Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 718
Li Jing shook his head with a smile: "The future of the Ming Dynasty is not in the Academy of Sciences, but in the Imperial College and universities at all levels. Guan Zi said; it takes ten years to grow trees, and a hundred years to cultivate people. Only these universities can run well and cultivate a large number of talents for Daming." Only talents can make the Ming Dynasty stronger. As for the Academy of Sciences, it is the research institute provided by the country for these talents. Therefore, the focus of your future work is to pay close attention to education.

So how should we educate people?First of all, of course, is the cultivation of morality. It is impossible for a person to have no virtue. Whether he is an official or a person, he must have virtue.But morality does not mean that I have a moral cultivation after reading a few books of sages. Since ancient times, there are not many people who have no virtue who have read the books of sages.

Therefore, I think that moral cultivation ultimately depends on the individual. I do not recommend that schools teach the Four Books and Five Classics all day long, as long as students understand Confucianism.

Then I hope that the school can teach students in accordance with their aptitude. We let students learn what they are interested in. Look at those people in the Academy of Sciences, who is not full of interest in their own research?They are creative because they are interested. "

Huang Daozhou nodded silently.

Li Jing respects Confucianism but does not admire him. He knows that Li Jing can put moral cultivation at the top of educating people, and agrees to teach Confucianism in schools. Huang Daozhou is already very satisfied.

But Huang Daozhou strongly agrees with Li Jing's teaching according to his aptitude. Although Huang Daozhou was born in the imperial examination, his thinking is not rigid. Huang Daozhou is not only a master of Confucianism and calligraphy, he is also proficient in astronomy, calendar and mathematics.If the latter item is not the interest, it is impossible to be proficient.

It was precisely because Huang Daozhou's thinking was not rigid that Li Jingcai promoted him to the Minister of Rites and entered the cabinet.

But Huang Daozhou is a scholar-type talent, he is only suitable for studying knowledge, only for teaching and educating people, just like Song Yingxing and Sun Yuanhua, he can't understand things in the officialdom.

It's just that Song Yingxing and Sun Yuanhua are different from Huang Daozhou. Song Yingxing and Sun Yuanhua are engaged in practical studies, and they do research by themselves. Song Yingxing spends most of the year in the field or in the mine, and only returns to the field when he summarizes his research experience. Beijing, and then use this time to give lectures at the Imperial College.

The same is true for Sun Yuanhua. Sun Yuanhua is in the military factory almost all year round, and only communicates with people in the Academy of Sciences when he encounters difficulties.

Huang Daozhou studied knowledge, and spent most of his time in the Imperial College, so Huang Daozhou was even more respected by literati.

Because of this, when Li Jing took office in Huang Daozhou, he entrusted him with the important task of teaching and educating people. As for chores, Li Jing would arrange for people to help Huang Daozhou share them.

Picking up the teacup and taking a sip, Huang Daozhou suddenly said: "Lord Li, there is something I should ask the lower officials?"

Li Jing smiled and said: "Brother Youping, you are polite, if you have any questions, feel free to ask."

Huang Daozhou put down his teacup, cleared his throat, and said, "That's right, the noble school established by Lord Shen and Lord Zhou after leaving office, why did the Lord stipulate that only the children of the families of the soldiers who have done meritorious service are recruited? The idea of ​​equality is kind of counterintuitive."

Li Jingwen said with a smile, turned to look at everyone: "Do you all have this question?"

Yuan Shu and the others looked at each other and nodded slightly at the same time.

Li Jing shook his head and sighed lightly: "Do you think I intend to improve the treatment and status of soldiers? Although there is a reason for this, it is not entirely for this purpose, and I have no choice but to do so.

You know that I have vigorously promoted education in the past few years, but what are the results?How many ordinary people send their children to school?I have a piece of material here, which I sent people to various schools to investigate. "

With that said, Li Jing leaned over and took out a document from under the desk, and handed it to Huang Daozhou: "Look at it."

Huang Daozhou hurried forward to take it, and then read it carefully. After reading it, he passed the information to Yuan Shu and others.

After everyone had read them one by one, Li Jing said: "I sent people to investigate mainly the Enlightenment Schools run by the government. From this information, we can see that most of the children in the schools stopped studying after only two years. That is to say, the children only learn the Three Character Classic, and don’t learn the Thousand Character Classic, Hundred Family Names and the most basic arithmetic.”

After receiving the information from Su Heng, Li Jing glanced at it and shook his head lightly: "Why don't ordinary people want to send their children to schools? What do ordinary people think?

I remember when I went down to inspect the year before last, I asked some common people this question. Guess what the common people said?They said that as long as the child can read a few words and understand a little arithmetic, it will be fine if he will not be deceived in the future.

I also asked some family members who were soldiers, what do you think they said?They said: 'What's the use of learning to read and write?The children in our family are illiterate, and they can take a gun to fight the enemy, and they can also be rewarded for their meritorious deeds. If children can read and write, it is better to train their bodies and send them to the army to serve as soldiers. '"

Speaking of this, Li Jingchang sighed: "What a stupid idea! But how can I explain it? Can I say that being a soldier is worthless? Or that farming is not good? There is no way to explain it, and it doesn't make sense.

