How to pronounce Gengyang Academy is introduced as follows:
gēng yáng shū yuàn.
There is a place in Gulou Old Street in Lu'an called "Shuyuanguai" because there is an ancient building called "Gengshang Academy" here. It is because of this academy that the place name of Shuyuanguai comes. Geng Yang Academy has always been a place for teaching and educating people. The academy has a history of nearly 280 years since its existence. During this period, it has been destroyed and rebuilt. However, the name of the academy has not changed and it has always been called Geng Yang Academy.
During the Qianlong period, Lu'an Prefecture officials donated 200 taels of silver, 41 houses, and a student donated one house. Based on this, in the fourth year of the eighth year of Qianlong (1743) Geng Yang Academy was built in that month.
The Liu'an Prefectural Chronicle describes the layout of the academy: there are five back halls, the middle room of the back hall is used to worship the tablet of Gaotao God, and there are two halls on the left and right of the back hall. In front of the back hall are five teaching rooms. There are ten dormitories and three kitchens in the west. There is a wing on the right (east), and there are six dormitories above and below the wing. The front of the teaching room is the lecture hall, and the three rooms in the middle of the lecture hall are the hall. There are three dormitories on the left side of the lecture hall and one dormitory on the right side. There are three screen rooms on the left side of the academy gate and three wing rooms on the right side of the gate.
There is a gate on the east side of the exterior wall. According to records, the academy has 24 dormitories, five teaching rooms, three kitchens, six screen rooms and side rooms, three halls, and one worship room, totaling 42 rooms. Based on these descriptions, I drew a schematic diagram of the academy's architecture.
In the tenth year of Qianlong's reign (1745), the academy purchased books and opened its doors for enrollment. Two years later, in the twelfth year of Qianlong's reign, ten more buildings were added to the northwest of the academy, and the number of buildings in the academy increased to fifty. Two rooms.
At that time, the Lu'an Prefecture respectfully requested the governor Pan Siju to inscribe a plaque of "Ming Jing Order" for the academy and hang the plaque in the hall of the lecture hall. The meaning of Ming Jing's order is to require the students in the academy to understand the scriptures and behave in a polite manner.
During the Xianfeng period, Lu'an experienced three changes in 1854, 1857, and 1859. As a result, all the academies were destroyed, and the original Geng Yang Academy was left in ruins. In the first year of Tongzhi (1862), the state government used the original buildings of the public bureau (an official agency established by the state government) and built a new academy on the homestead purchased next to the public bureau.
In 1906, a "middle school" was established in the academy, enrolling the second class. In 1918, the "Provincial Third Class A Agricultural School" was founded in the academy. In 1925, the "County Junior High School" was founded in the academy. By 1929, the county junior high school had 91 students and 19 teaching staff.
After liberation, the academy remained in its original location. Because the buildings were old, and because the academy had a courtyard layout and no playground that met the area requirements, the classrooms and dormitories did not meet the requirements for teaching in the new era. Therefore, Although the academy building is still there, it is no longer a place for teaching and educating people. To commemorate the academy, a new Gengyang Academy has been built for the people of Lu'an to remember.