What are the six arts?

1, "six arts" is the basic subjects of all levels and types of school education in the Western Zhou Dynasty. "Six arts" refers to: ritual, music, archery, imperial, books, numbers.

2, rites and music: rites and music originated in the primitive society religious activities in the ceremony (rites) and music and dance (music). The scope of the Zhou rites has been very broad, involving various fields such as politics, ethics, morality and etiquette.

3. The education of the Western Zhou rites was not only in the formation of ritual norms, but also had a profound socio-political role. That is, through the ritual system to mark the hierarchical relationship between superiority and inferiority, to strengthen the patriarchal system and the hierarchy of rulers and ministers, in order to effectively maintain the order of the slave society. Music was also a major subject in the Western Zhou official school. At that time, the concept of music was very broad, including music, poetry, dance and so on, which was actually a general term for various arts, including moral, intellectual, physical and aesthetic education factors. Ritual and music education was the center of the "six arts" education. Rites and music were not only integrated in the life of the nobles, but also complemented each other in their educational roles. Ritual focuses on training people's external behavioral norms, and music focuses on cultivating people's inner spiritual sentiments.

4, shooting: the Western Zhou in the process of consolidating power, attaching great importance to the construction of force, reflected in the education is to strengthen the shooting, the Royal teachings. Shooting, refers to the technology of archery; Royal, refers to the technology of driving a horse-drawn chariot. During the Western Zhou period, chariot warfare was the main focus, and the size of a country's force was often measured by the number of chariots it possessed. Therefore, shooting and driving were the main military techniques at that time.

5, book number: "book" refers to the text, "number" refers to the calculation. Book and number are the main teaching contents of elementary school in the Western Zhou Dynasty. The development of Chinese characters to the Western Zhou Dynasty has been quite mature. According to documentary records, the Western Zhou had already summarized the laws of character construction into six aspects: references, hieroglyphics, morpho-sounds, ideograms, transcriptions, and pseudo-borrowings, which were called the Six Books. He also wrote a book for teaching characters in elementary school, Shi Zhou Zhuan, which is the earliest literacy textbook for children recorded in Chinese history. In the Western Zhou Dynasty, number did not only refer to algorithms, but also included the calendar and other knowledge related to numerical calculations.

6. "Six Arts" education went through the development of the Xia and Shang Dynasties, and became the most complete in the Western Zhou Dynasty, which characterized and marked the education of the Western Zhou Dynasty. The "six arts" education included various educational factors. It emphasizes both ideology and morality as well as cultural knowledge; it pays attention to traditional culture as well as practical skills; it pays attention to literature as well as martial arts; it conforms to rituals and norms as well as requires inner emotional cultivation. The "Six Arts" education has had a far-reaching impact on the education of later generations.