Front. Educ. China 2013, 8(2): 321–329 DOI 10.3868/s110-002-013-0020-2

BOOK REVIEW

The Jixia Academy and the Birth of Higher Learning in China: A Comparison of Fourth-Century B.C. Chinese Education with Ancient Greece. Richard Hartnett. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2011. 297pp. ISBN-13: 9780773439122.

This is a very timely book, as the international educational community becomes more and more aware of the shift in global geo-politics towards Asia, and the likelihood that Asian educational ideas and values will have a more direct and explicit influence on educational policy and cultures of learning and teaching in future. The high scores of East Asian students in TIMMS and PISA have already attracted considerable attention, but little is known of the deep underlying culture of learning and thought that goes back to the axial age and Kong Qiu, the Chinese philosopher who lived from 551 to 479 BC, and was introduced to 16th century Europe as or the Master Kong (Kong Fuzi). Most recently, China has launched a unique approach to cultural diplomacy in the establishment of hundreds of Confucius Institutes around the world, most as joint ventures between Chinese universities and school boards, universities and NGO’s in more than 90 nations or regions. So far, most of these institutes have focused on the teaching of Chinese and the training of Chinese languages teachers, few have the capacity to introduce or explain the rich educational and philosophical heritage that is summed up in the term . For that reason alone, Harnett’s book deserves a careful reading by educators who wish to go deeply into the treasures of Chinese educational thought, and gain a nuanced understanding of Confucian ideas of learning and teaching, as well as the institutional patterns of school and academy that took shape in the years between the birth of the historical Confucius in 551 BC, and the establishment of the Empire in 221 BC. The famous Terracotta warriors, buried with the first Qin emperor, bespeak a unification of empire that was achieved by dint of war and violence and culminated in the burning of books, and the imposition of unified systems of writing, weights and measures. Subsequently, the famous imperial examination system was established, and developed into a much admired model for meritocratic government, while at the same time coming under criticism for tendencies to foster rote memorization of establishment texts and highly extrinsic motivations for learning. These aspects of Chinese history are well known, but far less is known about the rich medley of philosophical perspectives that constitute China’s often cited “hundred schools of thought” and whose dynamic interaction made possible remarkable educational 322 Book Review developments in China over the period from the 6th to the 3rd centuries BC. Not only does Hartnett provide a detailed account of the major philosophers, from Confucius to Xunzi, their differing emphases and the ways in which they interacted in the Jixia Academy in the Kingdom of , but he sets these against the major Greek schools of thought and educational institutions, including Plato’s Academy, the Lyceum of Aristotle, the Garden of the Epicureans and the Stoa. His thoughtful reflections on early texts associated with these different schools enable the reader to explore both differences and similarities between the approaches to learning and thought in these contrasting and distant axial societies. As the title suggests, the main focus of the book is on the Jixia Academy, a remarkable institution affiliated with the state of Qi, a leading Eastern kingdom that offset the later victorious Qin kingdom in the West. In recent Chinese intellectual debates, Jixia has been upheld as a model that balanced a vibrant intellectual freedom with scholarly responsibility for affairs of the state. Har