Consider: Look at the world around you. In the spring when the plants
begin to bloom, when new shoots come up, are they not perfect? When you
see new-born animals around the village, have you not remarked at how
perfect they are also?
So it is with children; they are naturally born in a state of goodness.
They cannot know what it is to be otherwise.
Indeed:
1. At birth, everyone is morally
good.
Consider: You have seen that people are not all good, however. You have
heard that Ah Too is not good to his wife, and many people say that Ah
Ming the merchant is not to be trusted entirely. When you children play
with each other you know that sometimes there is fighting and that some
children are not treated well.
It is even so with the plants and the animals. All shoots are alike
when they spring up, but later some have flourished and grown full and
green, while others languish and do not achieve their full promise.
Some dogs grow up to be healthy and strong, and others cannot be
trusted and do nothing good.
It is the same with people.
Indeed:
2. Initially, their characters
are all very similar; as time goes on, their characters become
different.
How can this be if everyone is at birth naturally good? We know that
plants need water and sun and good soil to grow to attain the
perfection that they showed when they first sprouted. Animals need to
be tended to as well, sometimes by their parents, sometimes by the
people who raise them. Chicks need the proper food and shelter to
become useful chickens.
People are more than animals, in order that people remain good, more is
needed that just providing food and shelter.
Indeed:
3. Lack of proper teaching makes
people's characters become bad.
Consider: When they are born there are no stupid people; there are no
clever babies, no good ones, no bad ones. All babies are the same, and
it is education that makes the all the difference between them. A child
who does not learn quickly becomes stupid, one who does is we call
clever. If one learns to think correctly and follow where his reason
leads, he is good. If he does not think correctly or does not do what
he knows is correct, and indulges himself, then he is bad.
Indeed:
4. The proper way to teach is with
the utmost thoroughness. Consider: Today you saw that Xiao Ting was
playing with Pei Pei and made her cry when he took away her toy. You
may think that he did a bad thing. If you think more you can see that
he did bad because he did not learn to follow what was good, and that
he did not learn because he was not properly taught.
Children's first teachers are their parents, and the first of the
parents to be a teacher is the mother. A mother's duty as teacher
begins before the baby is born. She must behave properly when she is
pregnant, she must practice in all things the qualities she wants her
child to have. What she wants her child to avoid, she avoids herself.
What she wants the child to savor, she enjoys herself. In every way the
mother's attitudes and activities serve as the first lessons of her
unborn child. If she is to be a good mother then she will take every
pain to see that she behaves correctly.
After the child is born there are many more things to be taught and
those more directly. Still, the parents will be concentrated on being
sure that their child advances in learning as well as it can. And now,
I am teaching you this classic so that you can remain good and go on to
learn all that you need to be one who understands what is right and can
act on your understanding. In learning this you will have to work hard,
and remember everything and speak it well with clarity and application.
Nothing less will do.
Indeed:
5. The
thoroughness extends even to
where a family lives.
Consider: Good teachers must take everything into consideration in
their roles as teacher. All great men are products of such good
teachers. One of our great philosophers, Meng Ke, whom we call Meng Zi,
and the foreigners call Mencius,
is one example. His first teacher, as is true of everyone, was his
mother. She understood her duties as teacher perfectly. When Meng was
small his family lived near a butcher's shop, and as a result he became
interested in butchery and began to think of that as a worthwhile
occupation for him. Seeing this, his mother was not satisfied and moved
the family home way from the commercial district. But in this new
location they were near a cemetery and so Meng began to think of
occupations related to that location. Once again, his mother decided to
move the family home to a more suitable location,
this time near a scholarly academy. This time, the location provided
the proper atmosphere for Meng's learning, and there family remained.
Indeed:
6. Learning
without thoroughness is
like trying to weave with a broken thread.
All her life, Meng's
mother did everything she could to see to it that her son
persisted in learning. Once he grew weary of study and returned home to
take a break from his learning. This angered his mother intensely. She
had been weaving cloth when he arrived home and she immediately cut the
thread and said to him “If I cut the thread, my weaving will be
imperfect; if you grow weary of your learning then you will not become
neither a sage nor a man of integrity.”
His mother's reproach caused Meng to return immediately to his work and
helped him become second only to Kong Fu Zi (Confucius) in the ranks of
our philosophers.
Indeed:
7. A man named Dou from Swallow
Mountain knew the right way to teach.
Consider: Meng Zi learned thanks to his mother's thoroughness. There
are many other examples. One such example of teacherly thoroughness is
a man named Dou Yu Jun who lived a thousand years ago in a province
called Yan (Swallow) Mountain. He knew how to be a strict teacher and
all of his five children achieved distinction by becoming high
officials.
In Dou's house, life was conducted with a strictness greater than that
observed in the imperial court, and Dou's strictness with his children
was greater than that of any teacher's with his students. The great
success of his children is entirely a result of the thoroughness of
their father, and he is remembered for it even today as he has become
one of the minor gods, and is known as Dou Yan Shan.
Indeed:
8. He raised
five sons and each
of them increased the family's reputation.