Quoc Tu Giam in Hue

In the southeast corner of the Imperial City of Hue, more than 200 years ago, the finest students in the country came looking for a school. They came to study. They came to dream. They hoped that one day they would become a Trạng nguyên and help the emperor build the nation. Trạng nguyên was the title of the top graduate of the royal examinations.

That school was the Quốc Tử Giám of Hue.

When the Nguyễn dynasty was newly founded, one of the first things the emperor did was open a school. The Nguyễn were Vietnam's last royal dynasty, and they reigned from 1802 to 1945. In 1803, the school opened under the name Đốc Học Đường, inside the capital citadel at Hue. It was the first national university of the Nguyễn dynasty, a place that trained talented people for the country.

In 1820, 17 years later, the school was renamed Quốc Tử Giám. The new name carried more weight. Quốc Tử Giám means a place that teaches the children of the nation. It was not meant only for the sons of powerful families. It was meant for gifted people from every part of the country.

Young students came with their books and their hopes. They traveled long roads from south to north, and from the mountains down to the plains, all the way to Hue. They studied writing and ritual. They studied how to govern and how to be a good person. In its day, this was the largest school in the country. It was a place to pass on knowledge, and it was also a fire that lit their dreams.

In 1908, the school was moved to the southeast corner of the Imperial City, where it stands to this day. That position was no accident. Placing a school inside the Imperial City was the emperor's way of saying that knowledge is a pillar of the dynasty.

Standing here, in the hush of the Imperial City, a visitor can feel that. The roofs of old tile are green with moss. The wooden pillars have darkened with age. A deep stillness lies inside the ancient citadel. All of it points back to a time when study was seen as the most honored road in life.

Beside the Hue of royal tombs, palaces and the Perfume River, Quốc Tử Giám keeps another Hue, one of books and learning, of students who dreamed of graduate and doctoral titles in the age of the monarchy.

In that southeast corner, with eyes closed, a visitor might hear a faint sound far away. It is the sound of brushes and inkstones, as the students of long ago work on, writing a page of history for the country.