Elegant education: also known as "free education", is an educational viewpoint and ideal in the history of western education. He has different specific meanings in different times, which was first put forward by Aristotle and is an important part of his educational thought. Aristotle believes that the most essential feature of human beings is rationality, which can think, understand and judge correctly. Only by making full use of and developing rationality can people realize the free development of body and mind. The implementation of elegant education must meet two conditions: first, leisure time; The second is to have a free subject.
Aristotle (384 ~ 322 BC), an ancient philosopher and ancient Greek, is one of the great philosophers, scientists and educators in the ancient history of the world, and can be called a master of Greek philosophy. He is Plato's student and Alexander's teacher.
He advocates the all-round development of students' morality, intelligence, physique and beauty, with different emphasis in different periods. Early childhood is dominated by physical development (exercise); Music education is the core of adolescence, and moral, intellectual and physical beauty is the main content; Senior students should study grammar, rhetoric, poetry, literature, philosophy, ethics, politics, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music and other subjects. But in any case, the focus should be on developing students' intelligence. He particularly emphasized the role of music in cultivating children's comprehensive quality. It is believed that music has three functions: entertainment, temperament cultivation and rationality cultivation. It can relieve fatigue, cultivate the mind, mold the character, stir the soul, and then enter the rational and noble moral realm through meditation. In physical education class, he disapproved that teachers should only let students have harsh and even painful training, and should teach "simple gymnastics" and "light martial arts", focusing on the normal development of children's bodies.