As the name of the building, Sungmundang ('Hall for the Exaltation of Learning'), suggests, it was where Joseon monarchs residing in Changgyeonggung Palace exchanged ideas about Chinese classics with their ministers and Neo-Confucian students of Seonggyungwan, the highest-degree educational institution of the Joseon Dynasty. King Yeongjo (r. 1724-1776) stated about the hall in 1742: 'Our ancestors set up this hall to elevate learning. That I today supervise this test in person also intends to express our veneration for learning, so I hope all of you bear this in mind.' There is in the interior of the hall a plaque inscribed with a four-character idiom (日監在玆, Il-Gam-Jae-Ja, literally, 'supervision exists every day in this place'), admonishing readers to 'venerate what should be respected because the heaven looks down at us.