Zhu Xi thought of himself, like Confucius, as the bearer of tradition rather than as the founder or originator of a new doctrine. Content with the modest role of teacher and transmitter, he was a scholar who devoted himself to editing texts, compiling anthologies, and writing commentaries on the classics instead of writing treatises to advance his own theories. Indeed, by modern Western standards he would probably have to be put down as the next thing to a “mere translator.” Yet, his own modesty notwithstanding, to Zhu, as to Confucius earlier, must go the credit of instigating a virtual revolution in education.
Confucius, for his part, accomplished this mainly by the force of his personal example as teacher and scholar, reflected in the Analects (a book about him, not by him) and in a personal following that tried to emulate his example. On this score, Zhu Xi, too, as a teacher was hardly less magisterial or commanding in influence, but if I identify him more particularly as an educator, it is because, besides being a great teacher devoted to learning, he was a thinker and an official concerned with the process of education and its institutionalization. For the title of educator in this sense Zhu qualifies by virtue of his extraordinary contributions to defining a new Confucian curriculum and a new educational process, seen in both the official schools and private academies that came to prevail throughout East Asia in the second millennium.
Zhu’s aims in education, which gave that process a clear direction, coherent method, and substantial content, projected a comprehensive vision on his part. To call him visionary would no doubt be overstating or misrepresenting the case, if by this one meant looking into the future and anticipating what its new requirements would be. For Zhu, it was enough simply to face the present and its compelling needs without speculating on possibilities more remote. As he said, in stressing the need for attending to what was near at hand, “We must only proceed from what we understand in what is near to us and move from there.… It is like ascending steps, going from the first to the second, from the second to the third and from the third to the fourth.”1
But if Zhu did not look to the future to redeem the past, as was often the case in the West, or put his faith in the millennium as the ultimate realization of the human struggle, he nevertheless did expect his step-by-step method to lead upward to some definite goal. This vision he put before his students and readers, offering a comprehensive view of human reality and, insofar as his reading of past and present would vouchsafe it, a human ideal to be striven for.
In this chapter, I shall try to articulate that vision and, where possible, bring out its historical significance in light of the factors that shaped his situation and defined the educational problem for him. Some of these factors Zhu himself would have been conscious of, others perhaps not. In any case, before discussing Zhu’s ideas themselves, I state briefly here what I consider these factors to be. I do so only in summary form because I rely on other chapters in this volume to deal with these developments more fully.
1. The first point to note is that education, both public and private, had become a major issue in Song politics and thought well before Zhu Xi’s time. It was already high on the Neo-Confucian agenda.
2. The new importance of education in the Northern Song arose in significant part from the expansion of the civil bureaucracy at the inception of the dynasty and from the increased demand this created for persons with requisite learning and skills.
3. Economic development and diversification as well as rising affluence (although perhaps regionally uneven) and increased leisure for cultural pursuits provided alternative outlets for the educated. The literati had options other than government service, and they weighed seriously the relative value and priority of the alternatives that the society and culture afforded them. Prime among these was teaching.
4. Expansion of the economy and technological advances created a wider base for the support of education, leading to an increase in the number of schools and academies. Over time, the growth of local, semiprivate academies outpaced that of public schools. With this, tensions arose, but less from rivalry between public and private endeavors than from either political pressures and literati involvement with them or resistance to state control and the distorting effects of the civil-service examinations on education.
5. Schools, especially academies (shuyuan), centered on teachers and collections of books. Hence the spread of printing was bound to have a significant impact on them, as on cultural activity in general. This significance is concisely stated by Carter and Goodrich in reference to the printing of the classics by Feng Dao in 953:
The printing of the Classics was one of the forces that restored Confucian literature and teaching to the place in national and popular regard that it had held before the advent of Buddhism, and a classical renaissance followed that can be compared only to the Renaissance that came in Europe after the rediscovery of its classical literature, and that there too was aided by the invention of printing.… Another result of the publication of the Classics was an era of large-scale printing, both public and private, that characterized the whole of the Song dynasty.2
A development of such epochal proportions confronted the literati with both new opportunities for the dissemination of knowledge and new problems about how this technological change would affect the learning process. Neo-Confucians became much occupied with the nature and significance of book learning. On a wider scale, it became a question of which traditional teachings would take advantage of the new printing technology. Earlier Buddhists had been quick to do so,3 but Chan Buddhism, the dominant form among artists and intellectuals, had declared its independence of the written word (bu li wenzi).4 Two questions emerged: which of these teachings would want to reach a larger public through the use of this medium? And how would they adapt their teaching method to it? Even among Neo-Confucians there was not a single answer, but most found themselves compelled to deal with such issues as the relative importance of reading, lecturing, and discussion. “How to read books” was much discussed in the Cheng-Zhu school, and Zhu Xi’s Reading Method (Dushufa) was widely disseminated. Qian Mu has said that no one contributed more to this development than did Zhu Xi—indeed, he stands out above all others.5
6. Song Confucians saw Buddhism and Daoism, and especially Chan, as still exerting a powerful influence on men’s minds. Syncretists minimized the conflict between the Three Teachings by assigning them respective spheres of influence: Confucianism, governance; Daoism, physical culture; Buddhism, mental culture. Neo-Confucians tended to reject such formulae as too facile, on both theoretical and practical grounds. Among the latter was the educational issue: the practical impossibility of mastering three such disparate systems at once and, given the need to choose among them, the primacy of the moral imperative that claimed priority for humane learning and called for new types of scholarship to meet the increasingly complex problem of secular society.
7. At the same time, Buddhist spirituality remained a formidable challenge to Neo-Confucians, who felt a need to provide an alternative compatible with secular goals and lay life. Managing all this in one lifetime was for them clearly a matter of educational priorities.
8. Chan Buddhism had its own problems. Its masters worried about the decline of monastic discipline. Having forsworn language as an adequate means of communicating essential truth, in the Song and Yuan periods they faced a dilemma regarding the codification of monastic rules and training. In the end, leading monks compromised their own principles by compiling rules, keeping records of dialogues and koans, and publishing them, lest authoritative traditions lapse altogether.6 Thus, they too accommodated themselves, albeit halfheartedly, to the rising tide of printing and book learning, yet without ever addressing education as a distinct social and cultural value.
These developments touched Zhu Xi’s own life and significantly affected his thought. As the son of a scholar-official, he naturally gravitated toward the same combination of scholarly activity and public service as his father. At the same time, Daoism and Chan Buddhism appealed to his religious instincts. Thus, as a young man he successfully competed in the civil-service examinations while also pursuing and actually experiencing in some vague manner a mystical enlightenment. Thereafter, searching for a way to reconcile the rival claims of scholarship, official service, and the spiritual life, he laid the problem before his teacher Li Tong.7
The answer, which he eventually had to work out for himself, lay in “learning for the sake of oneself.” It was a Confucian answer, expressed in the language of the Analects’ “learning for one’s own sake, rather than for others’” (14:25). Zhu interpreted “learning for others” primarily in terms of the civil-service examinations and worldly success, which for him should properly be subordinated to the goal of true self-understanding. Yet the priority he gave to self-understanding in the Confucian sense represented Zhu’s response also to Buddhism’s insistence on giving top priority to the problem of self and no-self, or seeing one’s “original face.”
In The Liberal Tradition in China, I have discussed “learning for the sake of oneself” as the underlying theme of Zhu Xi’s thought from his early years to the end of his life as a teacher.8 In this chapter, however, I wish to distinguish between “learning” in the most general as well as the most personal sense and education as a practical, public, and institutionalized activity. In the mind of Zhu Xi, of course, the two were inseparable: education in the sense of schooling or organized instruction ought also to serve the purpose of “learning for the sake of oneself,” but for my purposes here the focus will be on the public aspect.
Zhu’s basic approach is made clear in the most widely disseminated of his writings—his preface and commentary to the Great Learning. Because later tradition followed Zhu’s recommendation that the Great Learning should be studied first among the canonical texts, being the gateway and guide to all learning, education in Neo-Confucian schools was almost always premised on the principles so concisely enunciated in the opening pages of that work. Here, I summarize the main points.
