The Study On The Education For The Common People In Han Dynasty

The Han Dynasty was the period of the political and economic system of feudal unification society being fully established and one of great expansions of education for the common people after the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. The rise of studies of confucian classics and the implementation of being an official by study arouse people's enthusiasm and stimulated the development of various types and levels of educational institutions,which offers the common poople more opportunities of study. Based on the previous studies and available ancient literature and archaeological materials, this paper makes studies on the deep impetus of development of education for the common people, and also discusses the education channals,content characteristics and influence on society.Great changes had taken place during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. Aristocracy collapsed.State power opened their doors to people from all parts of society which made people's social position fall into equal. Meanwhile,academic culture spread from the authorities to folk society,and ecucation object changed from nobility to common people.The economy's growth and the traffic conditions' improvement in Han Dynasty provided a more solid foundation for the education's development and the knoledge's spread. The predominance of Confucianism and the integration of education with being an official accelerated the perfection of education system.Books became abundant, and the bookstore had been established extensively.All these provided the common people with an excellent education environment.In order to meet the talent training demand of teaching the masses and governning a country, official schools at all levels were established subsequently and developed rapidly. From the aspect of official school's enrollment standard and teaching object, no matter Taixue or local official school had no restrictions to birth or parentage towards teaching object. There were three main reasons for popularization of teaching object:Officials had no ways to monopoly political power in bureaucracy,and correspondingly had no ways to monopoly right to education; Education,whose principal function was enlightenment,had to toward masses;Official school provided more opportunities for common people's study,which attracted a great number of common people to study in officials.Being different from official school education, private schools wer always the main approach to obtain knoledge for common people.Private schools provided more opportunities for common people's study and attracted a great number of common people to study because of their various education forms, substantial education content and flexible education time. In addition, private schools undertook the important task of elementary education.Private schools were big in size enough to accommodate numerous common students.And they widely distributed which disseminated the education to extensive areas.All these made the private schools the mainspring of education's development.The aim that common people study were to meet the demands of daily living and aggressively seek chances to be an official which made the common people not only study elementary knowledge and skill knowledge,but also the Study of Confucian Classics. The education for common people was in synchronism with the prosperity of Study of Confucian Classics. Certainly, the majority of the common people could only accept elementary education being restricted by economic conditions.Be restricted by economic conditions, the common student's study life was always fraught with difficulties. A student who came from a rich family could study depend on their parents'support.But most common students had chances to maintain their study only by relying on being engaged in farm work, other's support, borrowing money,work-study programme.The development of education for common people had exerted enormous influence on the society of Han Dynasty. On one hand, it improved the quality of laborers and the culture level of the whole society, and promoted production and economic prosperity. On the other hand,under the system of selecting an officer in Han Dynasty,a large group of educated people were coopted into the government bureaucracy which injected new vitality into the ruling clique.The educated common people also influenced the social order and conduct by their individual virtue value orientation.