(1) The Doctrine of the Mean: "Destiny is nature, truthfulness is Tao, and cultivation is teaching".

(2) Liang Qichao: "What is education? Education is to teach people to be human-to be a' modern' person. "

(3) Tao Xingzhi: "Life is education".

(4) Sun Xiting: "Education is the value limit of human development".

In the west, there are mainly:

(1) Comenius: "Education lies in sound individual development".

(2) Pestalozzi: "The purpose of education is to develop all the natural strengths and abilities of people", "Education means the complete development of people".

(3) Spencer: "The task of education is to teach everyone how to live and train them to live a' perfect' life", "Education is to prepare for the perfect life of future people".

(4) Dewey: "Education is life", "Education is growth" and "Education is the transformation of experience".

From the above definition, we can see that people have different views on the definition and methods of "education", which are not only due to differences in personal views, but also due to differences in cultural background, philosophical basis, class stance and the spirit of their respective specific times. Therefore, they are often reluctant to get a universally recognized definition of education. But it can also be seen that people generally define "education" from two different angles, one is the social angle and the other is the individual angle. The former emphasizes the influence of social factors on individual development, and regards "education" as a subsystem of the whole social system, allocating or undertaking certain social functions, such as political function, economic function and cultural function. The latter focuses on the satisfaction of individual psychological needs, the development of psychological quality and the formation of complete personality in the process of education. These two definitions reveal some essential attributes of educational activities from different aspects, which is of certain value to understanding educational activities. However, these two definitions also have their own defects, and too much emphasis on one side often leads to neglect of the other side in reality. Therefore, when defining "education", we should give consideration to both social and personal aspects. As for how to express it specifically, it varies from person to person.