First, in his preface, Zhu puts forward as the basis of his educational philosophy the central Neo-Confucian doctrine of the moral nature inherent in all men, how it is affected by everyone’s physical endowment (i.e., one’s actual condition), and by what means the ruler should enable everyone to recover his original good nature and fulfill it.
Among relevant means, schools are most important. Zhu believed he had a model for emulation in the schools, established by the sage-kings of remote antiquity, that reached down to the smallest village and provided education for everyone from the age of eight until maturity. To modern minds, the adoption of such a system of universal education might seem an obvious course, but in Zhu’s time its practicability could not be assumed. Earlier attempts to achieve it in the Song had failed, and the main factor, later cited by Mary Wright, as militating against schools in nineteenth-century China—that “the sons of peasants could seldom be spared from the fields”9—would have applied in the Song as well. Moreover, if economic realities and the chronic fiscal difficulties of Chinese dynasties could render such a plan unlikely to be accomplished, there were other less costly educational means to which he might have had recourse. Well-known measures were hardly uncongenial to a Confucian like Zhu: instruction in the home or through clan and community organizations, as well as the whole panoply of rituals by which “moral edification” was supposed to be achieved, especially in rural areas. Indeed, on other occasions Zhu himself had used these among the great array of persuasive means by which he would accomplish the people’s uplift.
Nevertheless, in this most central of texts and most considered of arguments, Zhu puts the school system up front—not just teaching or tutoring, training in the home, official exhortation, or moral transformation through ritual observance, but quite literally and concretely the “establishment of schools” (xuexiao zhi she) and their operation/administration by the government (xuexiao zhi zheng).10 He was not just airing a vague notion or uttering a pious hope; he was making a definite point with regard to the institutionalization of universal schooling and the commitment of resources to that end.
Second, another noteworthy feature of the educational system described in Zhu’s preface is the combination of universality and particularity in its application. Because all men share the moral nature imparted by Heaven, all have a common need to perfect that nature through education. This was, according to Zhu’s classical model, to be provided for the children of all under Heaven, from the king and his nobles down to the commonest of people in the smallest lane or alley. Although higher education was not similar for all but only for the more talented, these latter were again to be drawn from all ranks of society.11
Such being the case, there was no one without an education in those times, and of those so educated there was none who did not understand what was inherent in his individual nature or what was proper to the performance of his own duties, so that each could exert his energies to the utmost.12
Egalitarian though it might be with respect to education, this universalistic approach carries no necessary implication of social leveling. Zhu, like Confucius in his time, advocates equal educational opportunity but still accepts the need for a social structure and a hierarchy of authority based on merit. His point is that every individual should have the chance to realize his full human potential, given the limits of his individual endowment, situation in life, or station in society. All possess a common nature, but each has an individualized form, to be perfected by schooling and self-cultivation.
A question may arise, however, about whether this self-cultivation actually aims at an individualized result rather than at conformity to a social norm. It might be argued, for instance, that even though Zhu recognizes differences in individual capacity and disposition, the process of self-perfection is meant to bring the individual into line with some ideal type. Insofar as this might be interpreted as an idea or model external to the self to which one should measure up, practically it could mean that self-correction and self-discipline would simply subordinate one’s own interest to that of the group, expressed in such terms as “subduing self and restoring rightness”(ritual decorum) (keji fuli) or overcoming one’s own selfishness (si) and conforming to the common good (gong).
This latter dichotomy, opposing individual selfishness to the common good, was indeed a basic criterion of ethical conduct in Neo-Confucianism, yet it has sometimes been overdrawn, as it was by early Neo-Confucians of a rigoristic bent and later by those who reacted against this ascetic extreme. The former seemed to regard any desires at all as selfish and to call for their total suppression, while the latter, on the same count, attacked Neo-Confucianism as allowing no room for individual self-expression or self-satisfaction. Enough extreme cases can be found to support this view, thus one cannot dismiss the problem of religious renunciation or even masochism as negligible for Neo-Confucianism.13 Still, most Neo-Confucians remembered well the story of Confucius scolding Zengzi for carrying filial submission almost to the point of self-immolation: Zengzi had been weeding some melons when he accidentally cut the roots of a plant. Zengzi’s father beat him for this, but when Confucius heard about it he said Zengzi should have gotten out of the way rather than submit to his father’s stick. “By quietly submitting to a beating like that, you might have caused your father to kill you, and what unfilial conduct could have been worse than that!”
Zhu had in mind this reasonable and moderate view: the health and welfare of the person is primary, and human desires are good except insofar as they conflict with others’ legitimate needs and wants. Like Confucius in the Analects (6:28), he recognized that everyone had ambitions to achieve something for himself as well as an obligation to respect that ambition in others.14 The language Zhu uses in the passage just cited affirms as the goal of education that all should have outlets for their capacities in accordance with an understanding of both their own individual natures (xingfen) and their proper roles in society (zhifen). Here the term xingfen refers to the concrete, individualized nature (xingzhi),15 both moral and psychophysical. Thus, for Zhu Xi’s educational purposes, the individual is neither reducible simply to a social role nor wholly definable in relation to some abstract norm of conduct. He leaves room here to pursue “learning for one’s own sake” as a larger reality encompassing self and others, uniting the Way within and the Way without.
It is appropriate, then, to read this passage in light of Zhu’s more complete guide to self-cultivation, the Reflections on Things at Hand (Jinsilu). There Zhu quotes Cheng Hao’s memorial to the emperor: “The essential training should be the way of choosing the good and cultivating the self until the whole world is transformed and brought to perfection, so that all people from the ordinary person on up can become sages.”16 Beyond this, one need only look to Zhu Xi’s concluding chapter in Things at Hand, which is devoted to the “Dispositions of the Sages and Worthies.” These “dispositions” refer to the individual natures of the sages and worthies, as does Zhu’s language in the preface above, and the portraits presented are those of distinct human personalities, not totally self-effacing copies of a sagely stereotype.17
In Zhu’s preface, the final point to be noted is how his explanation of civilization’s decline since the early Zhou period fits in with his formulation of a remedy. Zhu sees the disappearance of the sage-kings and the end of virtuous rule as further aggravated by a long lapse in the teaching tradition from Mencius until the Cheng brothers in the Song. This is, of course, a view of history also set forth by Zhu in his preface to the Mean (Zhongyong), where he propounds his doctrine of the “succession to the Way” (daotong) and highlights the heroic role of the Cheng brothers in rediscovering the true Way.18 Zhu reiterates the myth of the heroic teacher here to underscore the need for true education as the key to systematic reform. In dark contrast to the shining light of the Cheng brothers, Zhu paints a vivid picture of the corrupting effects of his twin nemeses: Buddhism and Daoism on the one extreme and utilitarianism on the other. The latter corrupted mankind by its pragmatism and opportunism, pursuing power and material gain at the expense of moral principles. Buddhism and Daoism, at the opposite extreme, were too transcendental and not down to earth; indeed, Zhu acknowledges that for loftiness they exceeded even the Great Learning yet lacked its moral solidity and practical method.19 In this situation, only the Cheng brothers reaffirmed the inherent goodness of man’s nature and recognized the true worth of the Great Learning as the classic par excellence, unequaled for its combination of principle and practicality in the nurturing of man’s moral nature.
Throughout Zhu’s preface and commentary to the Great Learning, this systematic, concrete, and detailed approach to learning is constantly reiterated. He believes that without specific structures and orderly procedures there can be no effective resistance to the moral erosion of Buddhist “expediency” and Daoist nihilism, which have left mankind exposed to the opportunism of power seekers and defenseless against the exploitation of autocrats.
