University is an essay on Confucian thoughts of self-cultivation, governing the country and calming the world. Originally the 42nd Book of Rites Dai Xiao, it is said that it was written by Ceng Zi during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. In fact, it is a Confucian work in the Qin and Han Dynasties, and it is an important work for China to discuss educational theory in ancient times.

After being highly praised by Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi in the Northern Song Dynasty, Zhu in the Southern Song Dynasty wrote The University Chapters and Sentences, which eventually became four books together with The Doctrine of the Mean, The Analects of Confucius and Mencius. After the Song and Yuan Dynasties, "Da Xue" became the official textbook of the school and the required reading of the imperial examination, which had a great influence on the ancient education in China.

The "three programs" and "eight items" put forward by the university emphasize that self-cultivation is the premise of governing people, and the purpose of self-cultivation is to govern the country and level the world, which shows the consistency between governing the country and level the world and personal moral cultivation.

The full text of the university is concise, profound in connotation and far-reaching. This paper mainly summarizes the pre-Qin Confucian moral cultivation theory, as well as the basic principles and methods of moral cultivation, and also systematically discusses the Confucian political philosophy, which has profound enlightenment for being a man, doing things and governing the country.

Historical evolution:

University comes from the Book of Rites, which was originally the 42nd of 49 articles. The Book of Rites, formerly known as The Book of Rites of Little Wear, is also called The Book of Little Wear, which was compiled by Dai Sheng during the reign of Emperor Xuandi of the Han Dynasty according to a batch of anonymous Confucian works left over from history.

Ban Gu, a dynastic historian, notes that "The Book of Rites was written by the people after 1970s" in 131 Historical Records, and thinks that the book was written mainly from the early Warring States Period to the early Western Han Dynasty.

Cui Shu, a native of Qing Dynasty, said, "The style of every article is exhausted by time ..." There are too many words in Daxue, so it should be in the Warring States period. "Generally speaking, The Great Learning was written in the early Warring States period after Confucius, Ceng Zi, Mencius and Xunzi, that is, around the 5th century BC.

This is a pure Confucian book, which comes from Zeng's Scholars. That is to say, "Da Xue" should be a work in the early Warring States period, and its author should be "Zeng's Confucianism", which is now recognized by academic circles as the work of Zeng Shen in the early Warring States period.