A Study On The School System In Han Dynasty

Through the investigation of the school system in the Han Dynasty, this thesis aims at bringing out the historical track of the development and change of the State schools and the private schools in the Han dynasty, and making a fairly thorough study of the teaching staff and students, the content of courses and the teaching patterns. In view of this consideration, we first discuss the value of the subject selected,the outline of the research and the way of the study in the preface, and then present a brief review of the theoretical history. The body of the thesis consists of five chapters and a dictum.In Chapter I, we mainly discuss the State schools of the Han Dynasty, including the Imperial College, special schools and local State schools. The Imperial College, which held a pivotal position in the Han Dynasty, has been most widely studied by the academic circle, and the current focus of argument is on its foundation time. Based on full and accurate historical data, we inquire into this question, clear up some misunderstandings and go into the roots of these misunderstandings. We confirm that the Imperial College of the Western Han Dynasty had school houses which were in the Taichang Imperial Government Office, though it had no independent institutions. Many scholars, when studying the educational history of the Han Dynasty, deny that the Imperial College was founded in the fifth year of Yuansuo, because they take the possession of an independent school house as the sign of its foundation. And thus, they actually have made the mistake of measuring the past with present standard. The Imperial College of the Western Han Dynasty was primarily intended for children of common people. Though emperors after Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty imposed restrictions on the privileges of the children of the imperial clan and their maternal relatives, and strengthened ideological education on them, they did not establish any schools exclusively for them. As the pillar of the future ruling class, children of the imperial clan and their maternal relatives were also most corruptible--both physically and spiritually. Therefore, their education directly related to the stability of the country. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, under the direct intervention of the monarch, two schools for them were established—the School for the Children of the Four Noble Families and the Palace School, whose education process was also the summarization of the experience of such education in the two Han periods. Besides, there were two schools for special people, Dongguan and Hongdumen. The former was not only the biggest. The latter was a school founded under a special background, existing only for a short time, of which, we are deficient in the documents and data and divergent in opinions. After the Liberation of China, due to the ideological influence, we have over approved its nature and exaggerated its significance, and this should be corrected. The royal education of the two Han periods was gradually perfected with development. Both the emperor and the crown prince had groups of elite Confucian instructors. The difference lies in that the emperor could choose what he liked to learn, while the education of the crown prince had a comparatively set pattern. The education of dukes was compulsive to some extent, for which the instructors had the responsibility of supervision, and they would be punished by the State if they were caught guilty of dereliction of duty. The local State schools were of three levels, namely, the level of the state, the prefecture, and the county. And they are important ways of spreading moral education. Besides the Shandong area which had a tradition of developed Confucian education, the local schools in Sichuan Prefecture, started by Wen Weng, had developed an embryonic form of modern schools. Their success was the introduction of a set of system that guaranteed the consistent operation of schools, including the funds, the training of teachers and the source of students. The author also delves into the causes of the rep...