Song And Yuan Dynasties Local School Books To Study

The local schools of Song and Yuan Dynasties,which consist of classical academies and government schools, were established for ordinary people,and had provided a large number of books for average intellectuals and boosted the development of academics and culture.Compared with private libraries,Iocal school libraries,which are more open and efficient,had helped developping idealist philosophy and imperial examination,should have an important position in the history of Chinese book collection.The study of local school libraries is still imperfect,and this article will try to make an all-sided and deep revelation of the libraries on the basis of literature.Classical academy is an educational and academic institution emerged in Tang Dynasty.It flourished in Song and Yuan Dynasties,and became the major arena for idealist philosophy to be spread and developed.We also see that the development of classical caademies relied on goverment's improvement and implement to imperial examination,and government's appreciate was crucial to them. The idealist philosophy also depended on government,and would fall into decay once excluded from imperial examination. In consequence Classical academies had attached importance to imperial examination. Classical academies were usually established by Confucian philosophers who valued the development and utilization of book collection.The libraries were used fully and had helped educating a lot of talents.During Song and Yuan Dynasties many schools of thoughts established classical academies where academic research was relatively free and locations were remote,so the classical academy libraries are unrestrained and open that they had contributed enormously for academic research and inheritance of scholarly publishings.Government school is an important institution for educational system of China.Government schools in Song and Yuan Dynasties were subsidized energetically by government and individuals to purchase so many books that they could use the books to educate a lot of talents,and that's exactly why the schools were built all over the country. Government schools in Song Dynasty generally had library buildings,and they owned more books than Classical academies by the end of the dynasty.In Yuan Dynasty government schools had so many books among which many had more than 10,000 volumes,but very few had been printed by themselves,and most of the books were purchased and donated by local officials and scholar-bureaucrats. Government schools had steady funds and persistence for running a school,at the same time they had perfect system for library management and utilization.They had made great achievement in edution and preserving literature that shoud be thought highly of in the history of Chinese book collection.By research of the library catalogs,we discovered that government schools were deeply related with idealist philosophy and imperial examination. Imperial examination produced massive demand for books,and its influence to government schools could be viewed from the catalogs.It's very important for idealist philosophy to propagate and strive for power of discourse and leading position in government schools,and we can see its track of development.Due to advocation of emperors and recognition of imperial examination, government schools had so many idealist philosophy books that they could play an important role in the development of idealist philosophy.