There is nothing more real than this, when we walk into Dunhuang, into the documents and murals, there is still a faint scene of children going to school in the ancient city of Dunhuang, and the sound of the children reading aloud is in harmony with the melodious narration of the master's chanting. The fate of the naughty and wrong baby: roll up the trouser tube, next to the rattan, and the corners of the eyes are still shining with tears... Scene after scene, like a marquee.
The east wall of Cave 12 of Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes
In the picture of the east wall of Cave 12 of the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, there is an image of the school. In the picture, it is shown that there is a courtyard that is the school, and there is a single-eaves hall building in the center of the courtyard, which is the main room of the school, which is used for the teacher to live and can also enshrine the statue of Confucius. At that time, the teacher was called "Doctor", and there was only one person and another teaching assistant. In the picture, the servants in the school serve tea to the teacher, and bi respectfully bends down, and the look of ninety degrees of stooping can be said to be the performance of the specific image of the traditional respect for the teacher, which also reflects the educational concept of teaching by example than words, and sets an example for the students of the school. On both sides of the courtyard is the learning place of Xuelang, with tables and stools, the desk is a shelf made of a wooden board, sitting on a square mound, the textbook is a hand-copied paper roll, unfolded on the flat table.
The size and teachers of schools in Dunhuang are not clearly recorded in the literature, and according to the provisions of the Six Classics of Tang and the Old Book of Tang on the compilation of local official studies in the Tang Dynasty, the scale of Dunhuang local official studies can be roughly as follows.
When Shazhou was a lower prefecture, the state academic officers were: doctor of economics and teaching assistants. 1 Doctor of Medicine.
Dunhuang County academic officers include: doctor and 1 teaching assistant.
Shouchang County Academic Officers are: Doctor and Teaching Assistant 1 each.
In the second year of Emperor Yongtai's reign (766), after Shazhou was promoted to the governor's office, there were 1 doctor of classics (literature) and 2 assistant teachers. There are 1 doctor of medicine and 1 teaching assistant.
Dunhuang County academic officials include: doctor (literature) and teaching assistant 1 each.
The reappearance of the Dunhuang Mogao Caves, the tens of thousands of written scrolls in the cave, are living fossils of the people's lives in the Middle Ages, and all aspects of the social life of the Middle Ages are clearly presented to the eyes of the people of the world thousands of years later. In this large and diverse batch of children's and Mongolian teaching materials, we found the "Thousand Character Text" as a homework for children in the Dunhuang area of the Tang Dynasty, as well as a physical object for teachers to correct homework.
Yingzang s.2703 "Thousand Character Text" written version
It is now in the collection of a thousand words at the British Library in London, no. s.2703. This is an original copy of the oldest surviving student writing assignment. The original is broken into two paragraphs, writing "cloud, teng, zhi, rain, dew, knot, for, frost, gold, life, li, water, jade, out, kun, gang" and "light, fruit, zhen, yu, li, vegetable, heavy, mustard, ginger, sea, salt" in the "Thousand Character Text", and the seven characters of "sword, trumpet, giant, que, bead, name, night" are missing in the middle.
This piece of calligraphy is written on the back of the Dunhuang official document of the Tang Dynasty, and the front of the document is signed with the inscriptions of Shi Linghu Liangsi of the Eighth Year of Tianbao (749) and Shi Zhang Yuanzhen of the First Year of Qianyuan (758). It can be seen from this word study assignment that at that time, the students received strict formal word training, repeatedly practicing each word thirty to one hundred times, and finally writing the words together. The teaching method of learning words is to write the date of the day by the teacher first, and then according to the difficulty of the word and the load of the student, it is required to practice three to five words per day.
What is more special is that this volume also retains the "handwriting" corrected by the Tang Dynasty teachers, that is, after the word "jade", it is written that "gradually there is less ability, and it is also in line with the reward." Hugh's criticism means that the student's words have gradually improved, and they should be appreciated and approved. This expresses the encouragement and hope of teachers. The last word "Hugh", similar to the word "read" written after the modern grading homework, indicates that the homework review has been completed.
