If the landscape and architecture are the skeleton of Gaoqian, the cultural heritage is the bloodline and soul of Gaoqian, which has lasted for thousands of years. As a bloodline village, the most fundamental and important force that has enabled Gaoqian to maintain its vitality and development through the long years of historical changes is its spiritual tradition.

Confucian moral principles and cultural awareness are the mainstream of Gaoqian's ideological, cultural and spiritual traditions. Cultivating one's moral character, cultivating one's family, ruling one's country and pacifying the world are both the paths of self-cultivation and the ideals that readers aspire to achieve. The connotation of this ideal includes not only the moral pursuit and intellectual and cultural pursuit of “establishing the heart for heaven and earth, and following the past sage”, but also the present-day merit and political ideal of “establishing the life for the people and opening up peace for the world”. The spiritual tradition of moral supremacy and cultural predominance is present in history. Zhu Xi, the great Neo-Confucianism master of Southern Song Dynasty, was so close to Wu Fu that he came to Xianju twice to give lectures and sent his son to study at the Tongjiang Academy in Xianju. This spiritual tradition also exists in life, in the form of family traditions, in the Wu genealogy, so that we can still have a glimpse of its meaning under a thousand years. According to the Wu family Genealogy and the Dongzhai Wu family Genealogy, the contents of the Wu family motto can be divided into two parts, the code of interpersonal relations and the code of behavior and habits, with a total of ten items. The text is simple but rich in meaning, which can be said to be the simplest of all.

The content of interpersonal relationships mainly includes: filial piety to parents, respect to superiors, harmony to wives, trust to friends, and loyalty to the ruler, which basically covers the core content of traditional Chinese human relationships. Parents have the grace to raise everyone, so it is the most basic requirement for children to take care of and support their parents. More important than this is the ability to meet the expectations and wishes of parents in a timely and proactive manner. This requirement is in line with Confucianism, which emphasizes that a respectful and friendly attitude is more important than the actual act of “being able to support”. The concept of elders includes uncles and brothers, and respect for elders is actually an extension of filial piety to parents. Husband and wife are the “beginning of human relationships”, and harmony between husband and wife is the fundamental guarantee for the continued development and prosperity of the family. Faith in friends includes two requirements, first is to be good at choosing friends, and those who can advise and help themselves to do good, the right way to befriend, and not with bad people; second is to these friends of good character, to treat each other with sincerity, the word must be done, and not to calculate the interests. In the traditional Chinese social structure, the monarch is the parent of all people, and therefore the natural object of intellectual allegiance, and loyalty to the monarch is an extension of filial piety. The definition of “filial piety” in the Book of Filial Piety includes the expression “filial piety begins with serving one's parents, ends with serving the ruler, and ends with establishing oneself. In addition to the general influence of society and culture, there is also an individual, familial reason for serving the king for the Gaoqian Wu family, namely the family tradition of “many arthritic ministers who bowed and scraped”.

The main aspects of behavior include: abstaining from non-doing, abstaining from wrestling, abstaining from gaming, abstaining from drinking, and abstaining from litigiousness. Non-conformity refers to behavior that does not follow the rules. The Wu family motto requires one to follow the rules and be careful so as not to bring shame and trouble to oneself or even to one's family. This requirement certainly has a positive meaning of prudent handling, but also shows the conservative mentality of traditional social agricultural operators who are cautious and do not dare to be the first in the world. Horniness refers to the use of power to compete for power. According to the Wu family motto, interpretation and power are used to do things, and if one blindly worships power and leans on the strong to bully the weak, it will lead to the downfall of the family. This requirement still has far-reaching inspirational meaning for people today. Gaming, i.e. gambling, may lead to losing one's family and one should avoid participating in it. As for the dangers of alcohol and sex, the Wu family motto is explained by the allusion to the prohibition of alcohol by Dayu and the fall of Xia Jie and Shang Zhou, showing the Wu family tradition of attaching importance to cultural education and being familiar with the classics of history and scripture. In traditional Chinese society, the concept of governance was based on the value of peace, and it was considered a moral flaw to seek out the government and file lawsuits; therefore, abstaining from litigation was a common element in many traditional family mottoes. This principle has lost its cultural ground in contemporary society and should not be advocated, but it still deserves our reflection and reference for its reflection of the social governance mindset of peace as the value and negotiation to solve problems.

The family motto, which focuses on moral edification, identifies the self-positioning and pursuit of the Gaoqian Wu family as a traditional society. Along with this is the high importance attached to culture and education. The Gaoqian Wu family attached importance to the development of family education and encouraged the children of the clan to study diligently. In the Qing dynasty, those who won the Xiucai examination in the clan were given more steamed buns and subsidized rice during the Qingming festival, and more rewards were given to those who won the imperial examination. This reward system had the functions of both spiritual and material incentives. At the time of the transition to modern society in the late Qing Dynasty, Gaoqian also began to set up new-style schools earlier. The Minshu Academy, founded by Wu Peifu (1853-1936), was an early new school in Gaoqian. After the Xinhai Revolution, Gaoqian Grand Ancestral Hall was used as the school building of Minzhi Primary School, and in 1931, Wu Jinyi, a gentry of Gaoqian, founded Yuxiu Primary School, which was merged with Minzhi Primary School in 1938 to become Xianju County Rural Yuxiu Primary School, and was renamed Gaoqian Primary School after the founding of New China. Although the form of the school and the content of education changed, the reward system that encouraged children to study in the past still existed for a long time, with different reward levels for graduation from elementary school, junior high school and high school. It is worth mentioning that there is no gender restriction on the rewards for graduates of the new-style schools, showing great progressiveness.