History of Chinese Family Education

Author: Xu Shaojin and Chen Yanbin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-04-01
Features: Emphasizes the importance of early childhood education and moral cultivation, highlighting the significance of "family precepts" and fostering a positive family environment as a foundation for "governing the state" and "peacefully governing the world." This is a crucial aspect of Chinese cultural traditions and an invaluable heritage in Chinese moral culture. Ancient thinkers recognized that family education holds a primary and foundational position in the entire educational process. If moral education and character development can be guided and nurtured during a person's "early years," they can grow up to consciously adhere to moral norms and avoid the problem of "inflexible resistance." The emphasis on the role and significance of family education in Chinese ancient thought stems from the profound moral education principles derived from countless experiences and lessons.
Between parents and children, there exists an extremely close blood relationship. Parents' understanding and love for their children, as well as children's trust and reliance on their parents, form a unique bond. This is what the Chinese ancients emphasized as "family affection." In China's long feudal society, where ties were the primary social bonds, this "family affection" relationship was further developed. As a result, ancient Chinese "family precepts" became a distinctive cultural tradition of the Chinese nation, with their content being rich, comprehensive, and profoundly influential—unparalleled in the cultures of other countries.
The family is the cell of society. As society progresses and times change, the role, composition, and functions of the family will inevitably evolve. However, as the building blocks of society, the emotional bonds and the functions of nurturing and educating children that families provide will continue to endure and develop throughout human history. The more developed and advanced society becomes, the greater the need to "the family" this cell with new functions and vitality. The rapid progress in material civilization demands a corresponding improvement in spiritual civilization, and the formation of family education and a positive family environment is an extremely important aspect of building a spiritual civilization. Without good family morals and the cultivation of children who adapt to the times, there can be no national prosperity or social stability.
The increasing severity of social problems and moral crises in some Western countries today, the rise in juvenile crime, and the growing instability and even crises in society are, to a significant extent, related to the neglect of family education.
We are a socialist country, and China is engaged in the arduous yet great cause of building socialism with Chinese characteristics. In moral construction, we must adhere to serving the people as the core, collectivism as the principle, and love for the motherland, the people, labor, science, and socialism as the fundamental requirements. While vigorously promoting social ethics and professional ethics, we must also pay greater attention to family virtues such as respecting the elderly and caring for the young, gender equality, harmonious marriages, thriftiness, and neighborly unity. We must strengthen and cultivate the role of "the family" in all aspects of society in the new era and prioritize the care and education of children.
Ancient Chinese traditional morals and "family precepts" were nurtured, developed, and formed over a long feudal period and were inevitably constrained by the strict hierarchical system and notions of superiority and inferiority, limited by the ideology of maintaining the continuity of feudal "families" and "clans," and influenced by feudal concepts such as "respecting parents," "loyalty to the ruler," and the belittling of women. As feudal society gave birth, developed, and eventually declined, these notions of hierarchy and superiority, as well as the disdain for women, became increasingly prominent, vividly reflected in the supreme and absolute demands of the so-called "Three Obediences."
After the Han Dynasty, especially from the Song and Ming dynasties onward, with the growing reinforcement of feudal morality, the doctrines of "the ruler as the guide for ministers, the father as the guide for children, and the husband as the guide for the wife," as well as the dogmas of "blind loyalty and filial piety" and "the Four Obediences and Three Virtues," permeated all aspects of Chinese family precepts. As a result, the "family precepts" we see today often contain both positive and negative elements, both essence and dross.
This book does not merely elaborate on and excerpt ideas about ancient Chinese family education in general. Instead, it adopts the perspective of family precept education practices, selecting over 200 typical figures from the pre-Qin period to the late Qing Dynasty over several thousand years. It categorizes and summarizes their theoretical foundations, main content, basic principles, and specific methods of educating children, tracing the historical evolution of these practices and revealing their internal connections and development patterns.
The book provides a clear outline of the process of Chinese traditional family precepts—from their emergence, formation, maturation, prosperity, to their decline—and argues for the characteristics and key points of each period. It examines many important concepts in family precepts from a historical perspective and explores the laws governing their development. It also asserts that traditional family precepts are centered around moral admonition, with the fundamental purpose of shaping noble characters and cultivating children into talents for the nation. All these aspects are grounded in reality.
The book's critique of the shortcomings of traditional family precepts aligns with the basic principles of historical materialism and the principle of selective inheritance. The publication of this book not only broadens and deepens the research fields of the history of Chinese educational thought and the history of Chinese ethical thought but also holds significance for the construction of socialist spiritual civilization, especially in the areas of family virtues and civic morals.