Ye Shengtao (1894-1988) was a great educator in China in the 20th century.

/kloc-graduated from middle school at the age of 0/8 and took up an education post. Until the end of his 76-year brilliant life, he always engaged in, paid attention to and guided the cause of Chinese education in China. Liu, a famous Chinese educator in China, said: "Ye Shengtao, Zhu Ziqing and Xia Mianzun are three high mountains in Chinese education; Among them, Ye Shengtao's activities lasted for the longest time and had the greatest influence until the 1980s, and his precious heritage was unparalleled in history. A generation of masters set an example for generations. "

Ye Shengtao's Chinese education thought is scientific and forward-looking, which has played a great role in promoting China's long-term educational practice and will inspire our current and future Chinese education reform to move in a healthy direction. Ye Shengtao's thought on Chinese education is profound and extremely rich, involving almost any level in the field of Chinese education in China, among which the most important is his view on Chinese tools, the cultivation of habits and the statement that "teaching is to achieve the purpose of not needing teaching".

First, Ye Shengtao's view of Chinese tools: how do teachers teach Chinese and how do students learn Chinese? This is an extremely complicated problem, which cannot be explained clearly in a few articles or even books. But there is a basic premise that must be made clear first: what is the nature of Chinese subject? Because teaching objectives, tasks, teaching materials and teaching methods are all determined by nature. Ye Shengtao repeatedly pointed out the essence of Chinese subject through long-term Chinese teaching practice and in-depth research: Chinese is a tool! In the preface written for Ye Shengtao's Collection of Chinese Education, Mr. Lv Shuxiang said: "There are two most important points to examine Ye Shengtao's Chinese education thought. One is about the nature of Chinese subject: Chinese is a tool and an indispensable tool in daily life. " Anyone who knows a little about the history of education in China knows that Chinese education in ancient China is a comprehensive education with politics, history, religion and human relations. This kind of education is all. Learn only written classical Chinese and stay away from the spoken language of the people. It was not until the beginning of the last century that people gradually realized that Chinese discipline must consider practicality. Since then, Chinese has been set up as a separate subject in primary and secondary schools. The primary school is called "Putonghua" and the middle school is called "Chinese". Ye Shengtao started as a Chinese teacher in his youth, and actively advocated vernacular Chinese, popular language and new writing movement. At the beginning of national liberation, Ye Shengtao concentrated on representing the wishes of his colleagues at that time. What is usually spoken is called spoken language, and what is written on paper is called written language. Language is spoken and writing is written. If spoken and written language are combined, it is called language. "According to Ye Shengtao's exposition, we can clearly understand that listening and speaking emphasize spoken language and reading and writing emphasize written language. Listening, speaking, reading and writing cover all the contents of Chinese teaching, so learning Chinese is learning a language. On the contrary.