Confucius pioneered private education among the people and was the first private teacher in history 2,500 years ago. Before Confucius, only the sons of the aristocracy could receive education; the children of merchants and farmers had no access to learning. From the age of twenty-two, Confucius began running private schools, gathering students and lecturing. He advocated “education without discrimination”: regardless of social background, any commoner could be accepted as a student as long as tuition was paid. For poor farmers who could not afford tuition, Confucius would still accept them as students if they brought ten strips of dried meat. Confucius offered four areas of study—moral conduct, speech, governance, and literature—and taught the Six Arts: rites, music, archery, charioteering, calligraphy, and mathematics. In human history, this constituted a relatively complete educational system, combining classical theory with practical skills for making a living. In teaching classical history and texts, Confucius designated certain canonical works for students to study, encouraged them to raise questions, and then answered them himself, primarily through a question-and-answer method. Confucius emphasized students’ different talents and dispositions, teaching according to individual aptitude. For different students, he adopted patient guidance, tireless instruction, and intellectual enlightenment.

Confucius trained his students to become gentlemen endowed with benevolence and moral character. “Benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trustworthiness” were the qualities he required students to cultivate. He emphasized shaping students’ temperament through poetry and music, proposing that one should “be inspired by poetry, stand firm through ritual, and be perfected by music,” thereby forming virtuous gentlemen. Confucius made his living through teaching throughout his life, holding official office for only a few years. Over several decades, more than 3,000 students studied under him. Among them, 72 were outstanding, and dozens lived and interacted with him regularly. The most famous disciples include Yan Hui, Zilu, Zigong, Zeng Shen, Zizhang, and Zixia, as well as his grandson Zisi.

Confucius was truly the first private teacher of the Chinese nation and a great educator 2,500 years ago, fully deserving of being honored by later dynasties as the “Teacher for Ten Thousand Generations.” The educational philosophy formed by Confucius became the enduring educational tradition of the Chinese nation, influencing the modern world to this day. The modern Confucian scholar Ma Yifu, drawing on his many years of study abroad and his integration of Chinese and Western learning, believed that the Six Arts taught by Confucius (rites, music, archery, charioteering, calligraphy, and mathematics) and the Six Classics he expounded (Poetry, Documents, Rites, Music, Changes, and Spring and Autumn Annals) could encompass all branches of modern Western learning. Natural sciences are encompassed by the Book of Changes; social sciences are encompassed by the Spring and Autumn Annals; politics and law are encompassed by the Book of Documents and the Rites; literature and the arts are encompassed by the Book of Poetry and Music. Western learning as a whole is governed by the three values of truth, goodness, and beauty, all of which are contained within Confucius’ Six Arts. The Spring and Autumn Annals represents ultimate truth; the Poetry and Documents represent ultimate goodness; and Rites and Music represent ultimate beauty. All paths of learning are encompassed by Confucius’ Six Arts, and the Six Arts are unified in the mind. The mind is the foundation of the Six Arts, and all actions ultimately arise from this single mind.