The Research On Folk Education In The Towms Of Jiangnan During The Ming And Qing Dynasties

Ming and Qing Dynasties were a period when the folk education was in development and improvement. Especially, in the towns of Jiang Nan, developed economy, prosperous culture, folk education was more active, has gone through three stages. After the war of late Yuan, folk education in early Ming still was in recovery. In middle Ming, the society was stable, commodity economy of town was developed, culture was strong, so folk education became thrived. In early Qing, it became more prosperous, showing the depth development.The folk education in towns of Jiang Nan was various, suitable to different students. From the teaching subject, it can be divided into three types:private school, family education and the college.from the teaching level, can be divided into primary and advanced. In primary-level, the require of morality and etiquette has reached an unprecedented height. In advanced-level, it included the moral emotion and confucian classics, the education was to achieve confucian goal:investigation of things, the extension of knowledge, sincerity, Sacred Hearts, self-cultivation, regulating family, ruling country and world.With the construction of education system, the thought of folk education was vigorous, had times and municipal features:"Reading saves the world","Knowledge has priority over art","Setting mind is first","Scholars should be based on Livelihood" The educators summarized the educational experience in practice, and gradually formed a set of effective teaching methods,"individual teaching, precept and example" and "focus on exercises, proceed in step-by-step"were the most striking. This teaching form was very different from official education, which was simple collective teaching. The management system of folk education was also more flexible, to adapt to the various kinds of schools.In towns of Jiang Nan, the society was known as Reading and Learning, which has education paid attention. Because of the underdeveloped official schools, folk education met the needs of basic society, increased the overall cultural quality of the people, undoubtedly, which has promoted the commodity economy in Jiang Nan region.