Source: Book of Rites, Learning.
Selected passages:
Worrying about the constitution and seeking goodness is enough to smell, but not enough to move the public. The sage is far away, enough to move the public, not enough to turn the people. If a gentleman wants to turn people into customs, he must learn it.
Translation:
When the rulers issue legal orders, if they can seriously study and think, issue and implement them, and at the same time seek the assistance of people with noble moral character and compassion, then they can have a certain impact; However, this is not enough to inspire everyone's good wishes. If the ruling party wants the whole people to receive education and form a social trend, it can only take the road of setting up schools and implement the education for all.
Extended data:
Xue Ji regards "turning people into customs" as the purpose of education, that is, generally improving the humanistic quality and moral cultivation of social members, thus forming a good social fashion, and at the same time emphasizing the important position of education in personal cultivation and governing the country.
Xue Ji's educational idea of "making people ordinary" contains a deeper "adult" thought. If a gentleman wants to educate the people and form good customs, he must attach importance to setting up schools and teaching, so that the people can be influenced by the cultural activity of education. This kind of cultural activity points to the formation of the personality life of the development subject, and its ultimate goal is to give birth to the truly valuable connotation of the objective spirit in the subject. Finally, let individuals form the habit of continuous learning and lifelong learning.