Teaching children — how a child is to be taught教子

The highest in wisdom come to completion without being taught. The lowest in folly gain nothing though they are taught. The ordinary man does not know unless he is taught. The sage kings of old had a method for teaching the child in the womb. Three months into the pregnancy the mother went out to live in a separate palace. Her eyes did not look on what was crooked and her ears did not listen at random, and music and food were held in measure by the rites. This was written on tablets of jade and stored in a case of metal. When the child was born and could laugh, the tutor-guardians (師保) made filial duty, kindness, the rites and right conduct plain to him and led him to practice them. Even if ordinary people cannot do so much, they should begin while the child is small, as soon as he can read a face and tell joy from anger. Then they should teach him, so that he does what he is told to do and stops when he is told to stop. By the time he is a few years old the rod can be spared. When parents are stern and also kind, their sons and daughters are careful out of awe, and filial feeling grows in them. Looking at the world, I find love without teaching, and people who never manage this. In eating and drinking and in all he does, the child is left to his own wants. Where he should be warned he is praised instead, and where he should be scolded he is laughed at instead. By the time he comes to understand, he takes it that this is how things are meant to be. Only when arrogance has become a habit do they set about holding him back. Then they beat him to the point of death and still command no awe, and the angrier they grow day by day the more resentment they raise. When he is grown, he ends by ruining his own character. This is what Confucius meant when he said, "What is formed in childhood is like inborn nature, and habit is like nature itself." A common saying runs, "Teach the bride when she first arrives, and teach the child when he is a babe in arms." How true these words are!

Those who cannot teach their sons and daughters do not wish to sink them in wrongdoing. They only find scolding and anger hard, they shrink from wounding the child's face, and they cannot bear to take the rod and hurt his skin. The matter should be weighed against illness. How could one refuse decoctions and needles and moxa to save the sick? And this should be considered too: would a man who presses and instructs without rest wish to be harsh with his own flesh and blood? Truly he does it because there is no other way.

Lady Wei, the mother of Wang the Grand Marshal, was of a very stern and upright nature. When Wang was at Pencheng, a general over three thousand men and past forty years of age, she would still take the rod to him if anything was the least bit not as it should be. That is why he was able to achieve what he did. In the time of Emperor Yuan of Liang there was a certain scholar, quick and gifted, who was doted on by his father and so lost all instruction. If he said one thing that was right, his father spread it to everyone who passed on the road and praised him for it the year round. If he did one thing that was wrong, his father covered it over and dressed it up, hoping the son would mend it himself. When he came to the age of marriage and office, his violence and arrogance grew day by day. In the end he did not weigh his words, and it is said that he was disembowelled by Zhou Ti, and his blood was used to smear a drum.

The severity between father and son must not fall into familiarity, and the love between flesh and blood must not fall into neglect. Where there is neglect, kindness and filial duty do not meet. Where there is familiarity, idleness and contempt arise. From an officer of rank (命士) upward, father and son live in separate quarters, and this is the way of not being familiar. Scratching where the parent itches or aches, folding the quilt and setting out the pillow, this is the teaching of not being neglectful. Someone asked, "Chen Kang was glad to hear that the gentleman keeps his son at a distance. What does that mean?" I answered, "There is such a thing. The gentleman does not teach his own son in person because the Book of Songs has words of satire, the Book of Rites has warnings against laying oneself open to suspicion, the Book of Documents has matters of revolt and disorder, the Spring and Autumn Annals has censure of crooked and biased deeds, and the Book of Changes has images that hold all things. None of these are things a father and a son may speak of openly together, and so he does not hand them down in person."

The Prince of Langye, a son of Emperor Wucheng of Qi, was the crown prince's younger brother by the same mother. He was clever from birth, and both the emperor and the empress loved him deeply. His clothes and his food were matched to those of the Eastern Palace. The emperor would often say of him to his face, "This is a sharp boy. He will surely come to something." When the crown prince ascended the throne, the prince lived in a separate palace, and the honors paid him went beyond his station and were not like those of the other princes; yet the empress dowager still called them too little, and was forever saying so. At about ten years of age he was arrogant and unrestrained and kept no measure, and his vessels, his clothes and his playthings all had to match the emperor's own. Once at court in the Southern Hall he saw the steward of the table (典御) present freshly drawn ice and the keeper of the parks (鉤盾) offer the first plums. When he went back and called for them and could not get them, he fell into a great rage and cried, "His Majesty has them already. How is it that I have none?" His ignorance of his own place was generally of this sort. Men of judgment often reproached him by likening him to Shu Duan (叔段) and Zhou Xu (州吁). Later he came to hate the prime minister, forged an edict and had him beheaded. Fearing that someone might come to the rescue, he ordered the soldiers under his command to guard the palace gates. Since he had no thought of revolt, he was comforted and the matter was dropped; but in the end it was for this that he was shut up and died.

Few among men can love their children evenly. From ancient times to now this fault has been common. The able and outstanding child may well be cherished, but the dull and slow one should be pitied all the same. To love one child more is to call down calamity on him while meaning to do him good. The death of Gongshu (共叔) was truly his mother's doing, and the killing of the Prince of Zhao (趙王) was truly at his father's bidding. Liu Biao overturned his own clan, and Yuan Shao saw his land split and his army destroyed. These may be taken as a bright mirror.

A gentleman of the Qi court once said to me, "I have a son, seventeen years old now, who knows documents and letters well enough. I am having him taught the Xianbei (鮮卑) tongue and the playing of the pipa, and he is coming to master them. If he serves the great ministers with these, there is no chance he will not be favored. This too is a thing worth having." I bowed my head at the time and gave no answer. How strange, this man's way of teaching his son! Even if such work brought a man to be a high minister (卿相), I would not wish you, my sons, to do it.