Why did the Western Zhou State School place so much emphasis on ritual and music education?

The education content of the Western Zhou national education centered on ritual and music, with shooting, imperialism, calligraphy and mathematics attached. Ritual education is the education of knowledge about politics, patriarchal law, human ethics and etiquette. Rites is the criterion for the statehood of the Western Zhou Dynasty, and the content involved is very extensive, "Rites of the Book of Rites - the explanation of the scripture" that "the rites of the right state", as if the balance of the weight, ink and rope in the straight and narrow, and the rules of the square and round, so the rites of the education of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the six education occupies a core position. In addition to regulating the religious concepts and rituals such as sacrificing to the gods and ancestors, the Western Zhou rituals also inculcate the hierarchical concepts of superiority and inferiority and the concept of patriarchal kingship, in order to strengthen the political status of the Western Zhou kingship. The Western Zhou State School taught rituals in five aspects, including auspiciousness, evil, military, guest, and jia, and the rural school in the documentary records had "six rituals", such as crown, marriage, funeral, sacrifice, entertaining, and meeting with each other. In the state school, the teacher was in charge, and in the township school, he was in charge.

Music education is mainly about learning the knowledge of religious ritual music and dance, including music, dance, poetry, and embryonic drama and composition, which is summarized as the education of music and virtue, music and language, and music and dance. Music education was one of the main subjects of the national school, and was the responsibility of the Dasi Le. The content of "music and virtue" education includes six aspects of neutralization and filial piety and friendship, and it is also the comprehensive education of politics, religion and human morality, the core of which is to promote the concept of hierarchy, so-called the way of sound, which is in harmony with the government, and the various important state activities of the Western Zhou Dynasty, such as: tasting the great sacrifices, the ancestral temple pilgrimage, meeting with the same people, and the countryside drinking rituals, etc., all of them are accompanied with music, and the real world is expressed through different music and dance. Different music and dances expressed the concept of honor and inferiority in the real world. Therefore, "Ritual Records - Music Records" focuses on "optimism" and believes that "the principles of affinity, nobility and inferiority, seniority and youth, male and female, are all reflected in music". The music of the Western Zhou also had a broad social meaning. Poetry - Ode to the Zhou - Qing Temple of the Shi" praised King Wen's achievements and virtues, praising the content of the King Wen's virtue in heaven, and for the model of the Jidoshi; "Martyrs of the text" praised King Cheng that the government, the vassals to help the sacrifice, the review of the penal code, the diligence of the King's virtue; "days of the work" praised the King Wen in the Qibang to implement civilization of the government, the abolition of the Di Di's old customs; "Time Mai" said that the King of Wu, "JI ji GanGe, JI ji jou bow vector The "Work of the Ministers" reflects the Western Zhou lords' pilgrimage to the Son of Heaven and their participation in the rituals of the ancestral temples. Zuo Zhuan - 29th year of Duke Xiang recorded Ji Zha to make Lu, said the music of "Xiao Ya", "thinking but not two, complaints but no words", reflecting "the decline of Zhou's morality"; "Daya" "wide, xi xi hu, curved but with straight body ", reflecting the virtue of King Wen; said the dance of the Shao arrow, "Germany to carry on, big, such as the sky is not canopy, such as the ground is not carried. Obviously, the music expressed a wide range of esoteric philosophy not only in-depth human inner world, but also reflects the social, political and cultural life of the various concepts, thus becoming an indispensable content of Western Zhou school education. Therefore, later scholars believe that: "through the inspection of the three generations of the book, music outside of nothing to learn". The subtlety of the Western Zhou's philosophy of music and virtue, "must also be taught at the University, and scholars must know this, can be with the column of sacrificial shooting, so the scholars of music, but also for the use of the world's equipment." Western Zhou music and language education, including Xing, guide, satirize, recite, speech, language six aspects, and music and dance education is divided into big dance and small dance, which "big dance" has "six music", respectively, for the "Yunmen Dacao," "Dahan," "Dachime," "Daxia," "big," and "big", Dawu, which is said to be an epic dance set to music for the six generations of the Yellow Emperor, Tang Yao, Yu Shun, Yu, Tang, and Wen Wu, celebrating the great achievements of the above historical figures. Through music and dance education, students learn about the history of national entrepreneurship and the vicissitudes of society, increase patriotic feelings, and through the movements and rhythms of the dance, enable students to move their blood, cultivate their temperament, and improve their ability to appreciate art and artistic creation.

Ritual and music teach each other, complement each other: "music so repair inside", "ritual so repair outside", "An on the governance of the people, no good at the rituals; move the winds and move the customs, no good at the music ". Rites with music education, can adjust the internal contradictions of the ruling class, reconcile the conflict between inferiority and superiority, is conducive to the consolidation of the reign of the Western Zhou, which is also the fundamental reason why the Western Zhou attach importance to the education of rites and music.