In the past, elementary school students who studied cancer won the first prize of the Youth Science and Technology Innovation Achievement Project (Primary School Group). Later, there was a child prodigy who wrote 2,000 poems a day. "Children of other people's families" can really bring people surprises and surprises. "Since ancient times, heroes come out of youth", but child prodigies may not be true magical powers. Even with lessons learned, it is still difficult to restrain the impulse of generations of parents to create stars and confine gods.
In ancient times, the concept of child prodigy was mainly measured by adult standards. If a child can do many things that adults can do when he is young, even better than them, he is a child prodigy.
Qilu Evening News Qilu One Point
Reporter Zhang Jiulong
Different prodigies throughout the ages
Looking at the child prodigy in history, you will find that a dynasty has a dynasty evaluation standard for the child prodigy.
Gan Luo was a native of Qin during the Warring States Period and the grandson of the famous minister Gan Mao. "Historical Records of Gan Mao Biography" records that Gan Luo was only 12 years old when Gan Mao died. When Emperor Qin Shihuang opened up the territory to expand the territory, Lu Buwei hoped that Zhang Tang would go to Yan State as a minister, but persuasion was unsuccessful. Little Gan Luo not only successfully lobbied Zhang Tang, but also went to the country of Zhao alone.
As a result, King Zhao obeyed Gan Luo's suggestion and gave five cities to Qin. Later, the State of Zhao used troops against the State of Yan and took the 36 cities of the State of Yan, and dedicated 11 of them to the State of Qin. In other words, Gan Luo simply relied on his lips to get Qin State 16 cities without any effort.
This routine is very characteristic of the Warring States Period. After returning to China, Gan Luo became famous overnight and was named Shangqing. According to this, later generations said that Gan Luo was 12 years old as the Prime Minister of Qin. In fact, Shangqing was only a knighthood without real power in his hands, but Gan Luo's grandfather, Gan Mao, did indeed serve as Prime Minister Zuo. Afterwards, Gan Luo seemed to have evaporated from the world, and there was no more feats, and even no news, which made people doubt its authenticity.
Even the known deeds are filled with a lot of water. The basic elements of Ganluo's story, such as Qin's initiative to return Yan Taizi Dan, Zhao Guo captured Yan's kingdom and gave it to Qin's 11 cities, etc. are not facts. Gan Luo's way of being a child prodigy obviously went through artificial packaging. The appearance of this child prodigy is actually a part of the politicians who smeared themselves and strengthened their reputation.
The child prodigy of the Han Dynasty has a different look. At that time, the world was peaceful, Confucianism gained a dominant position in traditional culture, and the moral standards of benevolence, justice, loyalty and filial piety were established in society. In the Han Dynasty, filial piety to parents and elder brother Ti became important standards for people to judge prodigy. The typical case is Kong Rong Rangli.
Ordinarily, letting a pear among the brothers go to the celebrity's house is not a big deal, but it happens that Kong Rong comes from an extraordinary background. The Confucian family belonged to an aristocratic family. His grandfather was the prefect of Lulu, and his father was Captain Taishan. He also wore the aura of the descendants of Confucius, so his little achievements were recorded in history.
Kong Rong Rangli may be just an accident, but why the story can be widely circulated? Han Dynasty election officials did not have the imperial examination, but adopted the "examination and investigation", that is, relying on the recommendation of celebrities from both political and academic circles. The greater the prestige of a person, the more likely it is to be noticed and the easier it is to get the chance to be elected as an official. It is not difficult for a family with rich social resources to make children become prodigies and expose them to the eyes of the elders and celebrities in the county and county earlier. Looking through "Hanshu", "Hanshu", and "Three Kingdoms", there are a large number of characters who are already "famous prefectures" when they are weak. The method is the same as that of Kong Rong.
If the child prodigy of the Han Dynasty more embodies the esteem of Confucian culture for morality, then the child prodigy of the Tang Dynasty is the product of Confucianism taking literature as the carrier and attaching importance to literature. Being able to write poems for the text became the "standard equipment" for the prodigy for thousands of years.
