Academy Lecturing (Jianghui) In Ming Dynasty

Academies are cultural and educational organizations where Chinese intellectuals carry out activities such as cultural accumulation, research, creation and dissemination around books including book storing, reading, teaching, interpreting, compiling, writing, engraving, etc.. In their development over one thousand years, the Ming Dynasty holds a very important position as a connecting role. Among the 15 provinces in the dynasty, every one has academies and the total number has exceeded 2000, surpassing the summation of those in Tang and Song dynasties put together, which means an unpreceding prosperity. Ming academies thrive with combination of learnings of Wang Yangming and Zhan Ruoshui. Wang's disciples form many schools as learning and academies integrate with each other. They not only set foot in local cultural construction to bring civilian features to academies by means of behaving the folks, transforming social traditions, but also bring corporative and political tendencies to academies by way of uniting scholars of common interests, commenting people and politics. And both have something to do with lecturing in academies (shuyuan jianghui).Lecturing originates with academy teaching, but goes beyond it after Wang-Zhan and their disciples advocate and disseminate it. Situations at that time often go as follows: scholars of common interests unite to study together, hold panels or seminars wherever or whenever it's possible. Every year such panels or seminars take place all over the country. However, they do not mean that academies and lecturing are parallels that have no subordinate relations. We'll first of all try to reveal the developing tendency of "lecturing that happens in every possible place but finally ascribing to academies", and then to restitute the real situation of academy lecturing, thus reconstructing the historical genealogy of the Ming academies.Through demonstrations and data analyses, we find out the organizational elements of lecturing activities, and the phenomenon that lecturing(huijiang) just means panels(jianghui). Therefore, we prefer the broad sense of this word, which refers generally to lectures, panels or seminars held by academies, or academic associations organized by them. Lecturing in Ming Dynasty can be categorized by and large into academic, teaching, moralistic ones according to the different degrees with learning, which refer respectively to the three different groups of scholars, students and civilians. Thus it embodies the function for academies to create, disseminate and generalize culture. Although it's the first time to name the terms of academic lecturing and moralistic lecturing, the contents, achievements and contributions concerned have already been recognized. And the teaching lecturing has been looked down upon because of its association with the Imperial Examinations. In fact, the Examinations and Confucianism are not two completely different things. It's quite hard to do well in the Imperial Examinations. The architectonic system of the Examinations constructed by the more than 30 books that this dissertation cites from has actually covered the main contents of the traditional architectonic system of that time. Success in Imperial Examinations is an important guarantee that the Chinese traditional culture can pass over.The lecturing in over 80 academies distributed in the country is the foundations for us to construct academy lecturing. Subjected to factors such as different problems and Countermeasures, different customs, morale, atmosphere of study, different styles, personalities and academic levels of main lecturers, etc., each academy has its own local and cultural features. What needs to be pointed out is that this localization can expand ceaselessly through such forms as holding lecturings by turns, collaboration or distant arrangements, that is, the forms of "linking lecturings, establishing academies and associating far and near," by passing from villages to counties, from counties to shires, from shires to provinces, or even trans- provinces. They have become lecturing circles and academy networks with various sizes that keep extending. Their expanding process is also the one that local cultures keep integrating and homogenizing, which will necessarily become identical with one another.The homogenization that comes from "linking lecturings and establishing academies" has various cultural tendencies. When it is combined with academics, it brings about both the one hundred years' prosperity of Wang Learning, and the Donglin Academy's general trends that late Ming lecturing respects Zhu Xi learning but criticizes Wang's. When it concerns with scholars of common interests, views and echoes, it's reasonable for lecturing to develop into communities. Therefore, we put forth the concept of "communal academies"(shuyuan shetuan). The lecturing groups of the same style as Donglin Academy is a good case in point of lecturing developing into communities and being politically generalized. Commenting on politics while lecturing is the most outstanding feature of "communal academies". They then incur the disasters of academy destruction 3 times in late Ming for offending the authorities.In a word, the Ming academies are characterized by learning from lectures and panels. Lecturing is both academic organizations or groups and lecturing activities such as academic panels, seminars or academic gatherings in academies. In a sense, the relations between lecturing and academies are parallels and independent from each other. But in fact, because of their common cause, their common form of "panels or seminars", etc., academies and lecturing often co-exist in the living state of "linking lecturings and establishing academies and associating far and near". Their combination not only is the reasonable choice for Wang - Zhan and their disciples to seek academic freedom, but also reposes the lecturing spirit, or even the political hopes of "communal academies". Thus it should beget our attention.