China's oldest higher learning institution, the millennial Yuelu Academy of Hunan University in central Hunan Province, is recruiting doctoral students from China and abroad for the first time.

The academy plans to recruit six to 12 students, who will follow six supervisors to study the history of Chinese culture and thinking starting from this fall, according to Prof. Zhu Hanmin, president of Yuelu Academy.

"But we've received several dozen applicants since application started on Monday," he said in an interview with Xinhua on Wednesday. "It would be a concrete move to carry forward classical learning, the established mission of the centuries-old school."

Yuelu Academy was established in 976 to teach what is considered by many the essence of Chinese culture, even today -- including Confucian classics, courtesy, writing and calligraphic skills. Most of its students worked hard in order to excel as high-ranking officials at the imperial court.

"We'll follow interactive and democratic ways of teaching in cultivating these senior professionals, by encouraging self-teaching and independent thinking and inviting prestigious scholars from home and abroad to give lectures to broaden the students' knowledge," said Prof. Zhu.

The democratic methods of teaching at Yuelu Academy had influenced generations of open-minded professionals over the past centuries, including late Chairman Mao Zedong, he said.

"We should revive the traditional Chinese way of teaching classics, one that highlights exchanges between the speaker and his listers," said Dr. Lei Mingqiang, an official with the provincial education authority.

This interactive method of teaching, centered on a private tutorial system, had dominated many old-style Chinese schools until it was gradually replaced by modern, western ways of teaching starting from the 19th century, he said.

The academy, located at the eastern foot of the Yuelu Mountainsin the provincial capital Changsha, was converted into a school of higher learning in 1903 and became part of Hunan University in 1926.
 
(Xinhua News Agency March 18, 2004)