This aim—to combine moral principles with well-defined means of instruction—leads Zhu to insist on having a school system and a sequential curriculum. Not simply because Zhu as a traditionalist reveres the classics does he find merit in a system such as was spelled out in the Record of Rites (Liji); there it says that “according to the system of ancient instruction, for the families of a hamlet there was the village school (shu), for a neighborhood there was the community center (xiang), for the larger districts there was the institute of retired scholars (xu), and in the capital there was the college (xue).”20 Nor simply as a loyal follower of Cheng Hao does he appreciate the orderly sequence of priorities embodied in the latter’s program of universal education, as quoted in Reflections on Things at Hand:
Master Mingdao [Cheng Hao] said to the emperor: The foundation of government is to make public morals and customs correct and to get virtuous and talented men to serve. The first thing to do is politely to order the virtuous scholars among close attendants, and all officers, to search wholeheartedly for those whose moral characters and achievements are adequate as examples and teachers, and then seek out those who are eager to learn and have good ability and fine character. Invite them, appoint them, and have them courteously sent to the capital where they will gather. Let them discuss correct learning with each other from morning to evening. The moral principles to be taught must be based on human relations and must make clear the principles of things. The teaching, from the elementary training of sweeping the floor and answering questions on up, must consist in the cultivation of filial piety, brotherly respect, loyalty, and faithfulness, as well as proper behavior and the qualities derived from ceremonies and music. There must be a proper pace and order in inducing, leading, arousing and gradually shaping the students and in bringing their character to completion. The essential training should be the way of choosing the good and cultivating the self until the whole world is transformed and brought to perfection so that all people from the ordinary person up can become sages. Those whose learning and conduct completely fulfill this standard are people of perfect virtue. Select the students of ability and intelligence, who are capable of advancing toward the good, to study under them every day. Choose graduates of brilliant learning and high virtue to be professors at the Imperial University and send the rest to teach in various parts of the country.
In selecting students, let county schools promote them to prefecture schools, and let prefecture schools present them, as though presenting guests, to the Imperial University. Let them come together and be taught there. Each year the superior graduates will be recommended to the government for service.
All scholars are to be chosen to serve on the basis of their correct and pure character, their filial piety and brotherly respect demonstrated at home, their sense of integrity, shame, propriety, and humility, their intelligence and scholarship, and their understanding of the principles of government.21
Both examples speak to Zhu’s sense of the need to bring order, substance, and process into a society seen as shapeless and without moorings, drifting aimlessly between anarchic nihilism and coercive despotism.
In the opening lines of his commentary on the Great Learning, Zhu sounds the same keynote when he quotes Cheng Yi to the effect that only owing to the survival of this can one know the successive steps (zidi) and procedures by which the ancients pursued learning. Zhu then proceeds to explain the three guiding principles (sangangling) of the Great Learning. Here, too, structure and direction are emphasized: gang represent the mainstays of a net, and ling guidance or direction. The first of these guiding principles is to “clarify or manifest bright virtue,” referring to the moral nature in all men, which is inherently clear and luminous but must be cleansed of obscurations if it is to be made fully manifest. The potential is innate but must be actively developed; the process is one of bringing out from within something that has its own life and luminosity rather than imposing or imprinting on it something from without. This Zhu calls the “learning of the great man” (daren), which has the ordinary meaning of “adult” but here suggests the fullness of self-development and the grandeur of the moral nature brought to its perfection.
The second guiding principle is to “renew the people” (xinmin), that is, to assist others to manifest their moral natures through self-cultivation. Here Zhu follows Cheng Yi in substituting the word xin (renew) for qin (to love, to befriend the people). Zhu specifically refers to this as “reforming the old,” emphasizing active reform and renovation instead of expressing simple goodwill and generous sentiments. The political implication is that the ruler’s self-cultivation necessarily involves him in helping the people renew themselves through education.
Third among the guiding principles is “resting or abiding in the highest good”; this means that, by clarifying bright virtue (manifesting the moral nature) and renewing the people, one should reach the point of ultimate goodness and stay there. “Resting in the highest good,” Zhu explains, means meeting both the moral requirements of each situation and affair and fulfilling one’s capability for moral action. At this point, one can rest content. Peace of mind has been achieved by satisfying one’s conscience, not by transcending the moral sphere.
If I have discounted earlier any idea that Zhu Xi had millenarian expectations or looked to the future to redeem the present, it was partly in view of these three guiding principles. The impulse to renew and reform is there, but it is enough to achieve what is possible in one’s own life situation and within one’s own limited capabilities. “To be humane is to accept being human” (renzhe an ren), as Confucius said (Analects 4:2). However, Zhu Xi’s underscoring of these three principles at the outset of his commentary has impressed on later generations the need for active renewal and reform, first with respect to oneself and then out of concern for others.
From there, the text and Zhu proceed to discuss sequential processes, ends and means, “roots and branches,” and priorities in learning. Of these, the best known are the “Eight Steps” (ba tiaomu: items, specifications), consisting of successive steps in self-cultivation and involving a range of cognitive, moral, and social operations. These are probably the most discussed subjects in Neo-Confucian literature, but I shall confine myself to points that have particular relevance to education, differentiated above from learning in general. Much of the Great Learning’s text is less systematic than Zhu Xi would have liked, and he, like Cheng Yi, was at pains to rearrange it, but his interlinear note explaining this reveals Zhu’s preoccupation with logical order and step-by-step procedures: “The text of the commentary [by Zengzi] is drawn at random from classics and commentaries in no particular order. It appears to be unsystematic, but nevertheless there is an underlying thread. It is most precise and detailed as regards its different levels and successive phases.”22
Zhu draws particular attention to the first steps in the process of self-cultivation by adding a special note on gewu zhizhi, most commonly rendered as “the investigation of things and extension of knowledge.” Zhu’s commentary on these terms, however, should alert us to a possible misunderstanding. He says that ge (investigation) means to reach or arrive, and he indicates that in this process principles in the mind are brought into contact with principles in things, that is, made present to one another. Because our word “knowledge” is generally understood in objective terms as things known, it is well to note that in Chinese zhi makes no distinction between knowing and what is known. Zhu Xi comments: “zhi is to recognize or be conscious of, to project one’s knowing, hoping that one’s knowing would be fully employed (literally exhausted).”23 The same passage can be read with zhi translated as “knowledge” instead of “knowing.” But in that case, it should not be understood as in “a body of knowledge,” for to do so would set an impossible goal for “exhausting” learning: one’s knowledge would have to be complete. One would need to know everything, instead of simply developing one’s learning capacity to the full.
This is a point of some significance for education because it bears on the questions of book learning and the pursuit of empirical research. To what extent should education, in the form of the reading and discussion of books, be conceived as the assimilation of principles from things or as the accumulation of factual knowledge? The issue has been read both ways by later Neo-Confucians, some of whom have stressed objective study and others active experiential learning. Zhu seems to have allowed for both in his special note on gewu zhizhi:
“The extension of knowing lies in the investigation of things” means that if we wish to extend our knowing, it consists in fathoming the principle of any thing or affair we come into contact with, for the intelligent mind of man always has the capacity to know and the things of this world all have their principles, but if a principle remains unfathomed, one’s knowing is not fully exercised. Hence the initial teaching of the Great Learning insists that the learner, as he comes upon the things of this world, must proceed from principles already known and further explore them until he reaches the limit. After exerting himself for a long time, one day he will experience a breakthrough to integral comprehension. Then the qualities of all things, whether internal or external, refined or coarse, will all be apprehended and the mind, in its whole substance and great functioning, will be fully enlightened. This is “things [having been] investigated.” This is knowing having reached [its limit].24
In this passage, I have translated zhi as “knowing” rather than “knowledge” because, even allowing for the ambiguity of the original Chinese, to render it as knowledge in the sense of something known produces an absurdity and flies in the face of other testimony from Zhu. Concerning this text, Liu Shuxian has recently observed:
When perfection of knowledge is achieved, does Zhu Xi mean that the mind actually possesses empirical knowledge of all things? This is an absurd position, as Zhu Xi freely admits that there are things even the sage does not know. Hence what Zhu Xi means is that when the mind is pure and clear without the obstructions of selfish desires, it cannot fail to grasp the principles of things and respond freely to things as concrete situations call for, and as the human mind is united with the mind of Heaven, it does not exclude anything from its scope and is in that sense all-inclusive. Moreover, since the principles are none other than manifestations of one single Principle, the realization of the substance and function of this Principle will enable the mind to unfold the rich content of the Principle without +any hindrances.25
As Liu suggests, Zhu Xi seems to be saying that if one pursues study and reflection long enough, one’s understanding will be enlarged to the point of overcoming any sense of things or others being foreign to oneself, and the student will have achieved an empathetic insight that is both integral and comprehensive (guantong). One would have developed a capacity for learning and knowing to its limit and thus would be equally at home with oneself and one’s world. At this point, “learning for the sake of oneself” would have overcome all distinction between self and others.
