Foreword (Standards for Being a Good Student and Child)

The Chinese culture has been deeply influenced by Confucius, a great Chinese teacher and educator. His influence extends throughout the world even today. He believed that moral principles, virtues and discipline should be the very first lessons to be taught to a child, and that children need to practice them daily. Unlike modern day parents who disapprove of physical punishment, ancient Chinese parents actually encouraged and thanked the teacher when their children were punished for misbehaving. It was most important to the ancient Chinese parents that their children learned moral principles and virtues first before any other subjects, because without these as a foundation, the learning of all other subjects would be futile. In ancient China, the purpose of going to school and studying was to become saints and sages, not to make financial gains.

For thousand of years, this book contained the recommended standards for students. Even though they seem stringent by today’s standards, it is apparent that the people of that time felt it was important that the child should be well disciplined and taught moral principles and virtues when still very young. They felt that without strict discipline and moral standards, a child would amount to nothing. Not knowing what it meant to be dutiful to one's parents and respectful to one's teachers, a child would grow up not listening to or respecting anyone. Ironically today, many parents listen to the child instead of the other way around. Additionally, teachers are afraid to teach and discipline children because they are fearful of violating the children’s legal rights and being sued by the parents.

Currently, we live in a tumultuous world where the relationships between people, people and their environment, parents and children, husbands and wives, and employers and employees are disintegrating. Parents do not act like parents. Children do not act like children. Our minds are polluted and our family system is disintegrating, as evidenced by an ever-increasing divorce rate. Soon the planet Earth will no longer be fit for us to live on. We are fearful for our futures and the futures of our children. We hope by reintroducing this book, it will serve as reference material and provide guidance for parents and children. In this way, future generations will benefit from it and society and our world will be more at peace.

All the footnotes are added by our translators to help the readers understand the text more. Chinese characters have extensive and profound meanings. If the readers feel we have not yet fully explained the text, we want to use this opportunity to apologize beforehand. These standards were used in ancient China, at a time when the society was centered on the male and only the male child was allowed to enter a school. Therefore, all the pronouns used in the translation are of the male gender. For today’s society, it applies to all children, both male and female.

Pure Land Learning College Translation Group

Source Of Information:
《Standards for Being a Good Student and Child》, translated by Pure Land Learning College Translation Association, printed in August 2012, distributed by Amitabha Buddhist Society Malaysia (92, Jalan Pahang, 53300 Gombak, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
*** The information provided above does not contain personal opinion of this blog.