The Four Great Academies of China

●Bai Lu Dong Shuyuan

Bai Lu Dong Shuyuan is located at the southern foot of Wulao Peak, Lushan Mountain, Jiangxi Province, in the sun of the back of the Ping Mountain. The academy is built alongside the mountain, with a cluster of pavilions and gardens in the cover of ancient trees in the sky. White Deer Cave was originally a place where Li Bo and Li Shibi lived and studied in the Tang Dynasty.

According to legend, when Li Bo lived here in seclusion, he kept a white deer for his own amusement, so people called Li Bo "Mr. White Deer", and therefore the four mountain rounds, the foothills of the trail into the distance of several miles, a little bit of a sense of entering the cave, so it is called the White Deer Cave. South Tang Dynasty ascension of the Yuan years, White Deer Cave officially opened for the library, called White Deer Cave Museum, also known as the "Lushan National School", by Li Shandao for the cave master, in charge of the professor, set up a gathering of disciples, become a lecture and book collection. "the four sides of the scholar and return to the industry, out for the use of the world, a lot of famous achievements." Song Taizong Taipingxingguo two years to give nine scriptures. Song Renzong Huangyou five years, Sun Chen in the former site of the school building ten, called "White Deer Cave of the Book Hall", and the then Yuelu, Yingtianfu, Songyang, and for the "four great academies".

While the White Deer Cave Academy was built in the early Song Dynasty, but soon to be abolished. Until the famous scholar Zhu Xi remodeled after the academy, White Deer Cave Academy is known domestically. Chunxi six years of the Southern Song Dynasty, Zhu Xi knew the Nankang army. Zhu cooking when he arrived, White Deer Cave Academy has been destroyed in the war, buildings fade, the forest garden is deserted, touching the sea of dusty books, net knot porch. After Zhu Xi's repeated requests, Song Xiaozong finally agreed to rebuild the White Deer Cave Academy. After the repair of the White Deer Cave Academy, to the Sacred Liturgy Hall as the center, composed of a staggered, complement each other's huge architectural complex. The academy*** has more than 360 halls and study halls, including the Royal Book Pavilion, Minglun Hall, Zongru Word, Pantheon, Zhongjie Ancestral Hall, etc. The Sacred Liturgy Hall is used for students to pay homage to the Sacred Liturgy Hall. Sacred ritual hall is used for students to pay homage to Confucius hall, the door above the two plaques written "learning up to the nature of the sky", "teacher of the world" of the words. In the Wenhui Hall has Zhu Xi's handwritten "deer and boar and tour, things I forget the place; peaks and springs reflecting, know the days of benevolence alone" couplet. Zhu Xi not only rebuilt the White Deer Cave Academy, but also established strict rules and regulations of the academy.

"White Deer Cave Academy dogma" not only embodies Zhu Xi to "materialism, Zhi Zhi knowledge, sincerity, right mind, cultivate oneself, Qi family, governance, peace" and a set of Confucian classics as the basis of educational thought, and became the Southern Song Dynasty after the seven hundred years of China's feudal society, the style of the academy, but also the earliest in the history of education, educational regulations. It is also one of the earliest educational regulations in the history of education.

Zhu Xi in the White Deer Cave Academy also widely invited domestic famous scholars to come to lecture, academic air is quite active. Song Chunxi two years, Zhu cooking and Lu Jiubuan two people due to different academic views, was located in Jiangxi Lead County in the territory of the Goose Lake had a heated debate. But Zhu Xi did not therefore hold the gateway view, invited Lu Jiubuan to come to the White Deer Cave Academy lectures. Lu Jiufen is the "Analects" in the "gentleman metaphor for righteousness, the small man metaphor for profit" chapter, by the White Deer Cave Academy teachers and students welcome, and some students were even Lu Jiufen superb, insightful speech moved to tears. For this reason, Zhu Cook specially Lu Jiufen's content of the lecture carved stone in the door of the courtyard. This is not only the first academy "lecture" system precedent, for different schools of thought in the same academy lectures set an example, in the history of Chinese Confucianism has also been rumored as a good story. Since Zhu Xi, Bai Lu Dong Shuyuan "a literary style of the Sheng Ji Ji Yan, Bin Bin Yan," it and Yuelu Shuyuan, the same as the Song Dynasty, became an important base for the study of science.

The end of the Yuan Dynasty, the White Deer Cave Academy was destroyed in the war, until the first year of the Ming Dynasty to restore the first year of Zhengtong, and later some expansion and repair.

