Research On Zeng Guofan’s Aesthetic Education Thought Of Letters From Home

Zeng Guofan’s meritorious career and wisdom are scattered in his various writings,and his collection of diaries,family letters,memorials,poems and documents,compiled by his descendants,contains a wealth of wisdom on the cultivation of talents,which has inspired generations of rising talents.The family letters of Zeng Guofan,as an important part of the collection,are a direct and concentrated expression of his ideas on nurturing people.In this paper,we use documentary research,interdisciplinary research and comparative research to systematically study the ideas of aesthetic education embodied in Zeng Guofan’s family letters,and divide the whole text into six parts:Part I,Introduction.This part outlines the current situation of domestic and international research on Zeng Guofan’s Family Letters,analyses the basis for the selection of the topic and the significance of the research,and sorts out the research ideas and research methods of this paper.In the second part,the sources of Zeng Guofan’s academic thought are traced.Although he advocated the manufacture of Western technological weapons and took the initiative to accept and learn from Western technological culture in his later years,he was essentially a traditional Confucian scholar.This led to the fact that Zeng’s thinking on aesthetic education was mainly influenced by Confucianism and Taoism,which is richly represented in the texts and inherent theoretical presentation in his family letters.In the third part,the textual representation of Zeng Guofan’s thought on aesthetic education is sorted out.The Confucian idea of aesthetic education is dominated by the concept of ritual and music,and this concept of ritual and music contains two main aspects,one of which is the use of "ritual" and "music" as tools to implement aesthetic education.This is evident in Zeng Guofan’s family letters.The fourth part explores the theoretical connotations of the idea of aesthetic education in Zeng Guofan’s Family Letters.Another element of Confucianism’s view of aesthetic education is the core spirit of ritual and music,which defines the inner logic of his aesthetic education thought.The poem’s sensual existence,inspired by the poem,is regulated and conditioned by the rituals and harmonised by the music,and is finally integrated into a socially rational existence,thus harmonising individual sensuality with rationality,and individual existence with social existence.This logic of aesthetic education constitutes the theoretical connotation of Zeng Guofan’s idea of aesthetic education.The fifth part analyses the contributions and limitations of Zeng Guofan’s thought on the aesthetic education of family letters.Zeng Guofan’s thought on the aesthetic education of family letters has both merits and limitations of its time.Both are manifested both at the theoretical and practical levels.In this regard,we should look at it scientifically and dialectically,taking the essence and removing the dross.The sixth part,concluding remarks.Aesthetic education is a matter of the overall comprehensive development of mankind,and its development at the present time has its own specific and special significance.In addition to discussing the contemporary significance of aesthetic education,this part again points out the practical value of Zeng Guofan’s ideas on aesthetic education.