Caotun Dengying Academy

A small Wenchang (文昌) temple in Caotun, Nantou, originally established in 1847 as a Confucian academy funded by local gentry. It lost its traditional educational role in 1903 when the predecessor of today’s Caotun Elementary School was founded. Gradually it was streamlined into a temple venerating the gods of culture. Despite several renovations over the years it mostly retains its original structure and layout. The courtyard preserves a ritual paper incinerator (惜字亭) where used paper bearing written characters was burned out of reverence for the written word, a Confucian scholarly tradition once observed at many academies in Taiwan.