From old times, culture and education at Huizhou developed very well. The Confucian Moral (Li) School of the Song and Ming dynasties had a far and deep influence upon Huizhou. Zhu Xi ( 1130-1200), a representative of the Confucian Moral School in the Southern Song Dynasty was born in Huizhou and gave lectures there. "Xin'an was abundant in famous intellectuals". "Even at a small village only with 10 households, nobody neglects cultivation and learning". Handing down books and courtesy to posterity is a tradition of Huizhou people. The reflection of this tradition in buildings at Huizhou resulted in many colleges, old-style private schools, ancestral halls and memorial archways.
There are a lot of old-style private schools and colleges. The famous ones are the South Lake College on the bank of the South Lake of Hongcun. Ziyang College and Zhushan College, etc. There were 52 colleges and 462 old-style private schools among the population of 560 thousand in Huizhou area in the Ming Dynasty. A great number of Huizhou natives secured official positions through imperial examinations. Many high-ranking officials and great intellectuals with reputation and power in the court and society were from Huizhou.
Huizhou paid much attention to the traditional ethics, which was also reflected by the construction of a great number of ancestral halls and memorial archways. An ancestral hall was the center of a clan. There were many clan settlments in Huizhou so that Huizhou was very abundant in ancestral halls with very high rank. For example, the Baolun Pavilion at the backyard of Luo clan ancestral hall in Chengkan Village, was built in the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty ( 1573-1619) and composed of 11 rooms, 29 meters wide and 10 meters deep, the architectural components full of decorations, among which the colored drawing on the beam in the bed-hall is a unusual treasure of folk colored drawing in China. Jing'ai Hall in the Hu clan ancestral temple at Xidi Village has two yards and three halls, with a commodious and solemn space, large and tall columns and beams, refined and splendid carvings and decorations. Like other ancestral halls, the position, dimension and superficies of these two buildings are highest in the villages. Ancestral halls in Huizhou's villages were the center of buildings as well as the spiritual center of villagers. Ancestor worship ceremony of a clan, important decision- making, rewards and punishment of all kinds were held there. Today, ancestral halls at Huizhou's old villages have become a particular sight.
Memorial archways maintained the feudal code of ethics between clans and emperors. Huizhou's memorial archways are the first both in quantity and in quality in all China. Only at Shexian, there are 94 memorial archways, among which are 34 memorial archways in honor of women's chastity. The memorial archways at Huizhou played an agile and changeful role: being a gate, indicating entrance or dividing up spaces. The memorial archway at the entrance of Xidi Village with 3 interspaces, 4 columns and 5 beams. 13 meters high, is the highest-rank memorial archway, which was granted by Emperor Wanli of the Ming Dynasty to Hu Wenguang, the governor of Jiozhou prefecture. The largest group of memorial archways are located at Tangyue, where 7 memorial archways stand silently in the fields with flourishing rape flowers. Their large scale, refined carvings and inscriptions with tar and deep meanings manifest some families' history of honor and vicissitudes of life.
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