The Research On Confucius Family Education Thought

As China’s most influential academic school on culture,Confucianism regards character cultivation and family regulation as the basis of life track and specially emphasizes on the overall relevance of individual,family,society and country.Since its founding,Confucianism has particularly stressed family blood relationship and has attached importance to the reflection of a series of family problems involving family ethics,forming numerous theoretical and clear rational knowledge about family education.Using the historical evolution of Confucian family education thoughts as links,starting with theoretical basis,value proposition,educational content,educational method,etc,this paper adopts a multi-disciplinary research perspective,lays emphasis on combination of history and theory and shows the excellent ideas of the Confucian family education thoughts.Confucianism was born in the pre-Qin Dynasty;and its family education thought also came into the world during this period.The Four Books and Five Classics laid the basic pattern of Confucian family education,and its founder,Confucius,had consciously carried out family education and expressed a lot of opinions about it.In the Han Dynasty,Confucianism had received unprecedented attention.During the Wei,Jin,Northern and Southern Dynasties,the influence of Confucianism declined because of the social unrest but the feudal family concept advocated by Confucianism had an important influence on the society.China’s first complete system of family education books,YanShiJiaXun,was created during this time.In Tang and Song dynasty,the content and form of family education had been enriched and developed,and the appearance of the Emperor’s Norms showed that the imperial family education was very systematic and comprehensive.From the Song Dynasty,the family education practice and theory thinking of scholar-officials were colorful,and some thinkers even consciously constructed systematic and comprehensive family education theory system.The Ming and Qing Dynasty was the prosperous period of family education,so the texts preserved in this stage were far more than any other stages of history and the style of family text were more innovative.Since the lateQing Dynasty,the education content,method,and concept of Confucian family education have changed and the traditional Confucianism family education has began to disintegrate,transiting towards modern family education.The human-nature relationship in the system of Confucianism shapes the overlook on the world,life and values.Confucianism thinks that the highest criterion of life ream is the law of nature,and it is followed and practiced by the law of human beings.In the view of Confucianism,man’s virtue is the natural instincts of human beings and man’s self-perfection is the return of ethical spirit revealed by Tiandao.In Confucianism,the concept,Tian,includes the holy tian,the ethical tian,the naturalistic tian,thus human beings have different natural instincts.“The highly combined virtue of man and nature” is the theory which can best reflect the relation of man and nature.In the opinion of Confucianism,only by the way of perfecting ourselves,can we finally achieve the valuable virtue gifted by Tian.Confucianism considers that both educating and being educated should obey the human nature.The reason why home education is necessary and crucial is that education itself can promote the perfection of family members’ personality.The Confucius thoughts on family education puts the “ethical civilization” on the top priority,which aims to form the value of moral ethics among family members,making them deeply attached to each other.Except for “being intimate with members within the family”,the Confucius family education also attaches importance to“respecting people beyond the family”,which requires family members to form the moral awareness of respect people beyond the family.The Confucius notices that the intimacy among family members is likely to develop into being spoiled.Therefore,it lays emphasis on the combination of “Knowing love and education”.That is to say,family educators cannot tend to care for the educatees and leave alone the proper education and guidance.Besides,Confucius family education aims to cultivate a good family tradition.The Confucian family tradition thought mainly includes three aspects:family tradition centered on manners and regulations,family tradition centered on virtues and family tradition centered on lifetime discipline.The Confucius holds that one is to correct the family tradition must correct himself first.Only the subjectivity of the family education is well behaved can he cultivate proper family tradition.In particular,the Confucius stresses the role played by the female(especially the housewives)in the process of cultivating family tradition.The Confucius especially emphasizes the fundamental status of family in the society and the function of familyeducation in the customs’ improvement.And it also thinks that only by promoting both the family and social education can people build a proper tradition and virtuous customs.“The theory of maintaining family” is the education about how to create a harmonious family.On the father-son relationship,Confucianism advocates“benevolent father,faithful son”,which means the father’s generation caring for and educating the younger generation while the younger generation being filial to the father’s generation.On the sibling relationship,it stresses “loving elders,respectful youngsters”,which means compeer should love each other,help each other and get along harmoniously with each other.On the conjugal relationship,it emphasizes“loyal husband,virtuous wife”,which means the couples caring for each other,respecting each other and co-building a wonderful family.It also advocates that the inter generation should respect the aged and take good care of the young.Family virtues advocated by Confucianism contain diligence and frugality,comity,kindheartedness,modesty,loyalty and filial piety,assiduous learning and harmony,etc.“Emotions for family and country” advocated by Confucian home education has four aspects: “regulating the family”,“closing to the patriarchal clan”,“harmonizing with neighbors”,“loving the country”.Firstly,“regulating the family” means to maintain the family by cultivating moralities,running a business,and managing the daily household expenses.Secondly,“closing to the patriarchal clan” not only underlines“relieving clansmen”——to give alms to others and sympathize with others but also emphasizes ”indoctrinating clansmen”——to guide and educate clansmen.Then comes the third aspect,“harmonizing with neighbors”,which requires people “be amicable to vicinages”,“be humble to fellow villagers” and “be benevolent to neighborhoods”.The last aspect is “loving the country”,which teaches family members to be patriotic and concerned about the future of the country and it also enlightens members to safeguard national unity.Family instructions is the summary of a series of instructions and teachings created during the process of family education and this kind of education promotes the socialization of Confucianism.Domestic disciplines expresses the contents of family education by mandatory requirements,and requires family members to observe.Etiquette education specifies family ethics through systematic etiquette education so as to develop family members’ behaviors.Old-style private schools are also a Chinese traditional way of family education.Private schools,in narrow sense,refers to homeeducation,while in broad sense,it refers to the enlightenment education.The Confucian family education regards the interpersonal communication as an important way to improve self.The so-called "friendship as a help to right conduct" justifies this idea.Confucian family education also advocates studying abroad and proposes to participate in social practice actively.Confucian education family also pays attention to the rational education methods.Common Confucian family education methods include individualized,step by step,leniency,model demonstration,reasoning education,elicitation and introspection consciousness,which are the crystallization of wisdom of Confucian family education practice.Refering to the Confucian family education,modern family education should lay emphasis on moral cultivation,adopt the right method,and cultivate civilized family tradition center on the socialist core values.