The Way of the Teacher

荀子 / Han YuSep 2014

3.8

Word count: 26K words
Chapters: 18

Summary

This book is a Teachers' Day tribute from the public-domain team. It collects eight famous prose works encouraging learning and honoring the teacher, including 'On the Teacher,' 'Encouraging Learning' from the Xunzi, 'Encouraging Learning' from the Lüshi Chunqiu, and 'Admonitions on Teachers and Friends.' It aims to carry forward the virtue and spirit of honoring teachers and valuing the Way found in classical culture, and hopes that readers, through these essays, will come to understand and pass on the ancients' thirst for knowledge and their respect for teachers.

Editor's review

This book gathers celebrated pieces on encouraging learning and honoring teachers that are scattered across the classics, histories, and philosophical and literary collections. The selection is small but each piece has its own emphasis: "On Teachers" lays out the principles of the teacher's way, "Encouraging Learning" analyzes how learning works, and "Admonition on Teachers and Friends" discusses the benefits of friendship. The pieces echo one another and sketch a complete outline of how the ancients viewed the pursuit of knowledge. The editor takes Teachers' Day as the occasion, but the aim is not to preach; it is to revive a lost attitude—to treat learning as a lifelong undertaking and those who transmit the way and teach as people worthy of respect. Most of the eight pieces are short, mixing parallel and free prose, restrained in length and suited to finishing one on a commute or before sleep rather than rushing. If you jot down the lines that move you and then compare them with today's learning situation, the ancients' words stop being doctrines on the page and become opinions you can discuss and argue with. For readers long away from classical Chinese who want to reconnect with the classics, a small collection like this is easier to enter than a bulky anthology.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Primary and secondary school language teachers who need to explain the traditional meaning of honoring teachers
General readers who want to reread famous classical pieces but are daunted by bulky anthologies
Students at teachers colleges who want to understand the origins of ancient educational ideas
Parents with school-age children who want to read short classical texts together

Not a good fit for

Readers who want the complete works of Xunzi or Han Yu; this book contains only eight selected pieces
Readers seeking systematic educational theory or classroom teaching methods; this is an anthology, not a treatise
Readers who prefer contemporary educational case studies and practical experience; classical pieces do not map directly onto them

Reading tips

Read in the order of "Encouraging Learning," "On Teachers," and "Admonition on Teachers and Friends": first the principles of learning, then the meaning of teachers and friends.
Read each piece through once without worrying over details, then go through it sentence by sentence to sort out function words and sentence patterns.
After reading, write three to five lines of notes connecting the text to a specific experience of your own studying or teaching.

版权信息
目录
公版书总序
正文
师说
荀子·劝学
吕氏春秋·劝学
吕氏春秋·尊师
礼记·学记
潜夫论·赞学
师友箴
如是我闻
一、古代老师的称谓
二、中国古代的学校
三、中国古代著名师生
四、中国古代著名帝师
五、名人学习故事
六、尊师故事

FAQ

Does this book contain complete texts or selections?

It is a thematic anthology of eight famous prose pieces on encouraging learning and honoring teachers, including "On Teachers," "Encouraging Learning" from Xunzi, "Encouraging Learning" from the Lüshi Chunqiu, and "Admonition on Teachers and Friends." It is not the complete works of any one author. Treat it as a short reader built around a single theme, one piece at a time.

Can I read it without any background in classical Chinese?

Most of the eight pieces are short and the sentence patterns are not especially difficult, but there are still many ancient institutions and function words. It is best to have an edition with annotations or a vernacular translation alongside: start with "On Teachers," which is short and clearly structured, and once that reads smoothly, move on to longer argumentative passages such as "Encouraging Learning."

Is it suitable for middle school students or children?

It suits the middle school years well; pieces such as "On Teachers" are already in the curriculum, giving students a foothold for understanding. Younger children can read short passages with a parent, focusing on the feel of the language and the metaphors and stories in the text, without insisting on word-for-word mastery or explaining the full argument from the start.

Comments

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About the author

荀子 Author

Xunzi is one of the representative figures of pre-Qin Confucianism and is generally known by the honorific name "Xunzi"; reliable public information about his real name, native place, and dates of birth and death is limited, making them difficult to verify. The library holds 24 of his works, with representative titles including Xunzi, Fei Shi Er Zi (Against the Twelve Masters), Quan Xue (Encouraging Learning), Fu Guo (Enriching the State), Li Lun (A Discussion of Rites), Xunzi (Fine Public Domain Edition), Jie Bi (Dispelling Blindness), and Tian Lun (A Discussion of Heaven). In terms of subject matter, these pieces span philosophical argument, discussion of ritual institutions, and prose miscellanies. They offer systematic reflection on human nature, Heaven and the Way, and problems of knowledge, while also displaying a rhetorical style that advances step by step and persuasively employs analogies, often using everyday examples to illuminate abstract ideas. His works circulate widely in the categories of Eastern philosophy and philosophical reading, and have had a lasting influence on later Confucian thought and argumentative prose writing.

Han Yu Author · China

Han Yu (768–824), courtesy name Tuizhi, was a native of Heyang, Henan (present-day Mengzhou, Henan), with his ancestral home in Changli, hence known as Han Changli. A Tang dynasty writer, thinker and statesman, he championed the Classical Prose Movement, opposed the ornate style of parallel prose, and advocated that writing should convey the Way. He is ranked first among the Eight Great Prose Masters of the Tang and Song and, together with Liu Zongyuan, is known as "Han and Liu," exerting a profound influence on later prose. His works span argumentative essays and landscape and lyrical poetry, marked by a vigorous, striking style. The collection holds 26 of his works, including the three-volume Annotated Collected Works of Han Changli (simplified edition), Collected Works of Han Yu and Han Yu's Collected Works (2 volumes), as well as poems such as "Spring Snow," "Late Spring," "Early Spring" and "Sixteen Poems on a Visit to the South of the City," and he also appears in Selected Works of the Eight Great Prose Masters: Han Yu.