Gu Yanwu
Yu's philosophy was inclined to the teachings of Wang Niansun and Wang Yinzhi, who interpreted Confucian classics in a practical way. In the 1860s, Yu was intimately involved in restoring the Gujing Academy, a "sishu" (private academy) established by Ruan Yuan in 1800 yet destroyed during the Taiping Rebellion. As opposed to the then dominant goal of education—namely education as pathway towards an official career—Yu aimed to provide a non-political environment for classics studies and stressed philology and historical research during his teaching, an intellectual tradition initiated by Gu Yanwu and Dai Zhen.