The north wall of Cave 468 of Mogao Caves is painted with a mural of the "Medicine Master's Classic" from the Middle and Tang Dynasties, which shows the layout and teaching of the school. There is an interesting picture: the teacher is sitting upright in the school, in the courtyard, a young student lang with a childish face, facing the teacher, with his back to the teaching assistant; shrinking his body, his hips slightly cocked, innocently looking back at the assistant teacher next to him. The teaching assistant held the whip in his hand, held it high, and was preparing to beat Xuelang. There were a few students sitting at the table under the porch, with textbooks on the case, looking at each other with an indignant look. A good portrait of corporal punishment of students in ancient schools is like a scene of corporal punishment of Dunhuang school children.
"Medicine Man Warp" Part Mogao Caves 468 Cave North Wall Middle Tang
In addition to the image of corporal punishment students in the murals, the Dunhuang writing volume also preserves the expression of students' feelings about corporal punishment. For example, in the volume of the Fa Zang p.2746 "Filial Piety Classic", at the end of the volume there is an inscription of a student surnamed Zhai who says: "To Gengchen, the moon is created in autumn, the day is caught third, the poem is written, and there is a residual paper, and a five-word humble poem is created." This was followed by a five-sentence poem:
Reading and chanting must be diligent, and achievements are like tigers. Without words (words) the rod pounding the body, may the road of glory be given.
Dharmagupta p.2746 Filial Piety Sutra
Dunhuang wrote more than 60 volumes of the Analects and more than 40 pieces of the Book of Filial Piety, including students' reading books and students' homework. Students often express the mental journey and voice of reading behind these daily use of textbooks. This student surnamed Zhai thought that when a student, reading and reciting should be diligent, although it is hard, but only in this way can the homework be rapidly improved and have good achievements. For the sake of the future of personal glory, even corporal punishment by whipping is not resigned. This poem expresses Dunhuang Xuelang's desire to learn and the spirit of tireless efforts.
In addition to the enlightenment of the family school in Dunhuang, most of them need to go out to study away from home, regardless of state, county or temple school. Long-term living in school, for teenagers, will inevitably have the pain of homesickness, so the expectations for the holidays are particularly eager. In the Tang Dynasty, schools at all levels had holiday regulations and complete systems. Usually, there is a day off every ten days, which is called "ten days off". In may of the lunar calendar, when the farmers are busy, a "field holiday" is held for one month; in September, when preparing winter clothes, there is also a "clothing leave" for one month. Of course, the students of private schools and monasteries in Dunhuang are not as long as the central government school semester and the students are far away from home and have long holidays. Most of them are local students and have a short study time, so their holidays are short.
p.2622 The Ji Ji Shu Yi has two volumes, and at the end of the volume there is an inscription: "Written at noon on the fourth day of April in the thirteenth year of the great middle school", followed by ten poems copied, one of which is written like this:
Bamboo forest Qing (green) lush, Bo (hundred) bird to take the sky. Imagō (朝) is my (holiday) day, and I return home from school.
Fazang p.2622 "Ji Ji Shu Yi"
Xue Lang thought of the lush and lush bamboo forest, the flock of birds soaring freely in the sky, the pursuit of unrestrained thoughts unconsciously spontaneously, looking forward to the teacher can finish school as soon as possible, the kind of teenager fifteen or twenty when he is active and wants to break free of the shackles, jumped on the paper.
In ancient times, there was no photography, let alone video, located in the Mogao Grottoes on the cliff face of the eastern foothills of Mingsha Mountain in Dunhuang, 492 grottoes, as many as 45,000 square meters of murals, the Tibetan Scripture Cave re-saw the day of the writing volume, unexpectedly recorded for us a large number of precious and informative records of Chinese medieval culture, captured the situation of schoolchildren learning in the school and the various images of teachers and children interacting, so that after a thousand years, we can witness the bits and pieces of schoolchildren learning in dunhuang.
Source: Dunhuang Bookstore, excerpt from "Enlightened Yangzheng - School Education in Dunhuang", "Dunhuang Literature and Medieval Education"
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