King Luo Bin of the Tang Dynasty was "especially in the five-character poem". He wrote the poem "Goose, Goose, Goose, Song Xiang Tian. White hair floats in green water, and anthurium shakes the clear wave", which is probably the most famous prodigy poem in history. . However, in the Tang and Song dynasties, there are too many prodigies who are good at writing poetry, and Luo Binwang's two brushes can only be regarded as "low match". Yang Jiong and Zhang Jiuling can write at a young age; Wang Yuchen can write at the age of nine, Li Baiyao and Yan Shu are written at the age of seven, Wang Bo "can be written at the age of six, with no lag in conception, and eloquent love", Linghu Chu at five years of age It is a chapter of words; Quan Deyu can belong to a poem when he is four years old, and he is a hundred essays when he is fifteen years old, compiled into ten volumes of "Tong Meng Ji".
There are also prodigies with superb memory and understanding. Lu Zhaolin, who was the same as the "Four Masters of the Early Tang Dynasty" with King Luo Bin, studied "Cangjie", "Erya" and Jingshi when he was more than ten years old; Wei Wen, the prime minister of Tang Zhongzong, could read one volume of "The Book of Songs" a day when he was seven; At the age of seven, he can explain "Zuo Shi Chun Qiu"; Huang Tingjian is even more powerful, knowing everything he read when he was young.
Imperial examination for child prodigy
"San Zi Jing" says: "Tang Liu Yan, who was seven years old, raised a child prodigy and made orthographs. Although he was young, he was already an official, and he learned from an early age." It means that he passed the exam when he was seven and was accepted by the court." Certified as a "prodigy", this "prodigy" has also entered the "Three Character Classic".
Parents attach great importance to early education and want to train child prodigies. The ancient imperial examinations also set up a "child subject" to select and reuse child prodigies. Tongzi family sprouted in the Han Dynasty. At that time, all premature children under the age of 12 who were able to recite a Confucian classic could be recommended by the county to the central government. After passing the interview, they would be awarded a tongzilang. Once they were awarded a tongzilang, they could be an official. Tong Zilang pays special attention to examining children's virtues of filial piety and integrity, and also requires children to recite certain scripture content.
In the Tang Dynasty, the imperial examination system became the norm for talent selection, and the children's course for children was also institutionalized. The Tang dynasty Tongzi Division is aimed at young and intelligent boys. The age limit for applying for the exam changed before and after. In the early Tang Dynasty, it was set to be under 10 years old, and Xuanzong Dazhong ten years (856), and the age was limited to under 12 years old.
Compared with the Han Dynasty's emphasis on morality, the Tang Dynasty completely used children's memory of the content of the classics as the evaluation standard. Boys must "learn Yijing", that is, from "Book of Rites", "Chunqiu Zuo Shi Zhuan", "Poetry", "Zhou Li", "Yi Li", "Yi", "Shang Shu", "Chun Qiu Gong Yang Zhuan", "Chun Qiu Gu Liang Zhuan" nine Choose one of the classics. For the selected prodigy, some were appointed officials, and some were only given qualifications.
Obviously, the knowledge test in the Tang Dynasty is fairer than the moral test in the Han Dynasty, but the problem is that with national policy advocacy, more children have joined the ranks of cruel competition, and many parents who want their children to "should be a prodigy" take children as memories. The warehouse is trained. However, only a few are selected in the end, and the vast majority of children can only spend their childhood in studying hard all day.
A very extreme example appeared in the literature of the Five Dynasties period. One year, there were only 10 famous boys on the Gongyuan list. Considering that the students were really "hardworking", the number of admissions was increased by special approval. At that time, the courtiers were very divided on the selection of the prodigy, so the boy section always started and stopped.
In contrast, the children's subject in the Song Dynasty was the most formal. At first, it was taken every two or three years, and then every year. Candidates are about 10 years old and take the written test first and then the interview. The written test is mainly to silently write classics such as "Chunqiu", "Poetry", "I Ching", and "The Analects of Confucius". The prodigy who is taken can glorify the family, but cannot be an official. If you want to be an official, you have to get another Jinshi.
In the Song Dynasty, Tongzike selected a group of prodigies with real talents and learning, and Yan Shu, "the first prodigy of the Northern Song Dynasty", was the beneficiary. Yan Shu was able to write poetry at the age of 6, was recommended by local officials at the age of 13, and went to Beijing to take the children's examination at the age of 14. In the examination of poetry, fu, and theory, "Xueba" Yan Shu found that he had done one of the big questions before. He told the examiner about it and asked to write another question for himself. Song Zhenzong was moved and pleasantly surprised by this. He immediately ordered someone to re-issue a question for him. After Yan Shu answered, he was unanimously approved by the examiners.
