From 1893 to the age of 16, Mao Zedong lived in his hometown of Shaoshan, Xiangtan, Hunan, a mountain village with inconvenient transportation. His family has been farming for generations. His father is a shrewd and capable rich peasant who is also a businessman. His family education is very strict.
In October 1936, unable to withstand the firm request of the American journalist Edgar Snow , Chairman Mao recounted his life experiences since childhood. He said: "I started studying in a local primary school when I was 8 years old, and I continued to read there until I was 13 years old. I worked in the fields early in the morning and at night. During the day I read four books including the Analects of Confucianism." He entered the private school in 1902.
According to the reliable materials collected by the Shaoshan Memorial Hall in local investigations, before the age of 8, Chairman Mao lived in his grandfather's house in Xiangxiang, . He often goes to "audit" and can recite a few sentences of the text casually, and can also write without hand.
This kind of talent since childhood won the favor of my uncle. At the age of 8, I returned to study at Shaoshan .
From 1902 to 1906, Mao attended four private schools near Shaoshan. In 1902 on the south bank of Shaoshan, the enlightenment teacher Zou Chunpei; in 1904 in Shaoshan Guangong Bridge,In the summer of 1905 to 1906, in Qiaotouwan and Zhongjiawan, Shaoshan, he was taught by Zhou Shaoxi; in the autumn of 1906, in Jingwanli, the teacher Mao Yuju went to boarding school because he was far from home.
From the end of 1906 to the summer of 1909, he suspended school at home, worked with long-term workers during the day, and helped his father keep accounts at night, but he still insisted on self-study.
From the autumn of 1909 to the summer of 1910, after persuading his father, he returned to school in Wuguijing and Dongmaotang in Shaoshan, where he studied under Mao Jianchen and Mao Luzhong.
Chairman Mao later summed up his life in private school for 6 years: "I have read Confucius in the past, and I have read four books and five classics for six years. But I don’t understand. At that time I believed in Confucius and wrote articles.” According to all these recollections, Mao Zedong’s 6 years of private school life can be summed up as follows:
——The Mao family believed that the "Hundred Family Surnames" and "Zengguang Xianwen" were popular books. They started from "Three Character Classic" and read "Young Learning"; then read "The Analects of Confucius" and "Mencius" and " The Book of Songs", etc.; later read " Spring and Autumn Gongyang Biography", "Spring and Autumn Zuo's Biography" (ie "Zuo Zhuan"), etc.; at the last school teacher, I also read " Gang Jian" Yizhilu " and ancient texts, etc.
——days is high,Good memory, will endorse. Reading is silent, only the mouth moves. As much as the teacher ordered, I could recite as much as I wanted, and I could write it out silently, and I learned to look up the "Kangxi Dictionary". Study hard and don't move around. When I get home, in addition to helping with chores, I always read books. There are many mosquitoes at night in summer, so I put a lamp by the bedside and put my head out of the tent to read a book. Since childhood, he has been "gracious", gentle and polite, and "has a great personality in his teens" (the students have this impression, which is probably related to Mao's growing up since childhood).
——To write, you have to write by yourself, do not draw red words, and have learned European style. According to his handwriting in the No. 1 Normal School later, he also learned the Erwang copybook ( Wang Xizhi , Wang Xianzhi ).
—— I like swimming since I was a child. When my teacher goes out , my friends go to the pond to play with water. Once the teacher went back to the museum and saw it, and asked them to punish the offspring, if they didn't come out, they would play the game again. Going out is "wash your feet", and Mao responds with "self-cultivation". The right pair is the basic skill of writing rhythm poems and parallel prose. This is the earliest talent shown by the poet Mao Zedong we know now.
- He doesn't like reading these books. In the old private school, teachers only ordered books, but did not explain, and students just memorized them by rote. What he likes to read the most is "Water Margin", " Romance of the Three Kingdoms ", "Journey to the West", and " Said Tang ", "Said Yue" and other miscellaneous books.According to the rules of the private school, it is considered that these are not serious books, and students are not allowed to read them. He was always peeking, and even put the main book on it in class.
After Mao Yuju found out, he deliberately ordered more books so that he could memorize them all. The stories in "Water Margin" and "Three Kingdoms", the actions of heroes and heroes, he also remembers them very well, and often tells these stories with his friends.
——Started to learn to write "break-the-point" essays, writing quickly, always handing in the first paper, and often helping classmates with essays. At that time, the imperial examination had been abolished, and the teachers of the school would probably only teach students how to "break the test" first. "Breaking the topic" is the first paragraph of the eight-legged essay, and it needs a few sentences to explain the main idea of the topic.
What is the level of the article at this time? I can't find any provable data, but from the article " History " written in 1912, the article written three or four years ago , with this very excellent article, it must be not far from it. Because when he was studying in Dongshan High School in Xiangxiang in 1910, the articles he wrote were also praised by teachers and principals. Since childhood, he was intelligent and very good at writing articles. This kind of evaluation seems to be appropriate for this future writer and great writer.
——Some school teachers like corporal punishment and beat students; fathers also beat their sons for disobedience. Mao Zedong's personality was particularly stubborn since he was a child, and he fought heroically for this. Once he escaped to the mountains, and it took him 3 days and 3 nights to find his way back; once he threatened his father by jumping into a pond and won the victory. In this way, teachers and fathers will no longer use this educational method in the future.
my country's feudal society for thousands of years was divided into scholars, farmers, businessmen, and four people. To be an official, one must pass the classics and take the imperial examinations.
Zhu Xi Note the four books,Since Yuan Dynasty , it has been designated as the imperial examination book and has become a legal textbook. Children of agriculture and industry generally study not for the imperial examinations, but for the sake of ignorance and easy bookkeeping.
So, they looked for another easy way, there is Mengxue - children's enlightenment books. In the old days, the most common Mongolian learning in village schools was "Three, Hundred, Thousand, and Thousand", namely "Three Character Classic", "Hundred Family Surnames", "Thousand Characters", "Thousands Poems", in addition to "Zengguang Xianwen", "Thousands of Poems". Young Learning Qionglin, etc. This kind of book uses a short parallel sentence style and rhymes more. When children read it, it is catchy and easy to remember.
The views on nature, ethics, morals, values, history, etc., which are focused on, are lively, vivid, and easy to understand, so they can be widely circulated among the people. The so-called " will be scolded after reading "Zengguang", and will speak after reading "Young Xue". Vocabulary allusions. Although the content of these books belongs to the scope of feudal culture, they inevitably promote feudal ideology, and even vulgar and superstitious and absurd things, but they also contain many useful elements in imparting basic knowledge, carrying out life education and correcting moral norms. , is indelible.
This Mongolian book has its own cultural and educational value in the Chinese cultural tradition. Chairman Mao read a lot as a child, which also laid a solid foundation for him to become a great poet in the future
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