancient Academy, which laid a solid academic foundation for its becoming a primary content of Imperial Examination. Establishment, restoration, instruction and lectures, and proponents of ancient academy were not only powerful exponential of resuming institution of selecting talent by imperial examination, but also powerful vindicator of imperial examination institution. In the mid and late Yuan Dynasty, The Cheng's Study Calendar in Per Annum by Cheng Duanli (程端礼) became the theory for Ancient Academy to do instruction for Imperial Examination, which further documented the rationality that ancient academy served the Imperial Examination. In the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang(朱元璋) had excluded Ancient Academy from Imperial Examination, through implementing the culture and education policy which Imperial Examination must be conducted by school. Therefore, Ancient Academy remained inactive for a century or so. In the late Ming Dynasty, with the gradual decline of teaching function of government education, Ancient Academy had took on important task of cultivating talent for Imperial Examination. Wang Mingyang (王阳明 ) , Zhan Ruoshui (湛苦水) and________Research on the Relationship between the Ancient Academy and the Imperial Examination________so forth, who were masters atXin Xue ( ), had also persisted in unification of giving lectures and Imperial Examination, and had encouraged students to take part in Imperial Examination. These actions had obviously, made ancient academy trend serving Imperial Examination late in Ming Dynasty.Both state-run and private Ancient Academy gave instructions for Imperial Examination; the Ancient Academy which gave lectures belonging to the school of Cheng and Zhu philosophy also turned to serve for the Imperial Examination, taking the task of cultivating talents for examination as its main function, and developed a fairly perfect system that instructed knowledge of Imperial Examination. Although the Ancient Academy of Jingxue( didn't make the Imperial Examination learning its teaching content, and even objected to it, while the fact was that the Jingxue benefited the students for their examinations, and Ancient Academy was the organization with the highest ratio of students hi passing the Imperial Examination . In 1901, after the Qing government declared to transform academies into schools, scholars still yearned towards Imperial Examination system, which made the transformation very ineffective. In 1905, the Qing dynasty was compelled to make a decision to abolish Imperial Examination, which accelerated the transforming process, and made the institutional Ancient Academy become a history.Thus it can be se...