THE CONDUCT OF SCHOOLS
From the preceding discussion of Zhu Xi’s aims in education, three main points emerge: (1) the need for a school system reaching the whole population, not just individualized instruction for the select few; (2) the need for a well-defined curriculum, adapted at each stage to the student’s level of comprehension, maturity, and readiness to take on larger responsibilities; and (3) the importance of having a goal to the educational process that offers the individual a suitable model of the whole person, developing one’s potential and exercising one’s full capabilities, as expressed in the phrase “the whole substance and its great functioning” (quanti dayong).
I will now discuss the content and conduct of education as prescribed by Zhu Xi in different institutional settings. I will try to elicit general principles from those documents most often cited in the later tradition as authoritative guides: Zhu’s Reflection on Things at Hand (Jinsilu), his Articles of the White Deer Grotto Academy (Bailudong shuyuan jieshi), his comments on the School Rules of Messrs. Cheng and Dong (Cheng Dong er xiansheng xueze), and finally his “Personal Proposals for Schools and Official Recruitment” (Xuexiao gongju siyi). Zhu Xi discussed learning, teaching, and schooling on many occasions, and a rich body of materials is available for the study of these aspects of his thought. But I believe the texts just cited have been most influential in Neo-Confucian schools of later times.
Reflections on Things at Hand (Jinsilu) centers on the self. It works out from there, through the wider sphere of social activity, toward the goal of learning to become a sage or worthy. In this it follows the basic pattern of Zhu Xi’s three guiding principles: from self-cultivation, through social renovation, to attaining and resting in the highest good. Although it has much to say about different aspects of learning, it has surprisingly little to say about schools or how they should be conducted, no doubt because Zhu Xi conceived of schooling essentially in terms of the teacher-student relationship. One can indeed say that the work exudes the atmosphere of the school; much of the text has the quality of teacher-student dialogue and conveys the impression that a scholastic tradition—a disciplined dialogue over the generations—is being perpetuated.
Nevertheless, only the brief eleventh chapter is devoted to teaching, and that is almost wholly given to the manner of instruction, not to defining a curriculum or conducting a school. I emphasize the “manner” here, not “methods,” because most of what Zhu presents in this chapter concerns the example set by the teacher or the nature of the student’s response to instruction rather than specific techniques of pedagogy. For Zhu, personal inspiration and motivation counted most, with more emphasis on student initiative than on how the teacher would work on or for him. With the depersonalizing and dehumanizing of education in the modern world, it may be refreshing to see how much Zhu emphasizes the personal and the human, but it may also leave one wondering about the gap between cultivation of the person and the conduct of the school system Zhu Xi had advocated.
There are, however, two exceptions to this generalization in Things at Hand. One refers to the organization of his school by Hu Yuan, the tenth-century master who became much admired for his combination of classical scholarship and practical studies. Supposedly, he set up two halls, one for interpreting the classics and the other for handling practical affairs.26 This model is also cited in Zhu’s Elementary Learning (Xiaoxue), another highly influential text. In Things at Hand, Zhu quotes Cheng Hao:
When Hu Anding (Hu Yuan) was in Huzhou (in Zhejiang province), he set up a hall to study the way of government. When students wanted to understand the way of government, the matter would be discussed here, the discussion including such things as governing the people, managing the army, river conservation and mathematics. He once said that Liu Yi [1017–1086, a student of Hu]27 was an expert in river conservation, repeatedly served in government, and in all cases achieved merit in river conservation.28
In the Collected Commentaries on the Jinsilu (Jinsilu jizhu), Zhu is quoted in reference to this passage as giving Hu Yuan more credit for his breadth of mind and range of interests than for his precise command of technical subjects.29 Nevertheless, the citing here, and in the Elementary Learning of Hu’s program, with its division of studies between the humanities and technical subjects of social relevance, gave such a combination of studies the imprimatur of Zhu Xi. Moreover, the citing of Liu Yi with approval as a competent technician lent weight and respectability to such studies. In principle, such an arrangement was acceptable, even if in practice the same balance was not always maintained, with study of the classics clearly predominating among Neo-Confucians.
The second reference to actual schooling in Things at Hand comes in Cheng Hao’s memorial, quoted earlier. Therein one finds specific reference to a school system, a distinction between elementary and advanced education, and a combination of moral and intellectual training. Significantly, however, education is for him closely linked to training officials; witness the inclusion of this memorial in the section of Things at Hand dealing with systems and institutions (i.e., basic governmental institutions), not with teaching, as if to emphasize education’s political importance.30 Idealistic as Cheng Hao tends to be, he sees the same values and interests as shared by all in human society; it does not occur to him that there might be any incompatibility in the schools’ serving both government recruiting and general education. For him, as for most Neo-Confucians of his age, it was simply a question of converting the ruler to sagely wisdom and putting his power to humane uses through education. The idea of a separation of functions or countervailing power as between state and school was hardly thinkable at this time, although Huang Zongxi came close to it in the seventeenth century. There was only the implicit threat, if persuasion failed to gain agreement in principle between ruler and minister, of the Neo-Confucian’s scruples demanding his nonparticipation in, or withdrawal from, the process.
In the Yuan period, when the issue of whether the civil-service examinations should be resumed was debated at the Mongol court, for the leading Neo-Confucian classicist Wu Cheng (1249–1333) the question was not how the bureaucratic state could be kept out of the schools but how the schools could prepare and qualify candidates for government service better than the examinations did.31 At that time, Wu cited Hu Yuan, Cheng Hao, and Zhu Xi for their views on the school curriculum. Although one cannot be sure of his sources, Wu may well have been prompted by these excerpts about Hu and Cheng in Things at Hand.32
For Zhu Xi’s views on the content of education in the schools, I turn first to his Articles of the White Deer Grotto Academy, so often cited as a basic charter by later Neo-Confucian academies. At the risk of repeating what will already be well known to many readers, I cite these articles or precepts for ready reference:
Affection between parent and child;
Righteousness between ruler and subject;
Differentiation between husband and wife;
Precedence between elder and younger;
Trust between friends.
The above are the items of the Five Teachings, that is, the very teachings that Yao and Shun commanded Xie reverently to propagate as minister of education. For those who engage in learning, these are all they need to learn. As to the proper procedure for study, there are also five items, as follows:
Study extensively, inquire carefully, ponder thoroughly, sift clearly, and practice earnestly.
The above is the proper sequence for the pursuit of learning. Study, inquiry, pondering, and sifting are for fathoming principle to the utmost. As to earnest practice, there are also essential elements at each stage from personal cultivation to the handling of affairs and dealing with people, as separately listed below:
Be faithful and true to your words and firm and sincere in conduct. Curb your anger and restrain your lust; turn to the good and correct your errors.
The above are the essentials of personal cultivation.
Be true to moral principles and do not scheme for profit; illuminate [exemplify] the Way and do not calculate the advantages [for oneself].
The above are the essentials for handling affairs.
Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you. When in your conduct you are unable to succeed, reflect and look [for the cause] within yourself.33
The significant feature of these rather prosaic articles is their attention to the basic moral and intellectual virtues applicable to one’s conduct of personal life, human relations, and public affairs. Considered as the most general aims of the school, they focus on fundamental human values rather than on authority, commandments, or disciplinary rules.
