In many speeches on education in later generations, scholars will always criticize the country's education system in various aspects, saying that teaching children too much unnecessary knowledge makes them lose their spirituality, and that the burden on children is too great, and they should be allowed to play more.

Sun Xiangfu feels that there is some truth in what he said, at least, he believes that in the education system, there should be a delineation of knowledge that must be learned and knowledge that is not required to be learned.

What is a must-learn?

For example, a certain amount of agricultural knowledge.

The country is people-oriented, the people take food as the sky, agricultural knowledge is the knowledge that solves the fundamental problem of human survival, and the talents cultivated by a country's education system, if there is no basic agricultural knowledge, it is a kind of sadness.

Of course, the scientific and technological civilization of later generations has advanced to an extraordinary height, and even the students educated by a populous country like China do not know what farming is going on after graduation, and they can also rely on a large amount of imported grain to solve the problem of eating, and as long as there is no war, life can basically pass.

But if there is a war, only God knows what it will be like when the external food cannot be imported and the internal industrial output cannot be sold.

Compared with later generations, the education system of this era is even more fucked.

Eight Chinese classes a day, ten years of hard study with four books and five classics, or even a lifetime, what can the country gain through such education?

Most of them are hands that can't be lifted, shoulders can't be carried, grains are not divided, and they only know how to rely on a mouth to exploit other people's waste materials.

If everyone focused on improving productivity, everyone was well fed and warmly dressed, there would not be so many problems in society at all.

Therefore, the education system that Sun Xiangfu wants to implement is a system that can cultivate the hands-on ability of the next generation and various basic survival skills, rather than cultivating a group of scholars who can only take exams and go to society, and then use many years to learn and do things from scratch.

This roasted sweet potato, Li Shimin eats it very fragrantly, and the seven or eight-year-old princes and princesses can grow sweet potatoes by themselves, which is a very gratifying thing for him.

Therefore, he canceled the original idea of going out and asked about the children's learning situation, and after an afternoon, he gained a lot.

The most obvious feeling is that the children will know a lot of things, and when they were in Chang'an, the teachers of the royal family repeatedly used those few sentences of scriptures and meanings, and let them copy and memorize them, which is completely different, and this is just that they have been studying in Jiuyuan County for half a year.

Li Shimin ate dinner alone with Empress Changsun, and there was amaranth brought back by Li Lizhi from school in the dishes, while eating the dishes, Li Shimin chatted with Empress Changsun about the restructuring of the internal chamberlain, and the basic framework was finalized, and the specific rules had to be studied and discussed slowly, and finally implemented.

"I mean, I will continue to keep the children in Jiuyuan County to go to school next year, what does Guanyin think?"

Empress Changsun replied, "The children here have a unique spirituality, which is indeed more suitable for them to study and study, but, Your Majesty, the people of Shannan Province are your people, the people of Guanzhong, and your people, since the teaching here in Shannan Province is better, it should be promoted to Guanzhong and the whole country, so that all children can learn this useful knowledge." ”

Li Shimin nodded when he heard the words and said, "You are reasonable, but in this way, Guozijian, and even the entire education system we used in the past, will have to be changed, and the Jiuyuan County School system, all the way to junior high school, has not taught more than 1,000 words, the content of the Four Books and Five Classics, and the obstacles on the Confucian side are not small!" ”

When Emperor Changsun heard this, he smiled and said, "Didn't Your Majesty order Cheng Qianqian to supervise the country, he has always had a way, Your Majesty, you might as well teach him to do this." ”

Li Shimin nodded again and said, "That's right, I will be going west next year, the road is far away, it is inconvenient to take you and others, and the reform of the inner prison will also be left to you with full control!" ”

"Your Majesty is out and about, you should pay attention to take care of your health."

The two of them finished dinner in a heart-warming chat, and went out to sing and dance with everyone, without mentioning it.

