An important development of slave society in education is the emergence of schools; Education began to break away from productive labor and social life and became an independent cause. The emergence of schools is closely related to the emergence of the country and the division of labor between mental and physical labor. This division of labor makes the production experience accumulated by human beings not only materialize in production tools, but also gradually abstract from the form of direct experience and rise to the form of knowledge; At the same time, some people specialize in education or receive education. The development of production, the gradual improvement of human's ability to understand the objective world, the increasing enrichment of knowledge and the appearance of characters have all prepared the conditions for the emergence of schools. After the founding of the country, the ruling class needs a special institution to train its officials and scholars. In this way, school education came into being. The division of labor between manual labor and mental labor and the emergence of school education reflect the needs of the continuous development of productive forces. However, due to the emergence of class, it was monopolized by the exploiting ruling class from the beginning; Mental work has become the privilege of the exploiting classes, and school education has become the tool of their class rule.
The education in slave society has obvious class nature. Since the Xia Dynasty, there have been educational institutions such as education, order, schools and learning in China. "learning is in the official", only the children of slave owners can enter the school; Children of working people can only learn some knowledge and skills of being a man and productive labor from their elders in productive labor and daily life. At that time, school education coexisted with the primitive education of working people. However, it is the school education of the rulers that dominates the society. Slave owners spread the ideas of the ruling class through schools and trained their children to be rulers of the country, big and small. As for the education of the primitive form of working people, it is mainly to impart production experience and some superficial cultural knowledge through heirloom or mentoring system. Under the influence of the ruling class, it is mainly to cultivate labor force for the society to maintain the continuation and development of social production.
After the school education was monopolized by the rulers, it was divorced from productive labor. Slave owners despise manual labor and manual workers, so the main content of education is to learn the etiquette, art of war and other skills of ruling the people, while the skills of cultivation and artisans are despised. During the Western Zhou Dynasty, due to the development of the school, a relatively complete educational content was gradually formed, including morality, specialty, art and so on. Virtue and conduct are the moral education of the ruling class, and art is some knowledge and technology to manage the country and maintain the rule and production of etiquette and law. At that time, the education of "six arts" of etiquette, music, archery, imperial defense, calligraphy and mathematics reflected the need of slave countries in Yin and Zhou Dynasties to respect harmony and glory.
The development of school education promoted the germination of educational theory, and famous educational thinkers and practitioners such as Kong Qiu and Mo Zhai also appeared one after another. Confucius has been teaching for forty or fifty years and has accumulated rich educational experience. Many of his educational thoughts are summarized in The Analects of Confucius. There are many famous educational expositions in Mozi and later Mencius and Xunzi. The educational theory in its infancy is only in the form of educational thought, combined with philosophy, politics, ethics and other ideas, scattered in the relevant works of ancient thinkers and educators, and has not formed a separate educational theory system. This book was written in the second and third centuries BC, and with the appearance of Xue Ji, a relatively systematic educational work appeared. Xue Ji is the earliest sprout of pedagogy in China and even in the world.
The representative education of western slave society is that of ancient Greece and Rome. In terms of educational content and some educational measures, the education in western slave society is different from that in ancient China. However, their basic characteristics and nature are the same, which meet the needs of the political and economic development of slave society at that time. Sparta in ancient Greece attached importance to agriculture and military education, and trained the younger generation to be brave soldiers defending slavery. Athens, ancient Greece, had convenient maritime transportation and developed commerce and handicrafts. Its education advocates the harmonious development of people and trains citizens who are loyal to the country, making them not only soldiers, but also active social activists. The educational practice in ancient Greece gave birth to systematic educational thoughts and trained some famous educational thinkers and practitioners, such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Roman education was also based on the exploitation of slave labor, serving the politics and economy of slave owners. Compared with Greek education, it has a larger scale of school education practice and pays more attention to the research of courses and various teaching methods. These are clearly reflected in quintilian's educational theory system. Quintilian's Principles of oratory, written at the end of 1 century, is an early educational work in the west.