In the past two years, I have been thinking, is there any way to make everyone willing to send their children to school?After much deliberation, I can't think of any good way.

Until last year, when I was talking to the emperor about being knighted, I suddenly had an idea that I could regard studying and going to school as a kind of honor, and everyone would flock to it.So I came up with the idea of ​​setting up a noble school!
Brother You Ping said just now that my establishment of a noble school was unfair to other students, and I did not treat them equally.I admit this, but don't I want to treat everyone equally?For those who are willing to go to school, schools all over the country open their doors for them, and there are plenty of places for them to study.

As for the children of officials and scholars who want to study, it is not a problem. Even if they don’t go to school, there are still people in their families who teach their children to read. In fact, most of our scholars in Ming Dynasty come from these families. They are really poor. How many children are studying?
The Ministry of Rites can find out how many scholars there are in the Ming Dynasty. All the students in the country, including Tongsheng and Zhisheng, are recorded in the Department of Education and Administration of each province. Brother Boying, you used to be the Minister of Rites. Let me tell you how many scholars there are in Daming. What is the origin of these people. "

Yuan Shu nodded, glanced at the crowd and said, "I don't remember the exact number clearly, I can only say a rough number, the total number of students, pupils, endowed students, Juren and Jinshi in the Ming Dynasty is about 130 million. Most of them are officials and scholarly families, and less than [-]% are from poor families."

Li Jing continued: "These are recorded in the school administrations of various provinces, and some are not recorded. For example, some students dropped out of academies or schools and were expelled from the school administration, and some even failed the entrance examination for children. Among them, those who finally gave up studying and changed their careers, we add all these scholars together, I guess there are only 200 million people, right? Let’s count more, and count those who have studied in private schools for several years, 300 million, this number Should be enough, right?"

Yuan Shu and Huang Daozhou hurriedly said: "There are absolutely no 300 million scholars in Ming Dynasty."

Li Jing sighed: "Yeah, there are not even 300 million people, including half-students like me who have never even attended school."

Yuan Shu hurriedly said: "If the commander-in-chief says that he is a half-learned scholar, then how can we deal with ourselves?"

Huang Daozhou also said: "Yes, my lord has been taught by Master Huan for many years, how can you say that you are half-baked?"

Li Jing said with a smile: "Look at the two words I wrote, who would believe that I am a scholar!"

Huang Daozhou hurriedly said: "My lord learns calligraphy when he is an adult, and he has so many things to do, where is the time to practice calligraphy? It is already very good to be able to write at this level."

Li Jing waved his hands and said, "Don't say nice things for me. My teacher would embarrass my teacher when I put out these two words. Back then, my teacher wrote ugly calligraphy for me, but I don't know how many times he scolded me. Sigh, even if you want to hear it now He can't even hear the old man scolding!"

Hearing that Li Jing felt sorry for his mentor, Yuan Shu and others fell silent. Everyone knew that Li Jing respected Yuan Keli very much. Whenever he mentioned Yuan Keli, Li Jing would definitely talk about Yuan Keli's achievements and remember him for a long time.Therefore, everyone knew that it was absolutely impossible to take up Li Jing's conversation at this time. If he took up this topic, Li Jing would not be able to talk about the main topic for a while.

Sure enough, no one answered Li Jing's words, Li Jingchang sighed, and finally withdrew his mind.

After glancing at everyone, Li Jing shook his head and said, "Da Ming has less than 300 million scholars. This number seems to be a lot, but how many people are there in total? Zhang Ao's statistics last year were 1000 million people, that is to say, Daming Among the more than 40 people, only one is a scholar, and the rest are illiterate."

Huang Daozhou continued: "In the southern region, especially Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, the proportion of scholars is higher, and the northern and western regions are far from reaching this proportion."

Li Jing sighed: "Yes, even Beijing can't reach this ratio. Outside the city, if we ask hundreds of people at random, I'm afraid there is no one who has read the book. It is said in the Three Character Classic: Jade cannot be cut, it cannot be used, and people If you don’t learn, you don’t know righteousness. So many people in our Ming Dynasty don’t know righteousness, how can this happen!”

Everyone nodded silently.

Li Jing continued: "Brother Bo Ying said just now that scholars mainly come from official families and scholarly families, and children from poor families, that is, children from ordinary people's families, rarely study. One of the reasons is that they think that reading is useless, and they cannot afford it. It is also an important reason.

In addition, even if ordinary people are willing to send their children to schools, we do not have so many schools and teachers to teach so many people, so we have to take it step by step.

My establishment of the Noble School was the first step.

I said just now that noble schools only recruit children of meritorious soldiers. One reason is to praise them. Another reason is that soldiers have a mentality of comparison. I take noble schools as a reward. They will fight bravely to get their children into the school. Going to school so that you can show off to others is more useful than forcing them to send their children to school. "

Gao Qi laughed and said, "If you want to control people's hearts, there are few people who can compare with the Marshal. In order to make your child a nobleman, if it were me back then, I must have tried my best to kill the enemy and make meritorious service. The child earns a good future."

Everyone couldn't stop nodding when they heard the words.

(End of this chapter)