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A Study on the School System in Han Dynasty
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Through the investigation of the school system in the Han Dynasty, this thesis aims at bringing out the historical track of the development and change of the State schools and the private schools in the Han dynasty, and making a fairly thorough study of the teaching staff and students, the content of courses and the teaching patterns. In view of this consideration, we first discuss the value of the subject selected,the outline of the research and the way of the study in the preface, and then present a brief review of the theoretical history. The body of the thesis consists of five chapters and a dictum.In Chapter I, we mainly discuss the State schools of the Han Dynasty, including the Imperial College, special schools and local State schools. The Imperial College, which held a pivotal position in the Han Dynasty, has been most widely studied by the academic circle, and the current focus of argument is on its foundation time. Based on full and accurate historical data, we inquire into this question, clear up some misunderstandings and go into the roots of these misunderstandings. We confirm that the Imperial College of the Western Han Dynasty had school houses which were in the Taichang Imperial Government Office, though it had no independent institutions. Many scholars, when studying the educational history of the Han Dynasty, deny that the Imperial College was founded in the fifth year of Yuansuo, because they take the possession of an independent school house as the sign of its foundation. And thus, they actually have made the mistake of measuring the past with present standard. The Imperial College of the Western Han Dynasty was primarily intended for children of common people. Though emperors after Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty imposed restrictions on the privileges of the children of the imperial clan and their maternal relatives, and strengthened ideological education on them, they did not establish any schools exclusively for them. As the pillar of the future ruling class, children of the imperial clan and their maternal relatives were also most corruptible--both physically and spiritually. Therefore, their education directly related to the stability of the country. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, under the direct intervention of the