A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Starting from the Village Chief

Chapter 33 Human beings are inherently good by nature

In the afternoon,

Li Yi invited teacher Dong Xiucai and a group of friends to Wuji Primary School.

Today is the first class of Wuji Primary School. Li Yi specially made it an open class. He not only invited guests such as Dong Xiucai to attend, but also villagers to come and listen.

Originally, he planned to avoid the scorching heat and wait until August when the weather got cooler to start school, but he discovered that Dong Xiucai's Fengjiabao private school did not have winter and summer vacations, and other schools did not have winter and summer vacations either. Some schools only had holidays during the busy farming season.

The first batch of students at Wuji Primary School consisted of sixty people.

About thirty children from Luojiabao were recruited, and almost all of them came. In addition, more than twenty children were recruited from the nearby Guozhuang, Gaojiabao and Sanjiacun.

Due to limited places, several neighboring villages almost got into a fight, and the villagers from Weibao, Nianzhuang and Fengjiabao, which are also in Xingshengli, were very unhappy because they were not included in the enrollment scope this time.

The central hall in the east wing was turned into a classroom, and there were no classes for so many students.

There weren't even doors or windows in the classroom, nor were there desks or chairs. The conditions were extremely simple. A group of students arrived this morning, had fun in Wujiyuan for half a day, and had their first free meal at noon.

Millet rice, green vegetables, tofu dregs, and a small fish soup cooked with lard.

The children devoured the food with great satisfaction.

Li Yi picked up the iron rod and knocked on the iron block hanging under the corridor. A clear and crisp sound of "ding ding ding" was heard.

"When we enter the classroom, the shorter ones sit in the front and the taller ones sit in the back."

There were no desks or chairs, so everyone just sat on the floor.

The east wing hall was suddenly crowded with children. The youngest was five years old, the oldest was twelve years old, and there were about ten girls.

The children's eyes were full of excitement and curiosity, they were playing and whispering to each other.

These were children from poor families. Most of them wore open-crotch pants, many were shirtless, and almost none of them wore shoes. They were all very thin and dark, and there was not a single plump and fair child.

Li Yi invited some prominent people such as Dong Xiucai, Sun Fujia, and Wang Xiangzhang into the classroom. Each of them had a cushion and knelt to listen.

The rest of the villagers, due to the limited space in the classroom, could only listen in the corridor outside, and the villagers could only watch from the back.

"quiet!"

Li Yi walked to the podium, which was built yesterday. He used the leftover Hu Ji from building the courtyard wall to build a raised area on the north side of the hall, and then placed a table on it.

A board was hung on the back wall, which became a makeshift podium.

The buzzing sound soon stopped. These children were quite obedient.

"Today, Wuji Primary School officially opens. This is the first class, and it's also an open class. First, I want to ask everyone, why do we need to study?"

There was immediate noise and chatter below.

Li Yi tapped the desk a few times.

"Silence! From now on, if you want to speak in class, raise your hand first. You can stand up and speak only after the teacher calls your name."

"Luo Shitou, you go ahead."

Nine-year-old Shitou quickly stood up. Perhaps because he was in front of so many people, his face flushed with excitement and he stuttered and couldn't speak for a while.

"Don't be anxious, speak slowly."

Little Stone took a while to calm down. "I, I, Sanniang said that reading and learning to read can open my eyes and stop me from being blind."

"Very good, please take a seat. Classmates, please applaud Luo Shitou for his active speech."

Li Yi took the lead in applauding, and the children followed suit, applauding like thunder. Little Stone's face turned even redder, but he also looked somewhat proud, and he held his head high with pride.

“Reading makes people wise. Books are a key that can open the door to wisdom. Books are also a good medicine. Good readers can cure stupidity.

Reading can make you smarter, broaden your horizons, cultivate your character, and even change your destiny. So, everyone should seize the opportunity and study hard.

After the opening,

Li Yi took out a stack of A4 papers that he had prepared, on which were written large characters with a brush. He used rice grains to stick them on the board behind him. There were six large characters written on one piece of paper, and Li Yi stuck twelve pieces in one breath.

