Bulletin Winter 1977

PROFESSOR Y ü YING-SHIH'S SPEECH The University as an institution o f higher learning has a unique place in Chinese history. Tradition has it that the university had its beginnings around 2000 B.C. under the Hsia “ dynasty” whose historicity, however, remains to be archaeologically confirmed. Recently, the Chinese character hs ü eh ( 學 ) in the sense o f a "school" has been identified in Shang oracle inscriptions, although the nature o f the "school" in such cases is d ifficu lt to determine. The modern term for "university" (ta-hs ü eh 大學） first occurred in late Chou texts, according to which young members o f the aristocratic class between fifteen and twenty were required to receive advanced training in the university. The existence o f the university in the Chou times is now generally accepted as a historical fact, for the institution under its classic name P'i-yung (辟雍） has been authenticated by several bronze inscriptions o f Chou date. It is safe to say that the origins o f the university in China can be traced to a time no later than the Academy o f Plato in ancient Greece. Early History of Chinese Education If we define the university in terms o f its modern features such as a central location, a faculty, a student body, lecture halls, dormitories, examinations, de grees, etc., then the university is clearly a Han institu tion. The founding o f the Imperial Academy (T'ai- hs ü eh 太學) in 124 B.C. is therefore an event o f singu­ lar importance in the history o f Chinese education and learning. A t its height the Han Academy had an enrolment o f over 30,000 students and 240 buildings w ith a total o f 1,850 rooms. It was indeed a large university even by our modern standards. One contem­ porary account describes the Academy as acompletely self-sufficient community, consisting o f not only a market but a law enforcement system as well. To borrow the famous distinction o f Clark Kerr, it was already a “ town" ， if not yet a " city" . The operation o f the Imperial Academy was seriously interrupted during the period o f disunity between the fall o f Han in the third century and the T'ang re-unification in the early seventh century. It was only natural that in the great age o f the T'ang, which is marked, among other things, by its vita lity in institutional development, the Imperial Academy was rehabilitated w ith new vigour and vision. The T'ang Academy departed from the Han model in several significant ways. In the first place, the Academy in the Han period was subject to the jurisdiction o f the Minister o f Ceremonies (T 'ai-ch'ang 太常 ), a chief priest in the government. Under the T'ang it was placed under the supervision o f a new office known as the Directorate o f Higher Education (Kuo-tzu Chien 國 子 監 ) This is a clear indication o f the secularization o f education and learning in medieval China. In the second place, during the Han the Academy was only occasionally open to one or two "hostage princes" from the Hsiung-nu. But it was the policy o f the T'ang Academy to admit foreign students from neighbouring countries in large numbers aswell as on a regular basis. 10