●Yuelu Academy

Yuelu Academy is one of the four major ancient academies in China, whose predecessor can be traced back to the end of the Tang Dynasty and the Fifth Generation (about 958) when two monks, including Zhirui, ran a school. In the ninth year of the Northern Song Dynasty (976), Zhu Dong, the governor of Tanzhou, formally founded the Yuelu Academy on the basis of the monks' school. Subsequently, through the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, to the end of the Qing dynasty Guangxu twenty-ninth year (1903) changed to Hunan Higher Education School, then changed to Hunan Higher Normal School, Hunan Industrial Specialized Schools, officially named Hunan University in 1926 to date, after thousands of years, song and song, so the world called the "thousand years of learning".

Yuelu Academy since its inception, that is, for its schooling and dissemination of academic culture and famous. Emperor Zhenzong of the Northern Song Dynasty summoned Zhou style, awarded the title, the name of the academy began to be heard in the world, "Xiaoxiang Su Si" reputation. In the Southern Song Dynasty, Bishop Zhang, Zhu Xi lectured twice. In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, Emperor Shizong of the Ming Dynasty bestowed the title of "Jingyi Proverbs", Wang Yangming's school of thought and the Donglin School of thought spread and exchanged here, and Wang Fuzhi, the famous patriotic thinker of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, studied here. "Tao Nan Zheng Vein" forehead.

Yuelu Academy covers an area of 21,000 square meters, most of the existing buildings for the Ming and Qing dynasty relics, the main building has a head gate, the second door, lecture hall, half of the school lounge, teaching lounge, hundred springs Xuan, the Royal Book Building, Xiangshui school of scripture, Temple of Literature, etc., is divided into lectures, book collection, for the rituals of three major parts of the interconnectedness of each part of a whole, a complete show of the ancient Chinese architectural grandeur of the grandeur of the magnificent scene.

In addition to architectural relics, Yuelu Academy is also famous for preserving a large number of monuments and plaques, such as the Tang engraved "Lushan Temple Monument", the Ming engraved Song Zhenzong's handwritten "Yuelu Academy" stone monument, "Cheng Zi four aphorisms Monument ", the Qing dynasty imperial plaque "learning up to the nature of the sky", "Road South positive pulse", the Qing dynasty carved Zhu Xi "loyalty, filial piety and integrity monument", Ouyang Zhenghuan "neat and serious monument", Wang Wenqing "Yuelu Academy school rules monument" and so on.

●Songyang Academy

Songyang Academy is located at the southern foot of Songshan Mountain, about three kilometers north of Dengfeng County. Created in the northern Wei dynasty filial piety emperor taihe eight years (AD 484) when, then called songyang temple, to the tang dynasty changed to songyang kuan, for the practice of Taoist priests, songyang academy in the history of buddhism, Taoism place, and later for the confucianism alone. To the five generations of the Zhou dynasty was converted into the Tai room academy. Songyang Academy in the Northern Song Dynasty was the most prosperous, there are hundreds of students in the institution, the Song court in this school officials, and give nine scriptures and history. The founder of the Song Dynasty's "Luoxue", Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi brothers, both lectured at Songyang Academy, and scholars from all over the world came to the academy in droves. Since then, Songyang Academy continued to teach scholars in science, becoming one of the birthplaces of Song Dynasty science. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the academy was destroyed in the war, and was rebuilt during the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty. Songyang academy by successive generations of many additions and repairs, the scale gradually formed, the layout is becoming more and more rigorous. The establishment of the academy, simple and elegant, generous not vulgar. Songyang Academy and Henan Suyang Academy (also known as Yingtian Academy), Hunan Yuelu Academy, Jiangxi Bailudong Academy and known as China's four major academies, also significant in the country.

Songyang Academy is surrounded by mountains and hills in the east and west, with the stream of Easy Valley flowing slowly southward and the stream of Songyue Temple coming gurgling westward, the two clear streams, which converge in front of Songyang Academy to form Shuangxi River, and then meander southeastward into Ying. South of the academy is open fertile fields. Standing in front of the Songyang Academy, you can look up at the peaks of Songyue, overlooking the panoramic view of Dengfeng City. The environment is very beautiful, worthy of reading resort. The layout of the building in the academy maintains the style of the Qing dynasty before, the existing hall corridor room more than five hundred, **** there are five into the courtyard composition. The first for the ancestor shrine, dedicated to the masters and sages related to the academy, followed by the lecture hall, after the lecture hall for the Taoist ancestral temple, and finally the bookstore. The two sides of the ancillary rooms were originally "Cheng Zhu Ancestral Hall", bookstore, study, etc.. In the courtyard corridor room wall inlaid with successive generations of literati, ink guest inscription message, its content calligraphy each has its own characteristics, west side courtyard has the qing dynasty songyang academy teaching examination room part of the building. Songyang academy in the past dynasties and set up a school field, in order to fill the cost of the academy.