Note, however, the political context of the locus classicus cited in the second part, that is, the Five Teachings that Yao and Shun had propagated by the minister of education, which were all one needed to learn. This makes it difficult for Confucians to conceive of an ideal state of affairs in which political and intellectual authority would be separated. To modern minds, these precepts may sound quaint, if not archaic, vague, and platitudinous. But Zhu, while consciously striving for simplicity to avoid a kind of legalistic overdetermination, had a definite structure in mind, with precise sequences, categories, and numbered sets for ease of retention or recollection by the student. At the risk of some repetition with chapter 9, I quote two relevant passages from The Liberal Tradition in China, I wrote:
The social functions addressed in the first set of “Articles” give way in the second set to operations that are more intellectual and reflect the particular preoccupations of the Song scholar. One cannot say that they lack the general human relevance of the moral dicta or would be inappropriate in most human situations, yet the atmosphere of the school prevails; it would be hard to imagine peasants having much opportunity to “study,” “inquire,” “ponder,” and “sift” in the fashion Zhu suggests.34
For students, however, one could hardly find a more pithy statement of the essential values and procedures governing scholarly inquiry and reflective thought—the critical temper at work in the service of humane studies. Zhu believed so deeply, indeed, in having the student develop his own capacity to learn, weigh, and judge for himself that he encouraged the application of them even to the classics and the precepts he himself was recommending:
[I, Zhu] have observed that the sages and worthies of antiquity taught people to pursue learning with one intention only, which is to make students understand the meaning of moral principle through discussion, so that they can cultivate their own persons and then extend it to others. The sages and worthies did not wish them merely to engage in memorizing texts or in composing poetry and essays as a means of gaining fame or seeking office. Students today obviously do the contrary [to what the sages and worthies intended]. The methods that the sages and worthies employed in teaching people are all found in the Classics. Dedicated scholars should by all means read them frequently, ponder them deeply and then inquire into them and sift them.35
I have already spoken of this approach to learning as a kind of voluntarism that respects the essential autonomy of the self in weighing and sifting whatever is to be learned. That is not, to be sure, a radical autonomy; it does not presuppose a completely free and independent self standing in opposition to all else, but it conceives of it as engaged in a creative interaction with others, in keeping with the humaneness of man’s essential nature. Nor, if one is inclined to see this voluntarism as opposed to authoritarianism, should one misconstrue the nature of authority here. Zhu shares the traditional Confucian belief in the need of men, and especially the young, for teachers, leaders, and models to serve as edifying examples. To provide the latter kind of valid authority figure, so as not to leave the young without inspirational guidance or cautionary example, is a most serious responsibility for Zhu Xi. Yet he is opposed to the coercive imposition of authority, whether in learning or politics.
This essential spirit is conveyed in the conclusion of the postscript to the “Article” discussed above:
If you understand the necessity for principles and accept the need to take responsibility oneself for seeing that they are so, then what need will there be to wait for someone else to set up such contrivances as rules and prohibitions for one to follow? In recent ages regulations have been instituted in schools, and students have been treated in a shallow manner. This method of making regulations does not at all conform with the intention of the ancients. Therefore I shall not now try to put them into effect in this lecture hall. Rather I have specifically selected all the essential principles that the sages and the worthies used in teaching people how to pursue learning; I have listed them as above one by one and posted them on the crossbar over the gate. You, sirs, should discuss them with one another, follow them, and take personal responsibility for their observance. Then in whatever a man should be cautious or careful about in thought, word or deed, he will certainly be more demanding of himself than he would be the other way [of complying with regulations]. If you do otherwise or even reject what I have said, then the “regulations” others talk about will have to take over and in no way can they be dispensed with. You, sirs, please think this over.36
Zhu’s disavowal of rules here is clearly not total. It would be best to dispense with prohibitions if the situation can be managed by more constructive means, but resort may well be had to rules if the alternative is disorder and destruction. This is in keeping with Zhu’s consistent position on the maintenance of order in society: the guidance of rites is preferable to the restraints of law, but the latter must be invoked if rites are not respected.
In Zhu Xi’s own lifetime, this question arose when he was asked to endorse the School Rules of Messrs. Cheng and Dong (Cheng Dong er Xiansheng xueze). These rules, devised by two scholars whom Zhu personally respected,37 prescribed a school routine and conduct for which the term “rules of decorum” would be more appropriate than any term suggesting a penal code; in fact, the ze in the title could just as well be read as “governing principles” or “norms” instead of “rules.” Its contents include many dos and don’ts, but there is no mention of punishment stronger than the following: “Choose [to associate with] those who are diligent and careful, deal with them correctly and treat them with forbearance. If someone errs in small matters, admonish him; if in more serious, make it known to the headmaster. If, when punished, he does not reform, all should ask for the headmaster to dismiss him. No one can be allowed simply to have his own way.”38
In commenting on these rules of school decorum in 1187, Zhu Xi averred that since time immemorial there had been a need for exemplary models and methods in the education of the young, especially in village and clan schools. In preparing this text, says Zhu, Messrs. Cheng and Dong intended the rules for the edification and “renovation” of the children of their fellow villagers. This, he says, fulfills the original intention of the ancients’ elementary education and should prove useful to teachers in local schools as a guide for their students. So doing, one might hope to see again in the present, as in antiquity, progress in the accomplishment of learning by the young and fullness of virtue in those of mature years.39
Zhu Xi is careful to describe these prescriptions as exemplary models or methods (fa) and not as regulations (gui). Later, in 1258, the scholar Rao Lu joined Zhu’s Articles of the White Deer Grotto Academy and the School Rules of Messrs. Cheng and Dong as complementary manuals—“one to set forth the broad aims of education which human learning should strive to fulfill, and the other to define the constant norms of behavior to be observed in the day-to-day life of the group.”40
These two guides, says Rao, represent the essential methods for fulfilling the original intent of Great Learning and Elementary Learning. “If the student can carry on in this manner, then root and branch will be mutually supportive, inner and outer will sustain and nourish each other, and the method for entering upon the Way will be complete.”41 Thus does Rao express his enthusiasm for a total and balanced plan of education, while noting in conclusion that this is to be differentiated from what today are called “regulations” (gui), which Zhu Xi had refused to enact at the White Deer Grotto Academy.
THE CONTENT OF EDUCATION
Zhu Xi’s fullest and most systematic recommendations for the content of education are found in his “Personal Proposals for Schools and Official Recruitment.” Here again, as with Cheng Hao, the assumption is that there should be one program for all, so that those who serve in government may be drawn in through the same process of education as is made available to others, that is, through the schools and not a separate examination system. Zhu introduces the subject, as he had in the preface to the Great Learning, by proposing the model of the ancient school system, which gave priority to cultivation in virtuous conduct and moral action rather than to the polite arts (i.e., literary skills), viewing the former as solid and practical learning (shixue) compared to the emptiness of purely “literary” or aesthetic studies. With one pattern of education and one system of values for all, people would get their proper bearings and set a fixed course to guide their efforts in life and develop their own abilities. Note again the primary value attached here, as in the preface, to individual self-development. This contrasts with the situation in Zhu’s time, when, he says, scholars engaged in empty, useless talk and followed one shifting literary fashion after another, leaving the young without a definite goal to which they can direct the cultivation of their talents.42
The answer to the prevailing educational confusion is to go back to Cheng Hao’s proposed system of moral education, abolish the examinations emphasizing literary skills (the composition of shi and fu forms of poetry), and instate a new curriculum based on the study of the classics, philosophers, histories, and contemporary problems. Zhu also has much to say about abuses in the conduct of the civil-service examinations, especially the disparities in local quotas, but I focus here on matters most pertinent to education. If these changes are made, Zhu says, “scholars will have a fixed aim rather than be motivated by a competitive spirit: there will be solid practical action instead of empty talk, and solid learning so that no one will lack the means to develop his talents.”43
The basis for this confident prescription lies in the moral nature inherent in all and the need of all to find the Way in their own mind and hearts, manifest it in their own persons, and carry it out in their own conduct. “The scholar who genuinely knows how to apply himself to this can not only cultivate his own person but extend it to the governance of men and indeed to the state and the world.”44