After the examination, Yan Shu, who was both excellent in character and learning, was awarded the post of secretary of the provincial government, and moved to the post of Fengli Lang of Taichang Temple the following year. At this point, the child prodigy officially entered the official career. He entered the power center at the age of 35 and served as the clerk's deputy to the deputy prime minister.
The fame and fortune of the Children's Division has made it more and more difficult for children to enlighten education and violated the law of education. In the Ming Dynasty, Tongzike was no longer linked to being an official, and naturally it disappeared.
"False Prodigy" can't afford to hurt
Speaking of ancient child prodigies, I remember Wang Anshi’s masterpiece "Injury Zhongyong" in the junior high school Chinese textbook. In the text, Wang Anshi described and reflected on the tragedy of a child prodigy: Fang Zhongyong, a commoner, was talented, but his father was greedy for small profits. The son used it as a cash cow and showed off. After several years, its talents completely disappeared.
In ancient times, people's prodigy views were mainly measured by adult standards. People think that if a child can do many things that adults can do when they are young, or even better than them, this is a child prodigy. Simply put, a child prodigy is a "little adult".
This concept makes the child prodigy education as reflected in "Shang Zhongyong", causing many tragedies. In the Southern Song Dynasty Ye Mengde’s “Summer Records”, it is recorded that during the Yuanfeng period of the Northern Song Dynasty, there was a prodigy named Zhu Wuci in Raozhou. He became an official because he was able to read the scriptures from an early age, so the local family with children forced the children at home to become familiar. Read the "Five Classics".
The children were playful by nature and refused to memorize them, so the parents put these "child prodigies" one by one in a bamboo basket and hung them from the treetops to make it impossible to play. Many parents also invited "family tutors". Once the children have memorized, the husband will receive some copper tins from the children's parents as remuneration and rewards. As a result, many children in Raozhou in the Northern Song Dynasty were forced to death because they did not possess the talent.
Not only Raozhou, many people took their children to Kaifeng confidently, asking the emperor to listen to his own "child prodigy" to recite the classics fluently. As a result, the emperor was troublesome. For example, in September of the second year of the Northern Song Dynasty Zhenghe, Song Huizong complained in the edict, "The boy Chen Shu begged to recite books, and now there are nine people, and it is getting more and more." Today, another nine children came and asked me to listen to their endorsements. And there are more and more trends. In the four years of Zhenghe, there were nearly a thousand students in the "primary schools" in Kaifeng who specialized in endorsement.
The situation in the Southern Song Dynasty was similar. A Raozhou child named Zhu Huchen, who could recite seven scriptures at the age of ten, was certified as a "child prodigy" by Song Gaozong. Subsequently, "child prodigies" from all over the country were brought to Hangzhou by their parents, and "exam seekers gathered" in historical records. The imperial court was so troubled that it had to reward these people with some cloth and then persuade them to go back. Song Xiaozong also introduced policies to reduce the income of recitation "prodigy".
Since 1978, Chinese scholars have carried out a follow-up survey on a large number of gifted children. The results found that these gifted children are not significantly different from their peers who go to university and graduate school through conventional channels after they become adults. Most of their talents at the time were mostly dull. Whether it was a famous poet, a "mathematician" or a "painter", few truly became international masters.
Many parents think that the younger, the more knowledge, and the stronger the ability is a prodigy. In fact, the reason why such children can memorize massive amounts of knowledge is largely because their parents consciously instill knowledge in advance in their family education. For example, when a child is very young, he is trained to recognize words and recite poems. When he is about 5 years old, the child will naturally acquire a lot of knowledge. However, if other children receive the same education, it is likely to achieve a similar effect. In other words, many child prodigies are actually "pseudo prodigy". Their advantage is that they have received education in advance, so they can do nothing.
In a healthy society, the concept of success should be diverse, and the choice of education should also be diverse. It is of course good to have a positive sense of educational investment, but if you project too much "fame expectation" on children, regard "fame and fame" as the ultimate goal of education, and ignore the child's personality development, the gain will not be worth the loss.