Emperor Ly Nhan Tong

In 1075, a royal decree traveled out to the villages with the messenger who carried it. In the yard of the communal house, people crowded close to hear it read aloud. For the first time in the country's history, the court would hold an examination to choose talented people by what they carried in their heads. Among the crowd that day were poor village boys whose hearts began to pound as they listened. They wanted nothing more than to run home and open their books.

The emperor who opened that examination was Lý Nhân Tông, whose given name was Lý Càn Đức. He was an emperor of the Lý dynasty, which ruled Vietnam from 1009 to 1225. He came to the throne as a very small child, so small that his mother and the senior officials of the court looked after the affairs of state for him. Yet he grew up to hold the throne longer than any other ruler in the country's history, a full 56 years.

A reign of 56 years is a very long time. A child born at the start of his reign could be a grandparent by its end. In all those years, the emperor kept his mind on one thing that people still remember today, and that was learning and examinations.

In those days, a person who wanted to serve the country usually had to come from a family of high rank. A poor boy in the countryside, however bright, had little chance. Then things changed.

The Confucian examination of 1075 was the first the country had ever held. The court chose talent by testing writing and learning, not by family background alone. Whoever read diligently, understood deeply and wrote well found a door open.

About ten people passed that year. The one who placed first was Lê Văn Thịnh. For those who passed, there was great joy. There had been so many nights by lamplight, so many pages read until the edges wore soft, and now their names were called out in the capital. From then on, people believed that diligent study kept the road open, and that it was not closed to anyone born in a poor house.

But Emperor Lý Nhân Tông did not stop there. He understood that if the country wanted talented people, it needed a good place to teach them. Already standing south of Thăng Long, the city now called Hanoi, was the Temple of Literature, a temple to Confucius and the great teachers of learning. The emperor went one step further.

In 1076, he ordered the Quốc Tử Giám, or Imperial Academy, built right behind the Temple of Literature. It was the first school of higher learning in the country. Such a school would have had wooden halls, lessons chanted aloud and rows of students bowing over their books. Almost 1,000 years ago, people raised a great school like this, a place to teach writing and right conduct, and to train those who would go on to serve the country.

Generation after generation of students grew up from that school. They read under its roof, learned how to be good people, and learned how to look after the common good. The habit of valuing study, which the Vietnamese keep to this day, took root in part in those distant days.

The name of Lê Văn Thịnh, who placed first in that examination, and the first great school of the country are still remembered. They recall an emperor who took the throne as a small child, held it for almost a whole lifetime, and gave his heart to learning for all of it.

Now return to the poor boys who heard the decree in the yard of the communal house. Perhaps they would never meet the emperor. But they knew that somewhere in the capital, an emperor was opening the door wide to people who loved learning, as they did. That alone was enough to warm them. They turned one more page of their books, and then another.