The Individual Moral Cultivation Research Of Chinese Ancient Academy

Academy is a special educational organization in ancient China, originating in the Tang Dynasty and growing out of private study which made scholarly research and Yamen(government office in feudal China) of the imperial court which sorted books and records, folk and official two sources. In the following development process, it inherited the independence, equality and quality education of private education and continuously expanded the educated population, distinguishing from private study with its openness of serving the society and the systematization of recruiting students and giving lessons. Meanwhile, it drew lessons from the systematicness and institutionalization of official education in education levels, curriculums and management system and abandoned its disadvantage of indulging in imperial examination, shaping particular training objectives and methods, especially the complete and perfect individual virtue cultivation superior to official education. Therefore, academy as a special cultural education was officially established in Song Dynasty, and always played an important role in passing on knowledge, cultivating morality, nourishing lives, administering state affairs and ensuring national safety in the succeeding Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties.Based on actively inheriting and developing the virtue value of the Confucian, the academy of ancient China establishes the educational tenet of "preaching and helping people" and the educational philosophy of "moral education as the priority", putting moral education in the center and first place of the entire education process and always taking individual virtue cultivation as the value guidance and goal of the four basic regulations "giving lectures","collecting books","offering sacrifice" and "academy farmland". In order to effectively implement the tenet and philosophy, ancient academy adopted the principle of teaching students according to their individual aptitude, personality and merits and demerits, and implemented "annual method" according to the stages and differences of individual physical and mental development, namely, dividing individual virtue cultivation into "primary school" stage focusing on "learning to do things" and "college" stage mainly on "probing into the theories" and the ultimate goal "becoming sages and men of virtue".Virtue is the internal moral quality and personality trait that an individual can voluntarily and consciously behave in accordance with the common values and moral standards of the society. The essence of individual virtue cultivation is the process of internalizing the common values and moral standards of the society as individual moral consciousness and character and then externalizing as moral behaviors. The individual virtue cultivation of ancient academy was implemented from four aspects "knowledge","emotion","willpower" and "practice". That is to say, taking The Four Books and The Five Classics of the Confucian and other great books as textbooks to enrich the moral knowledge of the students through systematic lectures and discussion, open forums of different school of thoughts, equal queries and debates as well as popular social propaganda and education, to enrich the students’ moral emotion with agreeable study tour and making friends with good mentors and helpful friends, to exercise their moral willpower through confirming the determination and continuously conquering difficulties, and then to "practice" based on "knowing the truth" and transfer internal morality into external moral behaviors.Ancient academy formulated strict rules and regulations and comprehensive test system of studies and morality, and attached great importance to the selection of the peaceful and elegant natural environment, the design of building complex reflecting Confucian traditional ritual and the creation of cultural environment full of virtue, all of which were indispensable elements of individual virtue cultivation of the academy. However, this was just the external motives for improving individual virtue; internal cultivation and moral internalization was necessary for individuals to truly understand, accept and consciously follow external social codes of ethics and conduct. The academy put "moral cultivation" on the first place of the whole curriculum system and required that all students inspect their own words and deeds, correct their mistakes and improve their moral integrity through "self-examination", and lived up to "vigilance in solitude" while being alone or in hidden places, consciously strict with themselves and prudent with their words and deeds.Ancient academy, after all, is the product of the feudal society, inevitably marked with the stigma of the times. Its virtue cultivation system has such defects as aiming to maintain the hierarchical order of feudal patriarchal clan system, valuing virtue cultivation and neglecting knowledge education, and stressing moral obligations and ignoring moral rights. However, these flaws cannot obscure its merits. Ancient academy, adhering to the education philosophy of moral education coming first", explores and interprets, spreads and innovates the essence of Confucian culture through systematic lectures and preaches, solemn sacrifice and rituals, free study tours and conscious individual cultivation, making the common values of the Confucian specific, vivid, visual and close to life. The effective methods of combining "heteronomy" with "autonomy" make the students and common people constantly feel the edification and strict education of Confucian culture, so as to continuously form lofty morality and therefore push forward the constant improvement of the ethical standards of the whole society. This provides helpful reference and inspiration for us to carry out individual moral education in the context of diversified values, abstract moral evaluation system, and idealized virtue cultivation objectives.