On The Study

The theory of initiation education can be embodied not only in the teaching content but in the organization of initiatory textbooks. And the main content of initiation education also can be expressed in three aspects: the education on morality and ethics, the instruction in perceiving natural science as well as the cultivation of language competence. However, there are several choices and conflicts among those three parties above with their ever-changing teaching methods respectively. For example, in one particular period, people worried about the status of moral education for children, while in another period, some disagreements related to poem education for children was supported by numerous people. Therefore, how to keep the balance in content of initiation education now becomes a problem which the ancient educators have to face. In fact, the initiation education with one-fold goal cannot meet all the requirements arising in children’s development, and the best-known initiatory textbooks are also those ones which own manifold educational objectives, being regarded as the most direct reflection of initiation education’s practice in ancient times. Meanwhile, these initiatory textbooks fuse all the aspects of initiation educational content, giving expression to the basic strategy for ancient educators to deal with contradictions in educational process.The transformation of the various kinds of initiation education, as well as the educational function of initiatory textbooks, can be two key points of studying the educational concept of initiation education.When it comes to the initiation education, moral education will be seen in every aspects of it, which mirrors the great attention to morality paid by ancient educators. The initiation education gives the priority to the moral education, choosing appropriate methods to develop moral teaching. Thus, morality permeates all the domains of teaching and becomes the core of initiation education’s content. The power of morality can be founded in ancient music, the Chinese classics, stories as well as history and culture, being beneficial to the development of children and nourishing children’s inner world. The ancient educators spare no effort to promote education of morality and ethics through various ways(such as artistic edification, persuasion and warning, human interest stories and behavior restriction) tirelessly, forming a comprehensive system of moral education which fosters children’s inner affective commitment and value identification by abundant external influences. Similarly, different behavioral norms embody the core value of morality and ethics which can be subdivided as respect, affection, modesty, politeness,and priorities in rank, at the same time, the adequate spiritual support is provided by the Chinese classics, historical culture and stories. Thus it can be seen an all- around moral teaching system connecting interior with exterior.It is significant and indispensable for a man to possess a substantial spiritual world and favorable moral trait. A well-performed man who is beneficial to society should always keep society-shared values and civilized norms in his head. The ancient educators held highly clear cognitions on this issue, which has blended into each stratum, such as Lesson of Great Grandfather, Augmented Yin and some other secular ethic education books. Among them there were popularly spread lessons like “to keep a child without education is inferior to keep a pig”. Though the words may sound a little coarse, the truth it contains is quite simple, that is, the importance of moral and ethical education for a man’s growth.Initiatory textbooks are generally all-embracing, blending characters, morality, history and culture, literature and other contents into one system, teaching children in ballad. During the imperial examination period, the initiatory textbooks further combined Xie Yun, antithesis and other essential knowledge for poem-writing to moral education and history and culture education as well. The most typical one is Teaching the Ignorant, in Tang Dynasty, which compiled all sorts of teaching stories in neat antithesis and strict rhyme. It had several educative influences on Phonological parallelism, morality, allusion, disposition, attitude and wisdom-edification. In the period of Ming-Qing Dynasty, Actient Book made some improvements on the basis of Teaching the Ignorant, it applied the recent changes and requirements to initiatory textbooks, and also took a various of educational functions.The main goal of the initiation education is to build a gentle man with knowledgeable natural science. There are different textbooks teaching natural science in different forms, such as Ji Jiupian, Three Character Classic, Hundreds of Surnames in China, Thousand Character Classic, Primary School Purple Beads, as well as Small Four Books and so on. The contents of these books composed the knowledge system of initiation education. There are mainly two aspects. One is natural and social entity, the other is political and cultural system. The entity is the fundamental factor of nature and society, as well as the basic target of children recognition of the world, which implies a rich humanistic connotation. The two parts have a clear circumscription. However, with the development of initiation education, the proportion of political and cultural system in this system increased gradually, combined with the humanistic connotation education of entity, formed a brand-new humanistic knowledge system, and became the core of the initiation education system. While the cognition of the entity, is always hidden in the teaching process of humanistic knowledge system.All the things for the development of children provided by the initiation education are enough and necessary. The initiation education offers strong support during the cultivation of children in three areas: high quality of moral character, wide range of basic knowledge and solid foundation of poetic writing.Integrating various educational materials represents the consistent thought on compiling textbooks for ancient private schools, rendering a tiny textbook for ancient private schools fraught with educational information, thus boasting multiple educational functions. Actient book, in particular, whose objective is utilitarian education ostensibly, implies plain educational pursuits. They, therefore, tactfully restored a balanced distribution of educational resources while defusing the conflict between plain educational pursuits and utilitarian education.In the time of exam-oriented education, people can learn lessons from the methods of solving educational contradictions in the initiatory textbooks. However, because of the change of history periods, education nature and time spirit, it will be much more meaningful by learning teaching ideas of initiation education than the contents in the initiatory textbooks. At present, it is not a best way to spread the traditional culture by simply publishing the initiatory textbooks. And the best way is to learn the teaching ideas and combine them with the modern elements to make up a new kind of textbooks with high quality, which will offer the children enough and necessary education.