1. In the history of China, Confucius proposed for the first time that people's natural qualities are similar, and the differences in personality are mainly influenced by acquired education and social environment ("similar in sex, far from learning"). Therefore, everyone can be educated and everyone should be educated. He advocated "teaching without class", founded private schools and recruited students.
2. Confucius advocated that "studious is an official". Be an official if you have spare capacity after studying. The purpose of his education is to cultivate a political gentleman, who must have high moral quality. Therefore, Confucius emphasized that school education must put moral education in the first place ("disciples should be filial, considerate, sincere and trustworthy, be kind to others, and learn literature if they have spare capacity").
3. The main contents of Confucius' moral education are "courtesy" and "benevolence". Among them, "courtesy" is the moral standard, and "benevolence" is the highest moral standard. "Rite" is the form of "benevolence" and "benevolence" is the content of "ceremony". With the spirit of "benevolence", "ceremony" can be truly enriched. In terms of moral cultivation, he put forward methods such as determination, self-denial, practice, introspection and courage to reform.
4. "Learning and knowing" is the dominant idea of Confucius' teaching thought. While advocating being shameless and eager to learn, he emphasized the combination of learning and thinking ("learning without thinking is useless, thinking without learning is dangerous"), and at the same time, he should "apply what he has learned" and apply what he has learned to social practice.
Second, the significance
It broke the monopoly of slave owners and nobles on school education and expanded the scope of education to civilians, which conformed to the trend of social development at that time. Confucius' educational activities not only cultivated many students, but also put forward his educational theory on the basis of practice, which laid a theoretical foundation for China's ancient education.
Confucius' speech works
Confucius' remarks are mainly recorded in The Analects of Confucius. The Analects of Confucius is one of the classic works of Confucian school, which was compiled by Confucius' disciples and their descendants. It mainly records the words and deeds of Confucius and his disciples, and embodies Confucius' political opinions, ethical thoughts, moral concepts and educational principles.
The Analects of Confucius, Daxue, The Doctrine of the Mean and Mencius were called "Four Books" after the Southern Song Dynasty. There are twenty popular Analects of Confucius. The language of The Analects is concise and profound, and many of its remarks are still regarded by the world as "small words with great righteousness".
Documentation: In his later years, Confucius devoted himself to education, editing poems, books, rituals and music, prefacing Zhouyi (named Ten Wings of the Book of Changes, or Yi Zhuan) and writing Chunqiu. Later generations collectively referred to as the Six Classics.
Poetry Creation: According to legend, Confucius wrote poems such as Song of Shanglu, Song of Riding a Dragon, Turtle Mountain Exercise, Disc Exercise, Blue Exercise, Return to Cao, Song of Delin, etc. Most of these poems are included in Yuefu poetry anthology, and their credibility is not high.