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Daguan Charity School
The funding of Fangciao School monument
Charity School & Monument
The funding of Fangciao School monument
Daguan Charity School
“Charity school” in Chinese explanation is “use private funding to set up a free school for the public.” According to the material edited by Daguan School(linked on the Banchiao Elementary School website), charity school was a kind of social school, which run by the government. The purpose of the two was to educate the people. The different was that the charity school often provided encouragement to the poor students, who often had good grades and received special awards.
In Taiwan, the most scale charity school was Daguan Charity School.
Daguan Charity School was funded by The Lin Family, Hsu Shi-Fang donated the land and funded by some other people (1863). It has a history of 150 years until now.
Luckily, this historical site is still located near Ximen Street, Banchiao City, New Taipei City. Its surroundings are rebuilt as kindergartens. Inside, it is a quiet and solemn temple, worshiping Wen Chang Di Jun and Confucius. Local people call Daguan Charity School as Banchiao Confucius Temple.
The funding of Fangciao School monument was founded in Japanese ruling period. At that time, Taiwan was Japan’s colony. The education system was changed to the Japanese system. The charity schools set up in Qing Dynasty were almost abolished and replaced by common schools and elementary schools, which were the system of the elementary school. But the differences were that common schools were for Taiwanese and elementary schools were for Janpanese.
Japanese government set up Fangciao Common School in 1898. The students studied in Daguan Charity School first. In 1907, the Lin Family donated fund to set up Fangciao Common School, located at today’s Banchiao Elementary School. Fangciao Common School was renamed as Banchiao Common School in 1921, and then Banchiao National Primary School in 1941. In 1968, Taiwan stipulated 9-year voluntary education and renamed it as Banchiao Elementary School (Cited from Banchiao Elementary School/School introduction/History). Whether it was common school, national primary school, or elementary school, it was the elementary school system. The names were just different because of the time.