Obviously, Zhu’s basic assumptions and aims here are the same as in his preface, showing the consistency and continuity in his thinking. Of particular significance in this proposal is the detailed curriculum it offers and Zhu’s justification for the extraordinary demands it will make on the student: “The affairs of this world are all things a scholar should know about and their principles are to be found in the Classics, each of which has its own importance and none of which is substitutable for another.”45 Thus, in their different subject matters, the classics themselves embody a diversity of human experience, all of irreplaceable value. This basic pluralism, moreover, is reinforced by the fact that the classics survive only in mutilated, fragmentary condition, while the passage of time distances our experience from that of the ancients, making interpretation of the classics problematical and compelling one to supplement them by recourse to other writings. Among these are the works of the masters or philosophers (zi), whose learning, Zhu says, “also derives from the sages.” Each of these philosophers, of course, has his strong and weak points, from both of which one can learn, emulating their excellences and criticizing their weaknesses. The histories, too, help fill out the picture, dealing with changes from past to present, the rise and fall of dynasties, periods of order and disorder, what is gained and lost in the course of human affairs, and so on. Then, finally, the study of contemporary affairs exists as a reflection on the truths of the classics: rites and music, systems and institutions, astronomy, geography, military planning and strategy, laws and punishments—“these are all necessary in dealing with the contemporary world and cannot be left unstudied.”46
In The Liberal Tradition in China, I gave a brief summary of the contents of Zhu’s curriculum, which may suffice for my purposes here, including:
the Changes, Documents, and Odes, as well as four ritual texts (the Zhouli, Yili, and two versions of the Record of Rites by the Elder and Younger Dai); the Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu) with three early commentaries; and the Great Learning, Analects, Mean, and Mencius. Among the philosophers Chu would include Xunzi, Yang Xiong, Wang Tong, Han Yu, Laozi, Zhuangzi, as well as the principal Song masters. The next major division of the curriculum would consist of the major histories, to be studied for the light they could shed on the understanding of contemporary problems; these include the Zuo Commentary (Zuozhuan), Conversations from the States (Guoyu), Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji), the histories of the Former and Later Han dynasties, of the Three Kingdoms, the History of Jin, Histories of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the Old and the New Tang Histories and the History of the Five Dynasties, and the General Mirror for Aid in Government (Zizhi tongjian) of Sima Guang. A similarly copious body of literature (including the encyclopedic Comprehensive Institutes [Tongdian] of Du Yu) is cited for those branches of practical learning indicated above (governmental institutions, geography, etc.).47
Further, recognizing the difficulties of interpreting the classics, Zhu believes it essential for the student to consult commentaries. “The principles of this world are not beyond the mind-and-heart of man, but the words of the sages are profound, deep and highly refined, beyond what can be reached by mere conjecture.”48 Only after one has weighed the pros and cons of what the different commentators have to say can one reflect on them in one’s own mind and judge what is correct. For this purpose then, Zhu provides extensive lists of Song commentators on each of the classics. Those listed are noteworthy for the diversity of their views, including thinkers usually considered anathema to the Cheng-Zhu School of the Way: Wang Anshi, cited for his interpretations of no fewer than four classics, and Su Dongpo, for instance. Zhu is not unmindful of the burden this imposes on the student and the danger of superficiality that extensive coverage always entails; thus, he recommends that the student be responsible for an in-depth knowledge of only one among these interpretations and enough of one other to use it as the basis for a comparative evaluation. Study of each classic would then involve a careful and thoughtful reading of the original text, the consideration of what different commentaries say, and the drawing of conclusions that are both grounded on evidence and confirmed by what seems right in one’s own mind.49
Here one can see how Zhu applies to the study of the classics the same procedures he has recommended in the Articles of the White Deer Grotto Academy: to “study extensively, inquire carefully, ponder thoroughly, sift clearly, and practice earnestly”—all to the end of truly learning for oneself. Having done this, says Zhu, “there will be no classics the gentleman has not mastered, no histories he has not studied, and none of these that will not be applicable to his own times.”50 On this last point, although Zhu has not referred directly to Hu Yuan’s views as he has to Cheng Hao’s, the former’s basic principle of combining classical and contemporary studies, principle and practicality, is incorporated into every phase of Zhu’s program.
Here, then, is a conspectus of the learning to be mastered by those Zhu Xi hoped to see in government service. Indeed, he hoped for even more than this—for practical experience of family responsibilities and internship in public office, paralleling the scholarly work described above. Altogether, it would serve as the crowning achievement of Zhu’s educational structure and the full fruit of a rich and varied tradition. Standing on the broad base of a universal school system, it would nurture men’s talents and select for higher responsibilities those most capable of meeting them. Elitist in principle, it sought, as Zhu said quoting Mencius, “the nobility of Heaven” (true moral and educational worth) and not “the nobility of men” (social rank and privileged position).51
Yet this was not what would later become established, in the name of Zhu Xi orthodoxy, as the official curriculum for examinations. I say “in the name of Zhu Xi orthodoxy” advisedly. When a Neo-Confucian curriculum was adopted later as the basis of official instruction under the Mongol ruler Khubilai, the language used by its Neo-Confucian proponents was the very language of the essay just discussed, as were the arguments adduced by them in opposing a resumption of the civil-service examinations at that time.52 It was also to be the language appropriated by other Neo-Confucians later, in 1313–1315, when they successfully established a new examination system based essentially on Zhu Xi’s version of the Four Books.53 Familiar with Zhu Xi’s proposals and conscious that they were sacrificing key points in Zhu’s program in order to adapt to the facts of political life under the Mongols, the Neo-Confucians still paid lip service to the importance of moral training and virtuous conduct as well as to the role of the schools in developing men of character and practical ability. At the same time, they installed a new examination curriculum vastly abridged from Zhu’s, which could serve as a minimum cultural qualification for the recruitment of officials from Mongol, Central Asian, and Chinese candidates. Still later, at the founding of the Ming dynasty, when the new system was confirmed by the Ming founder in all essential respects, the edict promulgating it again drew heavily on Zhu’s earlier statement of the problem, even while the latter’s recommendations were being gutted in favor of a much simpler, functional approach.54
In the discussions and pronouncements that accompanied this historic development, effectively fixing examination form and content until 1905, the name of Zhu Xi was hardly mentioned. Neither Khubilai nor Ming Taizu had much use for Zhu Xi or Neo-Confucian philosophy as such. They were practical men, interested in recruiting competent, dependable officials and not attracted to either the higher reaches of Zhu’s thought or the niceties of classical scholarship. Despite this, however, their simplified, populist version of the Neo-Confucian curriculum was to become the basis for training and credentialing a new Mandarin elite. Yet perhaps the greatest paradox of all is not that the new system should stand in such sharp contrast to Zhu’s—so much indeed that it would be liable to most charges he has leveled against the previous system—but that, had it not been for Zhu himself, this new development might never have occurred.
The reasons for this are essentially two: first, the impetus Zhu Xi gave to the Neo-Confucian schools provided the principal vehicles for the spread of Neo-Confucian learning, and second, his preparation of the texts would be most suitable for use in those schools and subsequently in the civil-service examinations themselves.
Unsuccessful though Zhu was in his advocacy of a universal school system, he devoted much of his life to promoting education through academies and local schools. I wish here to emphasize only three key significances of this activity.
First, it demonstrates again Zhu’s fundamental belief that human action and all hope for social reform must begin at home—in what is near at hand and on the most basic level. If Zhu had little hope of prevailing on the court at the highest level, he could at least address the problem in those communities for which he had some direct responsibility as a local magistrate or in which his scholarly reputation gave him some standing.
Second, Zhu attached great importance to education rooted in local tradition; it could invoke the authority of historical figures or local personages whose personal achievements grew out of the native soil, met local needs, and helped to share recent, presumably viable, traditions. Zhu stressed this emulation of practical examples by his efforts at the commemoration of local worthies and at reviving local schools that had fallen on hard times.55
Third, Zhu encouraged the building of communities of students and scholars by developing teachers who could also be leaders. This was not new—Neo-Confucians generally had attached great importance to the role of the teacher—but Zhu carried on this tradition with great personal devotion. Yet it is significant that he did this primarily by personal example, not by the explicit discussion of teaching methods.
These three factors help explain how Zhu, a political failure at court, was able to exert such a powerful influence at the grassroots level of scholarship, for there he achieved the success that later compelled the Song court to give him due recognition and led the Yuan and Ming dynasties to confirm his hold over men’s minds. In this way, the academies, which grew rapidly and spread greatly in influence after Zhu’s death in official disgrace, became the prime instruments of Neo-Confucian education. Against the failure of the government schools and the perversions of the examinations, in Zhu’s terms, the academies served as bearers of the Neo-Confucian message throughout East Asia.
Zhu also played a large role in providing the texts and teaching guides for use not only in the schools but also in the examinations themselves. In even the extensive curriculum proposed by Zhu, numerous works he compiled himself or more often in collaboration with others, for use on several levels of instruction, do not appear. Here, I list some of the more important ones, in rough order of increasing complexity or difficulty.
1. Elementary Learning (Xiaoxue)—nominally addressed to the lowest and most basic level of learning; actually a social handbook dealing with a diversity of subjects.
