Chapter 24 Section 5 The Development of Elementary Studies

The Song and Yuan Dynasties were a new stage in the development of elementary school education in ancient China. It not only achieved further development in terms of quantity, but also formed its own characteristics in terms of educational content, teaching methods and teaching materials, which also had an important impact on the early childhood education of later generations. Impact. br>The main content of elementary school in the Song and Yuan Dynasties includes preliminary moral behavior training and basic cultural knowledge learning.Therefore, the daily homework of Mengxue is mainly to teach children literacy, calligraphy, reading, endorsement, affiliation, composition, etc. At the same time, it also educates them on basic moral norms and cultivates moral behavior habits.

Elementary education is basic education, so elementary education in this period emphasizes strict requirements and lays a solid foundation.For example, in terms of life etiquette, children are required to be respectful when they live in daily life, to stand upright, to listen and listen carefully, to speak carefully, to look dignified, to dress neatly, to eat and drink, and to keep the room clean and so on.In terms of reading, children are required to be serious and focused when reading, and their words should be heard loudly.In terms of writing, it is required that children must "stroke by stroke, strict and clear, and not scribbled" when writing.In the training of study habits, children are required to: "Sort up a few cases, make them clean and correct, put the books in order, straighten the body, read the books carefully and slowly, and read them carefully and clearly." stain and wrinkle." "There are three ways to read, that is, heart, eye, and mouth." Good living, learning, reading, and writing habits should be cultivated and trained in childhood, which is not only beneficial to children's growth, but also will benefit them for life.

Educators in the Song and Yuan dynasties also formulated various forms of "Notes" and "Study Principles" as guidelines for regulating children's behavior during the elementary school period.For example, Zhu Xi compiled "Children's Instructions" specially for Mengtong, and made detailed regulations on children's clothes, hats and shoes, speech, trickling, reading and writing, and miscellaneous matters.Cheng Duanmeng (1143-1191 A.D.) and Dong Zhu (1152-1214 A.D.) wrote the "Study Principles", which also put forward specific requirements for all aspects of children's life and study.Although these regulations and requirements are a bit cumbersome and can easily cause a certain degree of depression to the development of children's personality, but let children have rules to follow in every word, deed, and every action. There are still some positive effects.

Children are lively and active, Song and Yuan educators have noticed this feature, they according to the psychological characteristics of children, make the best use of the situation, stimulate their interest in learning.Yang Yi once proposed to use the form of "diary stories" for education.Cheng Yi (1033-1107 A.D.) proposed to create popular poems of "Sweeping, Response, and Long-term Festival", so that children can "sing it day and night", accompanied by dance, to arouse their interest and make them willing to accept it.Zhu Xi extensively collected aphorisms, admonitions, and stories about loyalty to the emperor, filial piety, leadership, discipline, and family management from classics, historical records, and other works, and compiled them into a book for children's moral education, entitled "Primary School", which was widely circulated .He also proposed to use moral admonitions and phrases such as "ming" and "proverbs" to make banners and hang them or carve them on daily utensils such as study rooms, portals, and pans, so as to attract children's attention and increase their learning consciousness. , in order to achieve the realm of "learning and wisdom, transformation and heart".According to the characteristics of children's strong memory and weak comprehension, he emphasized that they should read and remember the learning content carefully, and gradually understand it on this basis.In short, Song and Yuan educators paid attention to children's psychological characteristics, made the best use of the situation, and stimulated children's interest in learning. These experiences are worthy of attention.

The elementary school textbooks in the Song and Yuan Dynasties inherited and developed the experience of the previous generations in compiling elementary school textbooks, and books classified and compiled according to special topics began to appear, which brought the development of ancient Chinese elementary school textbooks into a new stage.The textbooks of this period can be roughly divided into the following categories according to the focus of their contents: (1) Comprehensive literacy teaching materials focusing on literacy education.Such textbooks mainly include, "Thousand Characters" and so on. The purpose of education is to teach children to read and master writing tools, and at the same time introduce some basic knowledge comprehensively.

(2) Introductory ethics textbooks focusing on moral education.Such textbooks mainly include "Tong Meng Xun" by Lu Benzhong, "Shaoyi Wai Zhuan" by Lu Zuqian, and "Xing Li Zi Xun" by Cheng Duanmeng. (3) History textbooks for beginners focusing on history education.Such textbooks mainly include "Seventeen Histories Mengqiu" by Wang Ling, "A Thousand Essays on Ancient Times" by Hu Yin, "Summary of Historiography" by Huang Jishan, "Mengqiu of Past Dynasties" by Chen Li, and "Mengqiu of Zuoshi" by Wu Hualong. Wait.Some of these textbooks briefly describe the development of ancient Chinese history, and some are a collection of historical stories or good words and deeds of historical figures. They not only impart historical knowledge to children, but also provide ideological and moral education to children.The writing style is "mostly four words, the reference is a dual, and the rhyme is connected", which is convenient for children to memorize.

