Chapter 29 twenty-nine educating people

Human beings, counting from the moment they fall to the ground, must be born in nature.Naturally endowed with a lot of capital, the visible ones are the flesh, and the invisible ones include instincts and aptitudes.But in order to be able to live and live well, he or she has to acquire multiple abilities to cope with the environment (both natural and social).These various abilities can be summed up primarily in two aspects, knowledge and virtue.Or to put it another way: people are born wild, and in order to live in the existing society and live well, they must become wild.To turn wildness into literature must rely on external forces to civilize it.The great cause of this transformation, from the social perspective, is educating people.

Education, there must be methods, or both facilities.The educators teach and the educated learn, and the form can be centralized (time, place, scale, etc.) or not.We can call concentrators educating people in a narrow sense, typically various schools, various training classes and the like.Educating people in this narrow sense is characterized by clearness and neatness, such as the first grade of junior high school, how old are the students, what to study, when to take classes, and how to pass the exam.How to fail, etc., are clearly stipulated.Unconcentrated education in a broad sense is a hodgepodge, large and small, in various forms, and all the educated gain something from knowledge.For example, when a child sees a donkey for the first time, he calls it a pony, and his mother tells him that it is a donkey, not a horse. I don’t know many words, so I will retire.” It is also educating people.In this broad sense of educating people, some major categories are important, and they are too numerous to mention.It is easy to see such as propaganda (typically such as various broadcasts), publishing, social atmosphere, until the adoption of various regulations and measures, allowing Xuanzang to translate scriptures and Li Qingzhao to write lyrics, etc., etc.But the purpose is simple and simple, no matter in terms of individuals or society, it is to change barbarism into civilization.

Human beings live in groups and live in society.All societies are cultured (high or low, good or bad), so personally speaking, if you want to live in a society, you must integrate into a certain culture.How to integrate into it has to become familiar through experience.Familiarity, or improvement is said to be attainments, and there are differences in degrees.As an example, it can be divided into high and low.Low is the ability to survive on their own, or to have the "must" ability to live a social life (this is for ordinary adults, except for the sick and disabled).For example, being able to speak, being able to engage in some kind of labor in order to obtain wages and so on.In addition to the abilities necessary to lead a social life, Gao also possesses one or more non-essential abilities that can add bricks to the building of civilization.For example, there are extraordinary achievements in science and technology, literature and art, and other skills.From the perspective of the requirements for educating people, it is a metaphor that there is a goal, and the low attainment must be achieved; the high attainment is to exceed, although it is not necessary for a certain person, but for the whole society, this is an ideal, and should be pursued hard. .

No matter whether it is low attainment or high attainment, it takes a long journey, starting with a single step, or based on compiling some of the most basic documents.This literary matter, the most basic and therefore the most important is knowledge and character.Therefore, although the specific methods and requirements for educating people are numerous, as a hub, it is nothing more than changing ignorance into knowledge, and changing ignorance into virtue.Regarding the importance of morality and its cultivation, we have already discussed it when we talked about morality, and here we only talk about knowledge.Knowledge is taken in a broad sense, including all kinds of high and low abilities based on it.In this regard, there are two requirements, or principles, for educating people.One is the general height (roughly equivalent to the goal of compulsory education training), which should be inevitable.This general level refers to general cultural common sense. Although it is called general, it is called common sense, but its content is very extensive.For example, if you have an opinion on something, you should be able to express your arguments and arguments in an orderly manner, whether you use your mouth or your pen.As for knowledge, as the saying goes, there are so-called seven knowledges of astronomy, and lower knowledge of geography. Astronomy, such as the earth we live on, is just a planet in the solar system, and geography, such as there are many countries south of the equator, are also within the scope of common sense and should be known.In terms of ancient and modern times, we should have a general understanding of our history, the succession of dynasties, up to today, our economic situation, and so on.In addition, seemingly out-of-the-ordinary knowledge, such as logical common sense, seems to be included in general cultural knowledge, because it is often used when distinguishing right from wrong.In short, although this general height is a low requirement for educating people, it is not easy to achieve it. The reasons are very complicated, and it is hard to say; just talking about phenomena, if you can’t even achieve literacy, then this general height will also become an ideal. Even fantasy.When it comes to ideals, it rises to another principle, which is to try our best to ask some people (the more the better) to move forward from the general height and achieve higher attainments in a certain field.This is to cultivate top-notch talents, and the rapid development and improvement of society can even be said to be mainly achieved by educating people in this area.

Educate people, and seek everyone in the group (except the sick and disabled) to reach the general height.Everyone knows that the main solution is universal education.For example, if you can graduate from high school before you become an adult, is it almost the same?But it is easy to say, but there are many problems in doing it.One of the biggest problems is probably that there are too many people and not enough money.There are other problems. For example, some people would rather go to peddling to make money when they have the opportunity to go to school. What should we do?It can be seen that popularizing education requires social atmosphere not to hold back.In addition, such as what to teach in class, how to teach, the quality and quantity of teachers, whether publishing and libraries can cooperate, etc., etc., will all have an impact on whether we can reach the general level.

It is even more difficult to cultivate top-notch talents, because we cannot rely solely on schools.Or mostly not by school.From the theoretical point of view, it is best to be able to do it, not to give up on the negative side, and to give full play to the positive side.There are many talents in the sky. Some people have a headache when they see numbers, but they like and can compose poems. For the sake of educating people, don't let them study mathematics and study literature instead.The biggest difficulty is how to make Du Fu study poetry and Li Shizhen study Materia Medica before people's interests and talents are revealed.Here I can only talk about a principle, which is to try every means (regulations, measures, etc.) to give everyone the opportunity to develop freely.For example, there is a person who was originally engaged in agricultural labor, but he likes music and has shown talent in this field. It is not difficult for him to jump from the countryside to a certain music unit.Obviously, without the right conditions of wealth, personnel, social structure, etc., this is very difficult to do.

In terms of educating people, there is another big problem that seems invisible but always exists. Educators always hope that the educated will believe in what they believe in and follow their own footsteps. Is this right?good or not?This is problematic also because it is so complex.On the one hand, it is inappropriate (almost impossible) to teach what the believer does not believe.If Confucius and Mencius believed in benevolence and righteousness, they would not tell their disciples that benevolence and righteousness are not good, and they should not practice benevolence and righteousness.But there is another side, what someone believes may not be right or good.Looking back at history, there are too many such things.For a while, such as Qin Huang and Han Wu believed that seeking immortal medicine could lead to longevity, but they were wrong.For a long time, if you believe in the sages of the Son of Heaven, you should be humiliated and killed by the emperor. Now we see it wrong.It may be wrong, but to be honest, it seems that the recipients should be allowed or even required to have doubts.But this is not easy to get on the podium, especially when imparting general knowledge, how can it be said that this may not be reliable.A road squeezed out of the cracks may just be that the teacher teaches himself and allows the taught not to believe.This kind of attitude comes from a kind of spirit. In the words of Buddhism, the body of a bird is its own self. In the words of Kant, people are the end and should not be regarded as the means. In fact, it is the people-oriented principle.As the foundation, the highest requirement for educating people should be that the cultivated people have the ability to judge right from wrong based on their own rationality for complex phenomena and different opinions.

For the advancement of society, what we need most are people who can judge right from wrong and are willing to accept right and wrong; or take a step back, for the sake of peace, what we need most are people who can adapt to social life.Therefore, I have always believed that among all kinds of construction in a society, educating people should be the first.