In addition to the long history of the academy, Songyang Academy tourism landscape there are the Western Han Dynasty "general cypress" and the Tang Dynasty "Datang monument". Legend has it that in more than two thousand years ago, han wudi liu che came to tour songshan, walked to the southern foot of songshan songyang temple, just enter the door, just see an old cypress tree, figure strange, dense leaves, cool as the great husband of the sky and the ground, wudi wu, many years of war thirst for good generals, look up for a long time, marveled, and immediately praised cypress tree for the "generals". But it is not expected songyang temple is a hidden dragon and dragon dragon place, through the two into the yard to see the cypress tree than the "general" is also big, emperor wu saw both surprise, and hesitation, but think of their own noble son of heaven, can not change their mouths, will be wrong on the second yard of the cypress tree sealed for the "two generals". The "General" happy to laugh, laugh and bend the waist, into a bent tree. The "Second General" was sulking, his stomach blew up, and he became a hollow tree. The "Third General" is very angry, it protrudes a branch straight into the sky, angry hair, a look of fighting with people. Unfortunately, it was destroyed by fire at the end of the Ming Dynasty. Legend to legend, "general cypress" is really rare on earth the sky tree: "general" cypress diameter week 6 meters, "two general" cypress circumference 15 meters, twelve people holding hands just can hold the trunk. Two cypress up to dozens of meters high, strong and robust, towering in the clouds. From the first year of Emperor Wu Yuanfeng of the Han Dynasty (110 BC) was sealed, after thousands of years of vicissitudes of life and still vibrant, honestly worthy of the greatness of martial arts. Outside the courtyard west of the Tang Tianbao three years (AD 744) carved and erected the "Datang Songyang Guan Ji Shengde induction of the Ode" monument, commonly known as the "Datang monument", monument height of 8 meters, is the largest monument in the Songshan area, which describes the Taoist Sun Taichong for the Tang Emperor Li Longji refining the "nine-turn golden elixir". The story of "Nine Turns Golden Elixir" is absurd, but the monument was set up before and after the light: by the so-called "honey-mouthed" Chancellor of the Tang Dynasty, Li Linfu, the calligraphy master Xu Hao wrote the text. Xu Hao's official script is neat and tidy, and his brushwork is handsome and vigorous. Years go by, a thousand years easy to pass, alchemy of the absurd has become a joke, and the "Great Tang Songyang Guan Ji Shengde induction of the ode" but because it is a good Tang Clerical attracted generation after generation of appreciation of the observers, which is the monument of the people who did not expect the interesting things.

●Yingtianfu Academy

Yingtianfu Academy, also known as Suoyang Academy, is located in the south of Shangqiu County. It was first built in the Later Jin Dynasty and was enlarged in the Northern Song Dynasty.

Initially, it was the place where Qi Tongwen lectured. In the second year of Song Zhenzong's Dazhongxiangfu period, Cao Cheng built a 150-room schoolhouse on the site, gathered more than 1,500 volumes of books, and recruited students widely. Another figure that made Yingtianfu Academy famous was Fan Zhongyan, who recited the phrase "worrying about the world first, and rejoicing after the world's happiness". Fan Zhongyan in this school belongs to the ambitious people, although the poverty can only be long-term on the pickled vegetables and porridge (scratch porridge cut pieces of this story is about Fan Zhongyan), but even years of hard reading, spring, summer, fall and winter are early in the morning that is to hear the cock dance, and then read poetry until half past midnight to sleep with the clothes on their backs. Since Yingtianfu Academy is free, which is also the biggest reason why Fan Zhongyan chose this academy, so there should be a lot of Fan Zhongyan in the academy, such as the same hard learning. From such a side, we can also see that the learning style of Yingtianfu Academy was very hard and rigorous at that time.

Fan Zhongyan was also a teacher who practiced what he preached. Whenever he ordered students to write a fugue, he would always write a piece first in order to grasp the difficulty of the question and the key points of the writing, so that the students could improve their writing level quickly. This kind of practice, and today many professors lecturing in the sprawling, really to the social application of the phenomenon is not smart compared to, indeed very different, it is really worthwhile to learn from future generations. Yingtianfu Academy's original site in the current Shangqiu Imperial City, the complete academy is no longer in, can only look at the remnants of some of the buildings.