Academies and society in Southern Sung China

by Linda A. Walton

Academies belonged to a broad constellation of educational institutions that flourished in the Sung (960-1279), an era marked by profound changes in economy, technology, thought, society, and political order. The impressive growth in numbers of academies during the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries has been related to the rise of a new set of ideas known as True Way Learning (tao-hsueh) and to the use of academies by intellectual leaders such as Chu Hsi to promote their doctrines. This study, the first comprehensive look at the Southern Sung (1127-1279) academy movement, explains the rise of the academies not only as a product of intellectual change, but also as part of broader economic, political, cultural, and religious transformations taking place in China.