Confucian Childhood: Sources on Chinese Traditional Elementary Education
In: Stratum plus: archeologija i kulʹturnaja antropologija = Stratum plus : archaeology and cultural anthropology, Heft 6, S. 41-52
ISSN: 1857-3533
The article engages various historical and literary materials to examine the basic principles and features of classical Confucian education at the elementary level. Childhood education is understood here as the education received by children up to the age of 15, that is, before the coming of age ceremony or the putting on the guan ritual, which was most often conducted at that age. What ideals and concepts shaped Confucian education? How was learning accomplished? How was the transfer of knowledge realized? In this paper I shall try to answer these questions by analyzing Confucian elementary education as a complex and original intellectual system.