Emperor’s Emphasis On Education In Northern Song Dynasty

Education in Northern Song dynasty，a link between past and future，conducts a deepreform of education in three aspects on the basis of the system in Tang Dynasty，whichenlarges the scale of the education and improves the educational system in Northern SongDynasty. It has many innovations and has set an example of the educational pattern in thefeudal society，which is used by the later dynasty. Its achievements on education in NorthernSong Dynasty have close relationship with the cultural and educational policy in that time aswell as the emphasis on education of the emperor in Northern Song Dynasty. The emperorhas played an important even decisive role in the development of education in Northern SongDynasty. Thus，this paper explores how the emperor emphasizes and promotes the educationfrom multi-field.The prosperity of the education in Northern Song Dynasty can be seen in many fields，this paper only selects several fields related closely to the emperor role in education，whichare Jing Yan education (education of emperor or prince)，imperial clan education and officialeducation.The first part is about the emphasis of Jing Yan by the emperor. Jing Yan is a specialeducation of the emperor or prince，which is related to the attachment on the culturalcultivation of emperors in Northern Song Dynasty. This part discusses the nature of Jing Yan，important officials of it and its impact on the emperors，the kinds of Jing Yan officials，thesalary，and the important contents-Bao Xun(a classics of traditional Chinese thought). JingYan is a kind of system on education，politics and rites as well as a way to implement the“You wen policy”(a policy that does not kill the intelligent and encourage them to expresstrue ideas). There are many Jing Yan officials among which only a few have vital influenceon the emperors who are Sun Bai，Si Maguang，Wang Anshi，Cheng Yi and Fan Zuyu etc.There are lots of official positions of Jing Yan and some are changed or set according to therequirements of system alteration or other reasons. The emperors in Northern Song Dynastyattach great importance on the compiling and learning of the Bao Xun，which is one of theimportant contents of Yan Jing. Every emperor in Northern Song Dynasty has great emphasis on the study and has its own view of learning. The emphasis on the prince education by theemperor is mainly reflected by the choice of the educators and the management of the ZiShan Hall(a place for the prince) and Palace Schools(a place for the imperial clan).The second part is the emphasis on the imperial clan education by the emperor.Imperial clan refers to the members of imperial and royal family who belongs to an importantgroup of the emperor’s life，so it is necessary to attach importance to imperial clan education.First of all，emperors attach importance to the establishment and improvement of the imperialclan management organizations. According to the situation，the Zong zheng Temple，Da ZongZheng Bureau，Wai Zong Zheng Bureau (three departments dealing with imperial clan affairs)are established to be the management organization of imperial clan education，which maketheir education orderly operated. Secondly，the development of the imperial clan education ispromoted through the increasing improvement of court educational organization. Theimperial educational organizations are mainly court and imperial schools. Thirdly，emperorgives special and additional care for the imperial clan which is a special group. Thus，heformulates a relevant examination system. Finally，in order to encourage the imperialmembers to study hard，the emperor often awards them. Therefore，there are a number ofoutstanding imperial members in Northern Song Dynasty，whose achievements are on thefields of literature，arts，academy and medicine.The third part is the promotion of the national education by emperor. The education inNorthern Song Dynasty develops in a large scale and makes brilliant achievements withdifferent characteristics in different stages. In the light of the social conditions， the threeemperors at the beginning of Song Dynasty take measures to promote the development ofimperial examination system and the book industry and revitalize the worship ofConfucianism and the feudal laws and regulations system，which lays the basis on the furtherdevelopment of the education in Northern Song Dynasty. In the middle and late period ofNorthern Song Dynasty，education has developed greatly，which，to some extent，originatesfrom the development of three large learning campaigns. In this part，first of all it makes ananalysis from the perspective of the learning imperial edicts and the learning master system issued by the emperors in Northern Song Dynasty and summarizes the characteristics of thelearning master system at that time. Then，it makes a overview of the development of thelocal state-run school. The unprecedented large local state-run school system has direct anddeep origins of the increasingly published learning imperial edicts. So in this part， on thebasis of describing the important significance of the Edict to Establish School in the Countyall over the country” by Ren Zong(an emperor in Northern Song Dynasty)， this paperselects several local state-run schools under the background of different regional culture andeconomic development level as examples to make an analysis，in order to know the conditionof the local state-run schools development systematically. Thirdly，as there are manyinnovations during the educational development in Northern Song Dynasty，this paper makesa research especially focusing on this subject. It selects three areas which have importantinfluence and significance to research， which are the establishment of the Ti Ju Xue ShiBureau (an agent mastering the local education)， the application of the Learning andFarming System(doing the farm work for the school tuition system) and the implement of theeducator examination system. The significance of the Ti Ju Xue Shi Bureau lies in the factthat it is the first local educational executive and supervising organization in our educationhistory and it breaks the educational management system of integration of politics andeducation. The implement of Learning and Farming System starts a new channel of thesource of educational expenditure. The educator examination system starts a new teacherrecruitment system. These innovations still have enlightened and realistic significance for theeducation today.