A time for war : student protests in the Sung dynasty

Abstract

The young are more acute in their reactions to circumstances than the old, intellectuals more than ordinary people, and those in association more than those alone, suggests the author of an article on the Sung student movement that appeared in The Eastern Miscellany in 1936.1 Thus, he says, students, being in general young and educated, and belonging to a group, have a responsibility to the less fortunate to oppose with determination any action which is not to the general good. It may readily be seen, however, that not all manifestations of the phenomenon of student protest have been based on such lofty principles, many being more concerned with the acquisition or retention of elitist privileges for the students or academic body - it is to this latter cause that we may impute dispersions, riots and insubordination to temporal authority in the mediaeval European universities such as Paris and Oxford, as well as a considerable amount of the unrest in m o d e m Western universities prompted by issues such as examinations and the problem of stress. The scholars of the mediaeval universities, confronted and sometimes physically attacked by hostile townspeople, could not see themselves in the role of the guides and protectors of the very people opposing them, and instead sought even more privileges to protect themselves at the townspeople's expense. On the other hand students in a society where the literacy rate is high, information widely disseminated and dissent tolerated, tend to play a supporting, rather than a leading, role in social action on those occasions when their role is at all significant. Their youth, their inexperience, and the widespread availability of education render it difficult for any but the most committed (mostly students) to see university students in such a society as the natural guides, leaders and protectors of the masses. Show more