The children looked curiously at the big words on the white paper table, their eyes clear and pure, but they didn't know what these words meant.

However, Dong Xiucai, Sun Fujia and others who were listening in the classroom were all surprised when they saw these words.

There have been many children's enlightenment books since ancient times, from the "Cangjie Book" compiled by Li Si, the prime minister of Qin State, to the "Yuanli Pian" and "Boxue Pian", collectively known as the Three Cangs, to the "Jijiupian" handed down from the Han Dynasty, to the "Kaimeng Yaoxun" of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and later the "Thousand Character Classic", which is the pinnacle of enlightenment books.
Most of these primers have four-character sentences, and some commonly used characters are arranged so that students can learn some common sense while learning to read.

To this day, Thousand Character Classic is a must-read book for enlightenment. It is said that this book was written by Emperor Wu of Liang in the Southern Dynasties, who asked Zhou Xingsi to compile a literacy textbook for his son. After receiving the order, Zhou Xingsi wrote the Thousand Character Classic in just one night.

Everyone had expected Li Yi to teach the Thousand Character Classic in his first class, but the large characters he'd posted on the blackboard weren't four-character sentences, but three-character sentences instead. "At birth, human nature is good. Natures are close, but habits separate them. Without instruction, nature changes. The way to teach is to be focused. Mencius' mother chose her neighbors carefully. When her son refused to learn, she broke her loom. Yan Zhitui had a righteous method. He taught his three sons, and all of them rose to fame. Raising a child without teaching is the father's fault. Teaching without strictness is the teacher's laziness. It's not right for a child not to learn. If a child doesn't learn when young, what will he do when he grows old?"

Although Dong Xiucai was sitting at the back, his eyesight was still very good and he could see the big words on the paper clearly.

He read the words silently, and the more he read, the more surprised he became. He had never seen anything like this before.

Each sentence consists of three words, which are catchy, popular, smooth and easy to remember, and have the same effect as the Thousand Character Classic.

This old gentleman, who had once been a student of the Imperial Academy and had passed the examination for the title of scholar, immediately felt that he was extraordinary.

Each sentence has three words, and each group has four sentences. The twelve sentences on this board are obviously three groups of one sentence. From "Man is born good" to "If a man does not learn, he will not know righteousness", it is obvious that it talks about the importance of education and learning to children's growth. If the acquired education is timely and the method is correct, children can become useful talents.

Dong Xiucai, who had been teaching in a private school for many years, became more and more excited as he read.

Sun Fujia, who passed the imperial examination and became a Jinshi in the Sui Dynasty, was a person who truly changed his destiny through reading. The more he looked at the big words on the papers, the more amazed he was.

Easy to understand, yet profound.

He also admired the big characters on the paper. They were written with iron-like strokes and silver-like hooks, and were thin, strong and vivid. The calligraphy was quite amazing.

Li Yi put it on and turned to look at everyone.

In his first class today, he did not choose Thousand Character Classic, but Three Character Classic.

I took some thought to choose this one. The Thousand Character Classic was written during the Liang Dynasty in the Southern Dynasties, but the Three Character Classic did not appear until the Song Dynasty. The Three Character Classic also has more than a thousand words, and most of them are in rhyme, with three words in each sentence and four sentences in a group, like a poem. Reciting it is like singing a nursery rhyme, and it is very interesting to use it to educate children, and it can also enlighten the mind.

Although some content had to be revised after the Tang Dynasty, deletions and revisions would not have had a significant impact. For example, the line "Yan Zhitui has a righteous way of raising his three sons to fame" originally reads "Dou Yanshan has a righteous way of raising his five sons to fame." Dou Yanshan refers to Dou Yujun, a native of Yanshan during the Five Dynasties, who raised his sons so well that all five of his sons passed the imperial examinations.

