ABSTRACT
This volume brings together a set of essays which were first presented at a 1994 conference held in a classical Chinese academy, built in 960 C.e., more than a century before the earliest European universities came into being. The academy, or shuyuan, was an institution that emerged during the Tang dynasty (628–907 C.e.), a period when China’s civil service examination system was being consolidated. Opposite in many ways to the official institutions associated with the imperial examination system, the academy was a local institution that was often established by a scholar out of favor with officialdom, sometimes established in association with local gentry and at times established with Buddhist temples. The ownership of land and its rental for agricultural purposes was what made academies financially independent, while the library and provision for wide-ranging scholarly research attracted students of all ages.