(4) Premature poetry textbooks mainly to cultivate temperament.Such textbooks mainly include Zhu Xi's "Exercising Mongolian Poems" and Chen Chun's "Primary School Poems and Rites".Choose some poems and songs suitable for children, let them learn and recite, so as to cultivate children's temperament, develop their artistic conception and carry out aesthetic education. (5) Intellectual teaching materials that focus on social and natural knowledge education.Such textbooks mainly include Fang Fengchen's "Mengqiu", Hu Jizong's "Book Words and Stories", Yu Shao's "Diary Stories", etc.The content involves astronomy, geography, characters, birds and beasts, vegetation, clothes, buildings, utensils, common allusions, idioms, etc.

Among the many textbooks mentioned above, "Thousand-Character Essay" is the most widely circulated, and people are accustomed to call it "three, one hundred, one thousand". According to legend, it was written by Wang Yinglin (AD 1223-1296) in the late Song Dynasty, and others say it was written by Qu Shizi in the late Song Dynasty.There are 356 sentences in the whole book, each with three characters.The sentences are rhymed, easy to understand, catchy to read, and easy to recite.The text is concise and good at summarizing.After continuous supplementation by future generations, it was 1140 characters.The book begins with a discussion of the importance of education:

At the beginning of human beings, nature is good.Sex is similar, but habits are far away.If you don't teach, your sex will change.The way of teaching is expensive.In the past, Mencius's mother chose a place next to her; if her son didn't learn, she would lose her chance.Dou Yanshan has righteous prescriptions; he teaches five sons, all of them are well-known.It is the fault of the father whether to raise or not to teach.If the teaching is not strict, the teacher is lazy.If a child does not learn, it is not appropriate; if a child does not learn, what is the old man doing?If jade is not cut, it cannot be used as a weapon; if a person does not learn, he does not know righteousness.

Then it narrates the three cardinal guides, five constant principles and ten righteousness, five grains, six animals and seven emotions, four books and six classics, historical events of dynasties in turn, and finally concludes with examples of "showing relatives and making famous" in history: "If you are young, you learn by encouraging yourself; if you are promising, you are also good. Dogs watch the night, chickens watch the morning; if you don't learn, you are a man. Silkworms spin silk, bees make honey; people don't learn, not as good as things. Young learn, strong Go up to the emperor, and down to the people. To promote fame, to show off parents; to be brighter than before, to be richer than later. The leftover son is full of gold; Try."

Combining literacy, historical knowledge and feudal ethics and admonitions, it is concise and summarized, and it is easy to memorize.It uses all three characters, sets a precedent for three-character rhyme Mongolian books, and has flexible syntax and popular language. It is the most famous elementary school textbook in ancient China. , and "Thousand Characters" were once collectively called "three, hundred, thousand", and became a complete set of complementary enlightenment literacy textbooks, which was handed down until the end of the Qing Dynasty. "Three, Hundred, and Thousand" were later translated into ethnic minority languages, and compiled into Mongolian-Chinese and Manchu-Chinese bilingual versions, such as "Mongolian-Chinese Three-Character Classic", "Manchu-Chinese Three-Character Classic", "Mongolian-Chinese Contrasting Hundred Surnames", "Jurchen Alphabet A Hundred Surnames", "Manchu-Han Thousand-Character Classic", "Mongolian-Chinese Thousand-Character Classic", etc., for minority children to learn Chinese. It has been spread to overseas countries such as North Korea and Japan for a long time.Today, UNESCO will list it as a "Children's Moral Education Textbook" and promote it to the world, and will contribute to the education of children of all nationalities in the world. It is an elementary school textbook that collects Han surnames into four-character rhymes, compiled in the Northern Song Dynasty, and the author is unknown.Starting from "Zhao, Qian, Sun, Li", it is the "surname of respecting the country", with "Zhao" at the top.Although the whole article is an accumulation of more than 400 unconnected words, it is also very easy to read because of the clever arrangement: "Zhao Qian Sun Li, Zhou Wu Zheng Wang; Feng Chen Chu Wei, Jiang Shen Han Yang. Zhu Qin You Xu, He Lu Shi Zhang; Kong Cao Yan Hua, Jin Wei Tao Jiang..." Most people who use Chinese surnames can find their surnames from it; and for a few common surnames, they can see their surnames as soon as they are opened.This is a big reason to feel close and welcome. Due to the advantages of writing, various later adaptations could not be popularized. Even if the government's power was mobilized to promote it like Qing Kangxi's "Imperial Family Surnames", it could not shake the original position of Song Dynasty. In short, the elementary school textbooks in the Song and Yuan Dynasties were compiled according to thematic categories, which made the elementary school textbooks diversified in content and form.Some famous scholars, such as Zhu Xi, Lu Zuqian, Wang Yinglin, etc., personally compiled the textbooks for elementary studies, which shows that they attach great importance to textbooks for elementary studies, and at the same time improve the status and quality of textbooks for elementary studies.Elementary school textbooks pay attention to children's psychological characteristics and age characteristics, adopt rhyme form, concise and easy to understand, and strive to organically combine literacy education, ethics and moral education with basic social and natural common sense education. These experiences are very valuable , deserves our attention.