Chapter 15 Section 1 The Characteristics of Family Education in the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties

Since Qin Shihuang unified China, ancient Chinese society began its long history of feudal society development.The Qin Dynasty's national fortune was not long, and the Qin Dynasty carried out the cultural and educational policy of "teaching with the law" and "taking officials as teachers", so there was no achievement in family education.However, with the establishment of the Han Dynasty and the long-term stability of the feudal society, coupled with the long-term implementation of the cultural and educational policy of "respecting only Confucianism", the imperial examinations and classics were adopted to select scholars, and the teaching of the three cardinal principles and five constant principles was emphasized to rule people's thinking and filial piety. The teaching stabilizes the ethical and moral relationship between the family and society, so family education has developed rapidly and gradually formed its characteristics.

During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, in addition to the continuation of the education formed in the Han Dynasty with Confucian classics as the main content, due to the advocacy of the ruling class and some intellectuals, metaphysics, Buddhism, historiography, and some natural science skills and production skills also entered different fields. Class family education range.Generally speaking, during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, due to frequent wars, social turmoil, and lack of stability in family production and life, family education in this period was far from that of the Han Dynasty, especially the ruling class. Influenced by the system of selecting scholars under the "Prince Zhongzheng" system, the descendants of the rich and noble families are born to be the hereditary "upper three ranks" of high-ranking officials, while the descendants of the poor families of the noble families can hardly enter the top rank even if they are well-educated, let alone the descendants of ordinary people. The resulting concept of "reading is useless" has also penetrated into the family education practice of different classes and classes, resulting in the decline of poetry and book education.

Although family education in the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties had a tendency to turn from prosperity to decline, the class and hierarchy of family education became increasingly obvious due to the continuous development and improvement of the feudal social system and family system.Formed a family education system for noble families with the royal clan as the main body, official family education represented by serving civil servants, and civilian families living at the bottom of society.These three types of family education continued and developed until the end of the Qing Dynasty, and objectively had a profound impact on the politics, morality, family and even social order of our feudal society.

The education of the royal family is mainly to cultivate the crown prince, so the education of the crown prince and the princes has received special attention, and it has even become a major event in national politics.Royal tutors are privileged, and the measures to be taken are firstly to make every effort to collect national books in the royal library and monopolize the culture as textbooks for the royal clan; Palace teacher system and complete teaching system.The purpose of tutoring in the family of officials is to cultivate the morality and knowledge of their descendants. The teaching content is mainly the way of being an official, so the study of Confucian classics is very emphasized.Since the implementation of the policy of selecting scholars and appointing officials by classics in the Han Dynasty, classics and art have played a very important role in the family education of officials and eunuchs.The sons and daughters of the family of officials studied Rites, Music, Poems, Spring and Autumn Annals, and the Classic of Filial Piety since they were young, and most of their tutors were famous local Confucians.In addition, some of the sons and daughters of officials or eunuchs either went out to study as teachers, or followed their fathers and brothers to study.The tutors of common people's families are different due to different economic conditions and cultural environments. Rich businessmen or literati families who are engaged in education generally pay attention to Confucianism education. They hope that their children will become famous by reading "sage books". Be an official.However, the vast majority of common people's homes mostly focused on imparting knowledge of social life and production skills. In terms of moral education, its content was no different from the feudal education promoted by the ruling class, mainly the teaching of filial piety.