Confucius- a Great
Educator in Chinese History
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Confucius (Click to Zoom in) |
In the year 551 BC, the
famous thinker and educator of ancient China, Confucius, was born at today's
Qufu in Shandong Province, to a family that was far from being well-to-do.
But he was an earnest and hard-working pupil even in his childhood. When
a young man of a little over twenty, he became a minor official of the
state. Since he was very knowledgeable and serious in work, he achieved
great distinction in the job and thus became quite well-known by the time
he turned thirty. Confucius had been to many of the principalities of
the time, advocating his political views and seeking to have his service
accepted by the princes in administering their states. But his views and
opinions seemed to have fallen on deaf ears and consequently Confucius
made up his mind to devote all his energies to education. When people
learned about this, many of them sent their children to him to be educated.
They were accepted one and all and so Confucius became the first man in
the history of Chinese education to start a private school.
There was one young man of humble origin named Yan Hui who wanted to be
accepted as Confucius's student. But the family was so poor that they
even had difficulty providing themselves with daily necessaries. He was
afraid he would be rejected as he could not afford the tuition required.
One day he came to where Confucius was giving lectures. He saw a few men
sitting under a big tree and overheard Confucius say, "I'm ready
to accept anyone that can bring 10 pieces of preserved meat for tuition,
whatever his origin. " Yan Hui was greatly heartened by this. He
hastened back home and told his friends Zi Lu and Zi Gong about it. A
few days later, all three became Confucius's students. Even a man named
Gong Yechang who had just been released from prison came under Confucius's
tutelage.
Confucius often lectured to his students on the theme of "benevolence",
preaching the importance of loving others. One day, he and his students
happened to be journeying past the foot of the Mount Tai and saw a woman
weeping mournfully at the side of a grave. When asked why she was weeping
like that, she said to Confucius , still sobbing, "My father-in-law,
my husband and my son had all been eaten up by tigers at this place. "
"Why not moving away from here as soon as you can?" asked Confucius.
"But the government here is not that tyrannous!" On hearing
this, Confucius turned to his students and said, "So you see, a tyrannous
government is even more to be feared than fierce tigers, even harsher.
"
Confucius kept a close eye on his student's attitude towards work. There
was one young man, Zai Yu by name, who was not working as hard as the
others and often dozed off in class. He was also a boastful type. One
day Confucius told his students to do reading. Zai Yu again fell asleep,
bending over his desk. Confucius was very angry. He wakened up the young
man and chided him sternly, "You're like a piece of rotten wood and
no one can do any carving on a piece of rotten wood. You're also like
a bespattered wall which can never be whitewashed again. " Zai Yu
said in reply, "Master, I'll never do the same thing again. "
Nodding his head, Confucius rejoined, "It used to be the case that
I'd take someone at his words. Now I not only listen to what he pronounces
but see what he does in fulfillment of his words. " Zai Yu was so
ashamed that he became wordless, his head drooping.
Once Confucius went on a speaking tour in the state of Wei, accompanied
by his students. On the way, they fell to discussing such topics as poetry,
ethics, government, etc. The students had a great respect for Confucius's
learning and wanted to know how he did his own studies. To this Confucius
responded, "I used to sit alone thinking about this and that. Sometimes
I even forgot my meals or bedtime. Still I gained very little. Later I
shifted to reading omnivorously, but I did not benefit a great deal either.
At long last I came to see that reading in a mechanical way without using
my brains was no use. On the other hand, if thinking is divorced from
the reality and no due attention is paid to reading, one will continue
to feel puzzled by many things. One should constantly review what he has
learned and combine reading with thinking. In thus making use of the theories
one has learned to guide his thought and help analyze the problems at
hand, progress will be achieved. "
Confucius was a dedicated educator, having accepted a total of 3000 students
in his life of whom seventy-two were outstanding scholars. Through educational
work, Confucius succeeded in propagating his political views. Eventually
he and his students e-merged as an independent school of thought, the
Confucius School which exerted a tremendous impact on feudalist China
which lasted thousands of years.
Confucius lived until he was seventy-three and his death was deeply mourned
by his students. Some of them stayed for as long as three years by the
side of his grave and Zi Lu topped all by staying there alone for another
three years. In order not to forget his teachings, Confucius's students
wrote down all his dialogues with them. Later they set about collecting
and editing what Confucius had said on other questions and how he had
dealt with various problems and situations. All this was written into
a classic of the Confucian School - The Confucian
Analects.