Xia Zi, a student of Confucius, put forward "learning to be an excellent official", but it theoretically summarized the educational purpose of Confucius. Its basic meaning is that official position should be closely linked with study. People with official positions should be educated and continue to study. Educated people should get a certain official position. Education is to cultivate talents who can govern the country and the people.

The educational teleology of "learning to be an excellent official" was of great progressive significance at that time;

1. Oppose the hereditary system of being an official and not learning, and open up the road for civilians to enter politics;

2. Linking academic excellence with official excellence and ensuring official excellence with academic excellence is beneficial to the implementation of sage governance and the improvement of social politics. However, this teleology of education also had some negative effects on ancient education in China.

3. Too much emphasis on the political function of education, ignoring the economic function of education, and strengthening China's traditional concept of "official standard";

4. Taking fame and fortune as bait, China intellectuals have a serious sense of fame and fortune from the moment they enter school, forming the traditional concept of "listening to things outside the window and reading only sage books".

Original source:

This argument comes from Zhang Zi's The Analects of Confucius.

Original text:

Xia Zi said: "To be an official, you must learn. If you learn, you will be an official."

Translation:

Xia Zi said, "If you have spare capacity after becoming an official, you can study. If you have spare capacity after learning well, you can be an official in order to better promote benevolence and righteousness. "

It means: "when things are done, we can sum up our experience, learn from it and make progress;" If you learn well, you can apply this knowledge to your daily work. "Confucius said that' learning from time to time' and being an official is one of the ways to' become the way of Xi', that is, applying what you have learned to political practice. However, there is no end to self-cultivation, and politics can better cultivate self-cultivation and promote benevolence. As Confucius said, there is no end to self-cultivation, and a person's life is a lifelong study. I hope that you will never give up studying whenever and wherever you have the chance.