FORMAL EDUCATION IN THE MIDDLE AGES

(500-1600 AD) IN CHINA

Although there are more than 40,000 Chinese characters in written Chinese, many are
rarely used. Studies have shown that full literacy in the Chinese language requires a
knowledge of only between three and four thousand characters.

In China, three oral texts were used to teach children by rote memorization the written
characters of their language and the basics of Confucian thought.

The Thousand Character Classic, a Chinese poem originating in the 6th century AD,
was used for more than a millennium as a primer for teaching Chinese characters to
children. The poem is composed of 250 phrases of four characters each, thus
containing exactly one thousand unique characters, and was sung in the same way that
children learning the Latin alphabet may use the "alphabet song".

Later, children also learn the Hundred Family Surnames, a rhyming poem in lines of
eight characters composed in the early Song Dynasty (i.e. in about the 11th century AD)
which actually listed more than four hundred of the common surnames in ancient China.

From around the 13th century AD until the latter part of the 19th century, the Three
Character Classic, which is an embodiment of Confucian thought suitable for teaching
to young children, served as a child's first formal education at home. The text is written
in triplets of characters for easy memorization. With illiteracy common for most people
at the time, the oral tradition of reciting the classic ensured its popularity and survival
through the centuries. With the short and simple text arranged in three-character
verses, children learned many common characters, grammar structures, elements of
Chinese history and the basis of Confucian morality.

After learning Chinese characters, students wishing to ascend in the social hierarchy
needed to study the Chinese classic texts.

The early Chinese state depended upon literate, educated officials for operation of the
empire. In 605 AD, during the Sui Dynasty, for the first time, an examination system was
explicitly instituted for a category of local talents. The merit-based imperial examination
system for evaluating and selecting officials gave rise to schools that taught the Chinese
classic texts and continued in use for 1,300 years, until the end the Qing Dynasty, being
abolished in 1911 in favour of Western education methods. The core of the curriculum
for the imperial civil service examinations from the mid 12th century AD onwards was
the Four Books, representing a foundational introduction to Confucianism.

Theoretically, any male adult in China, regardless of his wealth or social status, could
become a high-ranking government official by passing the imperial examination,
although under some dynasties members of the merchant class were excluded. In
reality, since the process of studying for the examination tended to be time-consuming
and costly (if tutors were hired), most of the candidates came from the numerically small
but relatively wealthy land-owning gentry. However, there are vast numbers of
examples in Chinese history in which individuals moved from a low social status to
political prominence through success in imperial examination. Under some dynasties
the imperial examinations were abolished and official posts were simply sold, which
increased corruption and reduced morale.

In the period preceding 1040–1050 AD, prefectural schools had been neglected by the
state and left to the devices of wealthy patrons who provided private finances. The
chancellor of China at that time, Fan Zhongyan, issued an edict that would have used a
combination of government funding and private financing to restore and rebuild all
prefectural schools that had fallen into disuse and abandoned. He also attempted to
restore all county-level schools in the same manner, but did not designate where funds
for the effort would be formally acquired and the decree was not taken seriously until a
later period. Fan's trend of government funding for education set in motion the
movement of public schools that eclipsed private academies, which would not be
officially reversed until the mid 13th century.