Yuelu Academy

Yuelu Academy

At the foot of Yuelu Mountain in Changsha stands one of the four great academies of ancient China — 岳麓书院 (Yuelu Shuyuan) — and it has been standing, and teaching, for more than a thousand years, which makes it older than most of the countries that send students to visit it. The poet 杜甫 (Du Fu) and the philosopher 朱熹 (Zhu Xi) are among the ghosts who have walked these courtyards; the lecture hall is still named for them.

Courtyards and ancient rooftops beneath the autumn maples

The School That Outlived Everything

The academy was founded in 976, in the Song dynasty, and it has been burned, rebuilt, renamed, and reopened more times than most dynasties lasted. What survives is the arrangement of a great school: the quiet courtyards, the pond, the pavilions where scholars wrote, the gate inscribed with the academy’s motto — 惟楚有材 (“Chu alone produces talent”) — a line of local boasting that the passing centuries have only made more accurate.

Walk it in the morning, before the school groups arrive, and read the plaques slowly. The genius of Yuelu is that nothing here is decorative: every pavilion was a place to think, every rock a seat for an argument, every tree an address. In autumn the maples of 爱晚亭 (the Evening-Stopping Pavilion) above the academy turn the whole hillside red, and the academy becomes a schoolhouse under a burning roof.

Practicalities

  • Getting there: inside Yuelu Mountain Scenic Area, Changsha — metro Line 2 to Rongwan, then walk up past the east gate; or Line 4 to Hunan University station and walk in.
  • Tickets: ~40 RMB (combined with the mountain area).
  • Best time: late October to mid-November for the maples; any other season for the quiet.
  • Combine with: the walk up Yuelu Mountain to its summit pavilions — the academy is the first course, the mountain is the dessert.

flowcloud would say that Yuelu Academy is a monument to the most underrated human activity — thinking in a beautiful place — and that its thousand years are a standing reproach to the modern assumption that learning must be efficient.

Getting there: Metro Line 2 to Rongwan or Line 4 to Hunan University, walk in through the east gate. Give it a morning, and let the courtyards do the lecturing.