前禮部祠祭司主事盧洪春義助學田記略
Abridgement of the Record of the Donation of School Endowment Fields by the Former Secretary of the Bureau of Sacrifice of the Ministry of Rites, Lu Hongchun [from 1588] (Text)

Created by: Bill B.
Title:

前禮部祠祭司主事盧洪春義助學田記略
Abridgement of the Record of the Donation of School Endowment Fields by the Former Secretary of the Bureau of Sacrifice of the Ministry of Rites, Lu Hongchun [from 1588]
Text:

Government policy on the nurturing literati is to enroll them in state schools, a county is not allowed more than twenty [students]. Unless enrollment [in the county school] is extended, those [who want to study but] do not fall into one of the four categories of ordinary occupations will have to worry about their means of support.

I personally have wished to arrange fields [to provide income for] a school as a long-term plan, but there was no way to carry it out. Then Mr. Donglu (東麓, Lu Hongchun 洪春 1544-1619) returned home after being demoted for criticizing [government policy] and took pleasure in the local environment. One day, [Mr. Donglu] wrote that he wished to donate several mu of fertile land to support students in need. Hearing this, the Prefect Mr. Zeng Jingdian and the Supervising Commissioner for Education Mr. Su Zixi heard of it and praised his conduct as that of a loyal subject which went beyond the ordinary. True it was – (see the complete school stele inscription) erected in the second month of the sixteenth year of the Wanli Reign (1588)

[The contents of his donation is as follows]

  • 499 cheng (秤) of tenant paddy field at the entrance of the South Monastery in the Sixty-fourth Sector (都)
  • 45 cheng of land for buildings
  • 35 cheng of dry field
    – For this, see the backside of the stele –
[one mu 畝 is one-sixth of an acre
one cheng 秤 is ?]
Collection: Texts: Lu Family Compound