Chapter 20 Section 6 Family Education Advocating Confucian Classics

In order to ensure the quality of the bureaucratic team, the ancient rulers of our country not only set up schools to train and train "sons of the country", but also paid great attention to the education of the descendants of the bureaucratic family.In the Western Zhou Dynasty, Chinese studies were opened for the children of the nobles, and the learning was in the government. The children of the nobles learned nothing more than the six arts of "ritual, music, archery, royal, calligraphy, and mathematics".However, in order to ensure that state officials, that is, those who are servants, have successors, the system of "eunuchs and teachers" was also adopted at that time.The nature and form of this system are "the unity of politics and religion", that is, scholars can only learn from the government after they enter the official career, learn while working as an official, and learn the way of being an official from experienced officials.During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, "the state and the church were separated", and private education was aimed at cultivating "politicians", so the education of officials was moved down to the people.The Qin Dynasty banned private learning, so that the training and training of officials were transferred from private learning to the imperial court, and the official-teacher system of "teaching with the law" and "using officials as teachers" was implemented.The Han Dynasty vigorously developed culture and education, set up national education, and advocated private education. At the same time, it also retained the tradition of "eunuch learning and serving teachers". The imperial court is the field, the knives and pens are the lei, and the documents are the agriculture." The government pays attention to recruiting "school children" who are familiar with official affairs, so some scholars' tutors "love officials and scholars, and use officials as rope watches."Generally speaking, eunuchs in the Han Dynasty were divided into civil and military disciplines. The main content of martial arts was to learn the way of generals and soldiers, while the literature required the study of "historical books", Confucian classics, Ming laws and regulations, and the way of being an official.

After the implementation of "single respect for Confucianism" and the selection of scholars by Confucianism in the Han Dynasty, the family education of official families increasingly abandoned the theory of miscellaneous schools and advocated Confucianism.This feature is closely related to the influence of the private school teaching atmosphere at that time. Generally speaking, the family education of official families in the Han Dynasty had three levels: elementary, middle, and high.Elementary education is elementary education, which is mainly carried out in "home halls".The family hall is similar to the private school of later generations. It was set up by the family of officials (and also the family of the wealthy family), and hired calligraphers to teach the school-age children of the family and the family.The learning content mainly includes "Cangjie", "Fanjiang", "Jijiu" and "Yuan Shang", the purpose of which is to learn and practice Chinese characters.In addition, he also studied "Nine Chapters of Arithmetic".The middle level is reciting scriptures.The so-called classics are the classics of Confucianism.The main scriptures studied in the Han Dynasty include "Book of Filial Piety", "Book of Changes", "Book of Changes", "Poetry" and so on.Ancient textbooks are not like today’s textbooks divided into subjects. A book is a textbook. In this way, it is necessary to divide it into several parts according to the content of the scriptures to form unit courses so as to grasp the teaching progress.These divided parts are customarily called chapters, and the chapters are organized into sequences, such as "learning first", "administration second" and so on.A chapter is a relatively large unit, so the chapter should be subdivided, so the "sentence" is used as the unit.A sentence is a complete sentence, or a complete thing or reason.Because of the needs of teaching, Confucian classics are divided into chapters and sentences, so the middle-level teaching is mainly about chapters and sentences.The purpose of teaching chapters and sentences is to require students to "roughly understand the meaning of the text" or "understand the meaning of the text", and the main form is "reading".The requirements for reading in ancient times are very high. It is not only to be able to read down, but also to be able to tell the main idea of ​​the chapters and sentences, and to reach the level of proficiency in reciting.Therefore, the teaching principle of rote memorization is the main teaching requirement at this stage.Advanced level of study is specialized study.The ethos of specializing in the study of classics was very fashionable in the Han Dynasty. At that time, there was a saying that "it is better to teach the classics to the son if the leftovers are full of gold."Because as long as you can master the classics, you can make a fortune and get high officials and generous salaries.Of course, it is not easy to master the classics.At that time, there were many scholars, and each school and school had different opinions on the trivial words and great meanings of Confucian classics, forming a "teaching method" and "family law" of many schools of thought.In addition, in Confucian classics, there are conflicts between ancient and modern classics.Therefore, a tutor who is proficient in classics should hire someone who has considerable attainments in Confucian classics as a teacher. If a master of Confucian classics cannot be hired, let his children go out to visit famous teachers to learn from them.There were many masters and Confucians in the Han Dynasty. Generally, they did not work as tutors for a few students in official families, but independent "jingshe" professors, often with thousands of disciples, and as many as ten thousand.For example, Zhang Kai, the son of Zhang Ba, a famous Confucian in the Eastern Han Dynasty, knew "Yanshi Chunqiu" and "Guwen Shangshu", with thousands of disciples.Most of his students are students of official families.

In short, the family education of officials in the Han Dynasty began to flourish. On the one hand, it came from the motivation to seek officials, because paying attention to family education was the way to keep future generations as officials.