Chapter 5 Section 4 Duke Zhou's Tutoring

Duke Zhou, surnamed Ji, named Dan, posthumously named Duke Wen.He is the fourth son of King Wen of Zhou, the same mother and younger brother of King Wu of Zhou, also known as Shudan.It is called "Zhou" because its fief is in Zhou.And because he is the Taifu and one of the "Three Dukes", he is honored as Duke of Zhou.The Duke of Zhou once assisted King Wu in defeating the Shang Dynasty. After the death of King Wu, he educated and assisted the young King Cheng, smashing the armed rebellion of Guan and Cai. Zi Si Lun Xun, became one of the important founders of the Western Zhou Dynasty.

The Western Zhou Dynasty was the heyday of slave society in our country. The well field system, enfeoffment system, patriarchal system and ritual system, which were the main symbols of this period, were all established in Zhou Gong.Zhou Gong not only made great contributions to the establishment and consolidation of the Western Zhou regime and the formation of the ritual and music culture of the Western Zhou Dynasty, but he was also another great educator after Yi Yin in ancient Chinese society who paid attention to the education of the children of the royal family and nobles.Therefore, he has always been revered as a saint by rulers and Confucian scholars.

The fundamental purpose of the Zhou Gong system of rites and music is to consolidate the rule of the Zhou Dynasty and maintain the patriarchal system and hierarchy of "Qinqin" and "Zunzun".At the same time, on the basis of summarizing historical experience and lessons, Zhou Gong put forward the idea of ​​"respecting morality and protecting the people", making this idea run through the entire ritual system, transforming rituals from religious rituals into real-life regulations and education means.He advocated "educating morality".Through moral education, the rule of virtue is realized; through moral education, the successors of the aristocratic ruling class are cultivated and brought up.

The Duke of Zhou regarded moral education as the most important thing related to the great cause of the society.He once said to the Zhou rulers: "The heavens cannot be trusted, and my way is Ning (Wen) Wang Deyan." Guozuo [zuo sitting] Yongnian.He used to be the Taishi of King Cheng, and asked Zhao Gong to be the Taibao of King Cheng, and he worked together to assist the prime minister and teach King Cheng.In "Shangshu·Junshi", he summarized the educational experience of the Shang Dynasty from Yiyin, Baoheng, Yizhi [zhizhi], Chenhu to Wuxian and other famous officials and teachers, and inherited the previous generations of teachers, Fu and Baozhi. The tradition of teaching not only established the Zhou royal family's tutoring, tutoring, and protecting systems, but also proposed a systematic tutoring content for noble children based on his ideas of ritual music and respecting morality and protecting the people.

In addition to the "six arts" such as rites, music, archery, imperialism, calligraphy, and mathematics, the content of family education for noble children advocated by Duke Zhou mainly includes the following aspects: 1. "Be sympathetic to the people and avoid greed and greed."He said: "Jue's parents are diligent in farming [se color], but Jue's son does not know that the difficulty of farming is easy, and it is the birth of a proverb. Otherwise, he would insult his parents and say, 'The people of the past have no knowledge!'" ("Shangshu Wuyi 》) It means that some parents work hard all day long, but their children live in comfort, do not know the pain of labor, and blindly pursue pleasure. As a result, they become arrogant and rude, do not listen to their parents' teaching, and even retort: ​​"You What do these outdated people know?" He believes that family education is to enable children to understand the difficulties of starting a business through hard work, and then know how to care for the suffering of the people and avoid the disaster of greed.The Zhou Announcement warns Cheng Wang: Whether the future kings will not forget the difficulties of the previous kings in starting a business and maintaining their success, whether they understand the privacy of the people and have the character of not seeking comfort, are directly related to the survival of the country.Second, be diligent in politics and be cautious in words and deeds.When the Duke of Zhou implemented the royal family education, he often used the positive and negative examples of King Zhou's prostitution and neglect of political affairs and King Wen's obedience to the fields and hard work and forgetting to eat as the educational content to teach him to be dignified, respectful, and cautious in his words and deeds. , asking him to "be virtuous and cautious in punishment" and set an example.In order to do a good job in this education, the Duke of Zhou established Wen and Wu temples for the prince to worship, and carried out "Wang Feng" education in the sacrificial activities.This practice was imitated by the royal families of later dynasties and formed a system.Three, know people well and be diligent in seeking talents.The Duke of Zhou has always had a political style of knowing people well and being eager to seek talents. It is said in history that "Duke Zhou spits and nourishes, and the world returns to his heart".In order to maintain the rule of the Zhou royal family, the Duke of Zhou not only practiced himself, respected the corporals, was diligent and humble, but also used diligence in seeking talents and knowing them well as the law of pastoral officials to train the children of the ruling class nobles so that they would have the ability to recognize officials after they entered politics.In short, Duke Zhou's family education is characterized by emphasizing the moral cultivation of the royal family's children, and regards moral cultivation as the top political event in the cultivation of future kings.The system of master, tutor, and guardian established by the Duke of Zhou lasted until the end of the Qing Dynasty, and it had a profound impact on the family education of the emperor's family.

Duke Zhou was not only the tutor of the Zhou royal family, but he also attached great importance to social education and advocated "Yi education" in common people's homes.The so-called Yi religion is to educate the common people in moral norms.The Duke of Zhou believed that the family education of the common people is mainly to "understand human relations", among which the teaching of filial piety is the most important.This also had a great impact on the education of civilian families in later generations.