Li Yi changed Dou Yujun to Yan Zhitui, a famous scholar in the Northern and Southern Dynasties. This is also not a problem. Yan Zhitui died during the Kaihuang period. His son Yan Silu and grandson Yan Shigu are still quite famous scholars today. Yan Silu was a military officer in the Qin Palace, and Yan Shigu was a literary officer in the palace of Li Shimin.

The main reason for choosing the Three Character Classic is that Li Yi opened a school to improve his reputation. He wrote the Shoujinti to improve his reputation, so now he opened a school and took out the Three Character Classic to improve his reputation.

"Classmates, starting today, let's learn the Three Character Classic. I'll read it first, then explain the meaning, and then everyone will recite it aloud."

"No Yi,"

Dong Xiucai stood up with some excitement.

"gentlemen."

"Did you write these twelve lines of the Three Character Classic?"

Li Yi said shamelessly: "This is based on the story that my master, Master Li, taught me before."

"Are there only these twelve sentences?" Dong Xiucai asked again.

"More than that. I've compiled over 300 sentences so far, each with three words, and each sentence is a group of four. These 12 sentences are the first."

Dong Xiucai was very excited, "Okay, okay, you can continue teaching first."

Li Yi recited the Three Character Classic loudly, just like singing. After singing it once, he began to explain the meaning. The children were confused, but it didn't matter. In traditional private school enlightenment education, they would first recite while shaking their heads.
It is said that if you read a book a thousand times, its meaning will become clear.

This first chapter of twelve sentences actually tells two stories, such as Meng's mother's three moves and Yan Zhitui's good parenting method.

"Do you know who Meng's mother is?" Li Yi asked.

None of the sixty children below knew. They didn’t even know who Confucius was, let alone Mencius and his mother.

"Mencius' mother is the mother of Mencius, a Confucian sage from the Warring States Period. Together with Confucius, they are known as Kong Meng. Mencius' father died young, and he and his mother depended on each other for survival. Mencius' mother made a living by weaving. Mencius was very intelligent, learning everything he saw and having a strong ability to imitate. Initially, Mencius' family lived near a cemetery, and funeral processions often passed by his door with trumpets. Mencius followed suit and learned to play the trumpet, attracting a group of children who followed him to play the funeral trumpet game all day long. Mencius' mother attached great importance to her child's education, and upon seeing this, she moved the family to the city.

The new home was next to a slaughterhouse. Mencius went to the slaughterhouse every day to watch the slaughter of pigs and sheep. He learned by heart and soon he could help slaughter pigs and sheep. Seeing this, Mencius' mother moved the family to a school. So every morning, Mencius ran outside the school and read along with the students. The teacher liked the clever Mencius very much and let him go to the school for free.
But he was still very playful and often skipped school. Meng's mother was so angry that she broke the shuttle for weaving cloth, saying that if the shuttle was broken, the cloth could not be woven. The same is true for learning. Only by accumulating little by little over a long period of time can one succeed.

After listening to his mother, Mencius realized his mistake and returned to school, where he gradually became well-educated and well-mannered. Later, Mencius lived up to his mother's expectations and became a famous Confucian master during the Warring States Period. This is the story of Mencius's mother moving three times, and also the meaning of the line in the Three Character Classic, "Mencius' mother chose a good neighborhood; when her son refused to learn, she broke the loom."

Although the children did not know who Mencius was, they listened with great interest to Li Yi's explanation of the purpose of Mencius' mother's three moves.

Luo Er's eldest grandson said that playing the trumpet was a good thing. Every time he played the trumpet at a funeral, he would get food and drink, a piece of white cloth, and his wages. Shitou said that learning to butcher pigs and sheep would be a good idea. The owner of the pig would give him pig offal as payment, and the butcher would have more offal than he could eat.

Li Yi did not interrupt them and let the children discuss freely for about ten minutes before asking them to be quiet.

"Now, you follow me and recite each sentence."

In Wujiyuan,

Suddenly, the sound of reading aloud was heard.

Man is born good, natures are similar, but habits make people different. The sound of reading drowns out the chirping of cicadas in summer.

(End of this chapter)