2. The Community Compact (Xiangyue)—as adapted by Zhu from that of the Lu family formerly associated with Cheng Yi; contains precepts to be subscribed to by members of local communities for the conduct of basic social relations.
3. Zhu’s public proclamations—as a local official, establishing guidelines for conduct in several specific fields of human activity.
4. Articles of the White Deer Grotto Academy—a basic charter for schools.
5. The Family Ritual of Master Zhu (Zhuzi jiali)—a guide to the conduct of the major ceremonies in the life of the family; represents a radically simplified version of the classic rituals.
6. Commentaries on the Four Books (Sishu jizhu)—a careful and concise commentary on the four basic texts featured by the Cheng-Zhu school.
7. Memorials and Lectures on the Classics, for the emperor or heir apparent (Jingyan jiangyi)—although addressed to the ruler, on a high level of importance, it is often simpler and less scholarly than other instructional works of Zhu Xi but conveys the same essential message.
8. Reflections on Things at Hand (Jinsilu)—sometimes referred to as a gateway to the Four Books; later sometimes so used, but in addressing fundamental philosophical issues it often probes questions of great depth and subtlety. Perhaps of greatest importance in mapping out the steps to the attainment of sagehood, a lofty ambition but one to which Zhu said any country boy could aspire.
9. The Sources of the Cheng-Zhu School (Yiluo yuanyuan lu)—a hagiography of Zhu’s Neo-Confucian predecessors, near-contemporaries admired as among the sages and worthies.
10. Outline and Digest of the General Mirror (Tongjian gangmu)—structured synopsis and abridgement of Sima Guang’s General Mirror for Aid in Government.
11. “Personal Proposals for Schools and Official Recruitment” (Xuexiao gongju siyi)—a brief document but proposing the most ambitious learning program offered by Zhu.
This list, far from exhaustive, may suffice to illustrate the main features of Zhu Xi’s educational approach. First, it recognizes the need for an educational process reaching from youth to maturity and from the common people to the ruler. Second, it accepts the need for a plurality of means to reach different audiences on different levels, although the ultimate aim of all should be the attainment of sagehood. This is the educational implication of the interrelated concepts of self-renewal, “renewal of the people,” and “resting in the highest good.” Third, the path of self-development builds on successive levels of accomplishment; one cannot attain enlightenment in one leap or instant. Fourth, breadth of learning is to be balanced by concentration and precision, comprehensiveness by selectivity and structure. Fifth, applying these requisites to the classical tradition implies the need for “editing” the classics—abridging and commenting on them to highlight key principles, focusing on the concrete example or concise formula to make teachings memorable. Sixth, to repossess classical learning it is not enough simply to read the ancient texts; there must also be some continuity with the recent past and some connection with the latest scholarship, if learning is to have some organic relation to a sustained and sustaining life process. Seventh, to accomplish the foregoing aims requires cooperative, collegial scholarship in order to provide a variety of edited, graded materials for the edification of the populace at large. Virtually all the texts cited above are anthologies or reprocessed materials; whatever “original” writing they contain is mostly in the form of preface or commentary.
The results of this process may be seen in the curriculum of the Neo-Confucian academies that followed Zhu Xi’s lead in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Daily Schedule of Study in the Cheng Family School by Cheng Duanli (1271–1345), often cited as a model curriculum, presents a schedule of readings graded according to the age of the student, with a major division between elementary and advanced education.56 In the former, from age eight to fifteen, emphasis is placed on reading the original texts of the Elementary Learning (Xiaoxue), Four Books, Five Classics, and Classic of Filial Piety (as edited by Zhu Xi). In the advanced stage, from age fifteen to twenty-two, most of the same texts are read with Zhu Xi’s commentary, deleting the Elementary Learning and Classic of Filial Piety but adding readings from Sima Guang’s General Mirror for Aid in Government (Zizhi tongjian) and specimens of prose and poetry from Han Yu and Qu Yuan.
If one compares this list with that in Zhu’s “Personal Proposals” or the list of materials edited by Zhu Xi above, the educational fare is obviously much more limited. As a practical matter, Cheng Duanli’s curriculum is undoubtedly oriented to the new examination system of the Yuan dynasty. Of this John Meskill says, “Cheng Duanli devised a complete schedule for the education of a young man from childhood to the year of his examinations. The whole program provided for a very systematic progression through the classical literature and commentaries on it, culminating in diligent practice of the forms required in the examinations.”57
From the standpoint of Zhu’s “Personal Proposals” one could question, as I have above, whether the coverage of “classical literature” or the range of interpretation and alternative commentaries was nearly as broad as Zhu himself had wished. Furthermore, there is far more concentration on learning and memorizing forms and models useful for examination purposes and much less on the kind of “inquiring, reflecting, weighing, and sifting” that Zhu had recommended. An atmosphere of rote learning had prevailed, in contrast to the spirit of voluntarism and critical scholarship encouraged by Zhu.
However, the curriculum does exhibit many features of Zhu’s educational philosophy: the need for selectivity, priorities, graded materials, and a high degree of specificity in study methods. By defining the reading program as he does, Cheng clearly thinks of it as a graded core curriculum to be supplemented as time and circumstances allow by further reading works that Zhu Xi had proposed or prepared in much greater variety, as the supplementary notes to this schedule indicate. Indeed, if one were to judge from Cheng’s intentions alone, one would have to say that he still looked to Zhu’s curriculum as the standard and expected Zhu’s basic aims to be served by his own reading program. This is clear from his characterization of the classical core of the new advanced curriculum. Starting at age fifteen, he says, the student should commit himself to the pursuit of learning, “resolving to take the Way for one’s aim in learning, and sagehood for one’s aim as a man.”58 Then, having completed study of the Four Books and the chosen classic with its commentaries, and having faithfully followed Zhu Xi’s reading method59 with great concentration of mind and intense effort over three or four years, “all of it without exception substantial learning for the sake of oneself and none of it vitiated by even the slightest idea of selfish gain or ulterior motive, the student will have established himself in reverent seriousness and righteousness, strict in his practice of mind preservation and self-examination, and firmly rooted for a lifetime of learning.”60
As further evidence of Cheng’s intention fully to adhere to Zhu’s overall aims, there are numerous writings of Zhu Xi attached to the Reading Schedule, including the Articles of the White Deer Grotto Academy and the “Personal Proposals for Schools and Official Recruitment.”61 Cheng did not, indeed, think of himself as jettisoning any of Zhu’s program but only of modifying it for the sake of practical realization. In his preface to the Daily Schedule, he spoke in exultant terms of this climactic moment in history when, after centuries of failure to accomplish Confucian goals in education, the time had arrived for Zhu Xi’s substantial learning (shixue) and practical method to overcome the preoccupation with literary composition in both the schools and the civil-service examinations. “All fathers and elder brothers have wished their sons and younger brothers to be educated, but only two or three out of them have succeeded.” This, he says, is because they did not have a proper understanding of the matter and erred at the start by heading in the wrong direction. The right direction was given in ancient times when the cultivation of virtue was put ahead of literary studies, only to have this order reversed in subsequent dynasties. Of his own time (the mid-Yuan period), however, Cheng says:
In the recruitment of scholars virtuous conduct is being put ahead of all else and study of the Classics is being given precedence over literary composition.… In the interpretation of the Classics the views of Master Zhu are the sole authority, uniting as one the philosophy of principle and study for the civil service examination, to the great advantage of scholars committed to the Way [as distinct from opportunistic candidates]. This is something the Han, Tang and Song never achieved, and the greatest blessing that has come to scholars throughout the ages.62
Nevertheless, according to Cheng, many scholars who study the classics, even if they accept the authority of Zhu Xi’s interpretations, still are unaware that one must have a definite reading method, so their study is unsystematic. Hence the need for a guide like the Daily Schedule, which combines Zhu’s study methods and other relevant writings on the subject, so that “none of the classics will be left unstudied, no principles left unexplained, no aspect of the Way of governance left unmastered, no systems or institutions left unstudied, no age, past or present, left out of one’s ken, and no literary form left unmastered.” Yet at the same time, says Cheng, having pursued this course of study “to the age of twenty-three, twenty-four, or twenty-five, with this he would be ready to take the examinations.”63
