Education in Traditional China

The history of Chinese education is among one of the longest in the world, comparable to that of the Jewish and of the Indian. By the end of the ninth century, China’s educational content and practice began to become more and more geared to the study of the official commentaries to the “Five Classics”, and this was a result of the rise in importance of the keju examinations. Confucius was born in a time of rapid social change. He proposed an educational content based on the kind of noble education he himself received. It was comprised in the so-called six arts: rite, music, archery, charioteering, history, and mathematics. Buddhism spread to China as early as the first century, although its influence became only visible after the third century. Buddhism provided inspirations for temple architecture, improvised religious rites.