The Great Learning

The Great Learning is a prose work on Confucian ideas of self-cultivation, governing the state, and bringing peace to the world. It was originally the forty-second chapter of the Record of Rites compiled by Dai the Younger and was traditionally attributed to Zengzi, though in fact it was written by Confucians during the Qin and Han periods. It is an important work of ancient Chinese educational theory. After being strongly championed by Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi in the Northern Song dynasty, it received Zhu Xi’s Chapters and Sentences of the Great Learning in the Southern Song. It was eventually grouped with the Doctrine of the Mean, the Analects, and the Mencius as the Four Books. From the Song and Yuan dynasties onward, the Great Learning became an officially prescribed school textbook and required reading for the civil service examinations, profoundly influencing education in ancient China.