More of this preface dilates on the effectiveness of this method in bringing personal fulfillment to the individual and putting the individual into full accord with the Way while also preparing the way for success in the civil-service examinations. For my purposes, however, the foregoing should be enough to suggest how Cheng expects the wisdom and practical method of the philosopher to be joined with the process of official recruitment for the transformation of state and society. Written in 1315, the very year the Yuan dynasty initiated the new examinations, his preface exudes the idealism of those who, like Cheng, went along with Cheng Jufu (1249–1318) in resurrecting the civil service–examination system and installing in it the new “Neo-Confucian” curriculum, in contrast to other Neo-Confucians like Wu Cheng (1249–1332) and Liu Yin (1249–1293), who refused to compromise Zhu Xi’s basic principles in this way.64
Inevitably (and this is a word to be used sparingly), in this unification of power and intellectual authority the moral and spiritual aspirations of Zhu Xi are compounded with forms of learning routinized for purposes of the examinations, which tend to divert men from the moral and spiritual goals to which Zhu Xi had given the highest priority. Thus, there is more than a touch of irony in the acclaim given to the Daily Schedule several centuries later by Zhang Boxing (1652–1725), when he reprinted it in his collection of orthodox Neo-Confucian works, the Zhengyi tang quanshu. In his own preface to the Daily Schedule, Zhang laments the debasement of learning brought on by the examination system:
In ancient times it was easy to develop one’s talents to the full; today it is difficult. In antiquity scholar-officials were chosen for their [moral] substance; today they are chosen for their literary ability. In ancient times the village recommended scholars and the town selected them, so men engaged in substantial learning (shixue) and outdid each other in the practice of humaneness and rightness, the Way and virtue. At home they were pure scholars; at large they were distinguished officials. Today it is different. Men are chosen for their examination essays. What fathers teach their sons, and elder brothers their younger brothers, is only to compete in the writing of essays. It is not that they fail to read the Five Classics or Four Books, but that they read them only for such use as they have in the writing of the examination essays, and never incorporate them into their own hearts and lives.65
It is not difficult to see how the same system could lead to divergent results and even to conflicts within the same individual between the pursuit of worldly success and the quest for moral and spiritual perfection. Thus, a dilemma arose from even the seeming successes of the Zhu Xi school; some of these, from his point of view, could also be seen as miscarriages. For instance, successfully making Zhu Xi the centerpiece of the new examinations represented another failure for Zhu in the sense of his being misappropriated for questionable purposes. Such success, too, seems to have compromised later efforts to achieve an effective and lasting public school system of the kind he had advocated.
Meanwhile, the growth of the academies continued, amid periodic vicissitudes, to spread Neo-Confucian education in ways Cheng Duanli would have less cause to regret. For this we have testimony from the Song History (Song shi), Yuan History (Yuan shi), and Case Studies of Song-Yuan Scholars (Song Yuan xue’an), describing the fate of the schools of Zhu Xi and Lu Xiangshan, starting first with the family of Shi Mengqing (1247–1306):66
The Shi family of Siming [in Eastern Zhejiang, near Ningbo] had all followed the Lu school, but with the advent of Shi Mengqing it turned to follow Zhu Xi … [and] transmitted this to Cheng Duanli and his brother, who adhered purely to the Zhu school.67
And from the Yuan History:
At the end of the Song, the Qingyuan area [near Ningbo in Eastern Zhejiang], all followed the school of Lu Xiangshan and the Zhu Xi school was not carried on. Cheng Duanli by himself took up with Shi Jing [i.e., Mengqing] in propagating Zhu Xi’s doctrine of “clarifying the substance and applying it in practice” (mingti shiyong). Scholars came to his gate in great numbers. He wrote the “Working Schedule for Study of Books” (Dushu gongcheng), which the Directorate of Education had distributed to officials in the local schools to serve as a model for students.68
Note here the process of conversion from Lu Xiangshan’s teaching to Zhu Xi’s, drawing attention to the combination of principle and practice. With the latter concretely embodied in a working schedule of study and the new curriculum, in turn, officially adopted, one can see how these developments in the academies led the way for a new, officially sanctioned, system.
Last, I cite the comment of Huang Bojia (b. 1643), in Case Studies of Song-Yuan Scholars, concerning the underlying philosophical significance of this development:
In the late Song the Qingyuan area was all of the Lu school and the Zhu Xi school was not transmitted there. With Shih Mengqing, however, there came a change. Following Yang Jian [1140–1125, disciple of Lu] most of the school went into Chan and pursued a form of learning without the reading of books. Departing from the source, they drifted apart. Thus, what they transmitted from Master Lu was the very thing that made them lose Master Lu. Having studied Cheng’s Daily Reading Schedule, [I find that] there is nothing missing from root to branch and there is a sequential order in its method, from which one may proceed.…69
Here Huang suggests a connection between the Lu school’s lack of a reading method, reflecting Lu’s own depreciation of textual study, the school’s getting lost in Chan Buddhism, which “did not depend on the written word,” and the contrasting growth of the Zhu Xi school, linked to its definite method of study and reading program. Since Huang, like his father, was not known for any partiality to the Zhu Xi school, this represents credible testimony to the latter’s superior achievement in this respect.
More far reaching even than the spread of the Zhu Xi school through the academies was its propagation through the development of printing, which carried Neo-Confucian teachings even into homes that could afford little formal education. Whether or not Zhu Xi had any special prescience in anticipating this trend may be arguable, but Wing-tsit Chan’s research indicates that Zhu was involved in the printing business as a sideline, and it is known that as a local magistrate he used printed handbills to disseminate his proclamations throughout the area of his jurisdiction.70 In any case, his organization of thought into systematic, easily grasped structures; his concern for adapting them to different levels of comprehension; his editing and condensing of texts; his attention to the problem of an ordered sequence of readings; and the care he took in analyzing and codifying procedures for book learning all took special advantage of the new printing capability. He pronounced with finality in the Cheng Family Schedule: “For conveying the Way and transmitting it to later generations, the merit of books is great indeed!”71
It is no accident that Zhu Xi’s recommendations for reading as codified by his followers in what came to be known as his Reading Method (Dushufa), which addressed the what, when, and how of reading, spread with his other teachings and the publication of his books through East Asia. In its simplest form, this consisted of maxims recommending reverent seriousness and a fixed resolve in the pursuit of learning: a graded sequence and gradual progress in study, intensive reading of text and commentary accompanied by “refined reflection,” reading with an open mind and without reading one’s own preconceptions into the text, taking what one reads to heart and making it part of one’s own experience, and making an all-out effort and keeping strict control.72 These methods were summarized in a short piece of Zhu’s entitled “Essentials of Reading,” found in his Collected Writings. They were also discussed in Zhu’s Classified Conversations (Yulei) and expounded in memorials to the throne. A large portion of the section on methods of self-cultivation in Zhu’s basic textbook on Elementary Education is devoted to the matter of reading methods and how they relate to one’s inner self-development.73 They were further incorporated in the aforementioned Daily Schedule of the Cheng Family School, in the official Ming Great Compendium of Human Nature and Principle (Xingli Jingyi), and in numerous reformulations of these methods by Zhu Xi’s successors, including the very pointed and detailed discussion by the recent historian Qian Mu.74 Even the authors of a recent history of Chinese education, though not particularly sympathetic to Zhu’s philosophy, acknowledge the wide influence of his study and reading methods.75
Other Neo-Confucians like Lu Xiangshan and Wang Yangming may well have been more popular teachers than Zhu, who seems to have been comparatively reserved, of a reflective temperament, modest almost to a fault, and not the kind who would wish to promote himself or his own ideas. Other teachings like Buddhism and Daoism, which developed substantial lay followings in these same years, also had more popular appeal than Zhu Xi’s refined scholarship. But none of these, for all their charismatic, messianic, or populist features, addressed the problem of secular education the way Zhu Xi did—systematically developing schools, curricula, texts, and study methods. To the extent that the educated elite of East Asia, whatever the differences in their social and political status or functions from country to country, were identified as leaders or officials (shidafu) and as scholars accomplished in book learning (literally, “readers of books,” dushuren), it was Zhu Xi who largely provided the wherewithal for their intellectual and moral formation. Thus, he became the educator par excellence of East Asia into the twentieth century.
