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opportunity alongside a continuing, but declining, traditional education, and finally, from 1932, the establishment of an eventually modern education within the village.
Rising from a humble community of Hakka origin, the Liaos [Liu] of Sheung Shui had long paid special attention to educating their sons. Since the founding of the village, they had set their sights on education and participation in the civil examinations as a means of advancement, and for centuries they had been able to win numbers of official titles and honours1. Traditionally within the village, schooling was provided in private houses, the ancestral hall, and the study halls known as shu-shih#, shu-wu#, or chia-shou*. The existence of these study halls was considered an indication not only of wealth but also of the great encouragement given by the clan to learning. In addition to their well-known ancestral hall, the Wan Shih T'ang, there were in Sheung Shui at least six study halls that operated in the nineteenth century. According to the village elders' memories, each hall normally accommodated ten to thirty students, at an average of 20 per hall. Assuming that the Wan Shih Tang was not used regularly as a classroom and there were 15 sons of rich families taught by private arrangements, the total number of children attending class in the village would be about 135. As the population of Sheung Shui in 1898 was estimated to be 1800, school-going children then amounted to 7.5% of the whole population. This figure works out to be about 75% of the male population between 6 to 14. This gives credence to the belief that "very few males of the lineage were prevented from becoming literate." The length of schooling ranged from two to ten years, but the average was four.
We can find no evidence of a hierarchy among the six study halls. However, according to the brief biographical notes recorded in the Hsin-an Hsien-chih of the villagers,10 most of the few villagers who achieved distinction at the county level, and indeed, most of the small number who were prepared to take part in the civil examinations at all were tutored first at private houses within the village and then sent to schools at Nam Tau, the county capital, or at Canton.
* Plate 6.