The next day, Li Chengqian, who was sitting in Jiangling, had an additional document sent by Li Shimin on his desk, and after reading some of the things mentioned in it, Li Chengqian smiled, did not take it seriously at all, and issued an order to the Ministry of Industry to build 16 new schools with a teaching scale of more than 10,000 people in Chang'an and Weinan, and two or three schools in each of the remaining prefectures and counties according to the size of the population.

After the establishment of these schools, they will be open to all school-age children with Datang household registration, and they will be free of tuition.

Seeing this decree, several people in the political hall were still a little confused, Fang Xuanling, Wen Yanbo and Tang Jian quickly found Li Chengqian.

Tang Jian, who was directly in charge of education, took the lead in speaking, "His Royal Highness the Prince, in Chang'an, Weinan, and Guanzhong's prefectures and counties, to build so many schools, and for children to study for free, this expenditure is not small, according to Guanzhong's current population of nearly six million, there are almost one million children of school age, in addition to building schools, the annual investment is only millions.

Moreover, many of these school-age children were originally studying in state and county schools, and if the new school tuition was completely waived, wouldn't it be a transfer to the new school for students from state and county schools? ”

Li Chengqian said with a smile, "This is the effect that is needed, the teaching content of the previous schools in those states and counties can no longer keep up with the needs of the times, and schools like Jiuyuan County School can better educate students with knowledge."

The imperial court has invested more money in the new schools, so the investment in the original state and county schools will be less, and although the cost will increase, most of the increased expenses are also due to those children who have not studied before, and the increase in the cost is completely affordable with the current financial capacity of the imperial court.

Zhu Qing can imagine that if all the schools in Guanzhong are as talented as Jiuyuan County School, then, in the future, how many benefits will they create for my Datang? ”

Hearing this, Tang Jian looked at Fang Xuanling and Wen Yanbo, and when he saw that they nodded again and again, he didn't say anything more.

Li Chengqian said, "Therefore, next year will only be Guanzhong, and within three to five years, this model will be spread to the whole country, and all the people will receive a certain degree of education." ”

Open compulsory education for all, this idea, if it was placed in the past, it would be unimaginable, Fang Xuanling still remembers that a few years ago, the imperial court's education promotion plan was just to establish a school in each state and county.

Unexpectedly, in just six or seven years, the plan will rise to the point of universal education.

If you want to say why Li Chengqian dares to do things so boldly, you have to look at where he studied government affairs, and his study template is Shanyang!

After Sun Xiangfu built Shanyang City that year, he directly built several schools in the city, so that all the children of ordinary people's families, regardless of Hu and Han, regardless of whether they are high or low, can enroll in school.

The advantage is that Shanyang now has more than 10,000 students who have mastered the basic culture every year, embarking on the road of studying medicine, agriculture, engineering, business, and even continuing to study liberal arts, and then begin to provide more high-end backbone for all walks of life.

Hearing Li Chengqian's bold words, Tang Jian's heartbeat suddenly accelerated, when he was in charge of the Ministry of Rites, expanding the education system and implementing education for all, it was naturally a great credit to him, because such a thing would inevitably be written in the history books.

However, this credit is not so good, most of the existing people who benefit from the education system are Confucianists, and these people will come to him for trouble, you know, he himself is also a Confucian student, and the first to trouble him is the old Kong of the Guozijian sacrificial wine.

However, Fang Xuanling tasted some of Li Chengqian's intentions in doing this, and opened his mouth to explain to Tang Jian, "What His Royal Highness the Crown Prince means is that you did not announce the abolition of the old academy, but directly established the new school, if the students who originally studied in those old colleges were transferred to the new school by themselves, then no one would be wondered." ”

Hearing this, Tang Jian's eyes lit up, and he immediately felt that this matter was very feasible, and the imperial court did not deny those old county and state schools. However, students have the right to choose what school to go to and what knowledge to learn, and the knowledge you teach is useless, and the students do not like to learn, so it is no wonder that the imperial court promotes new education.

When everyone doesn't go to the state school and the county school to study, these old colleges, naturally, will be abolished.

So, Tang Jian said, "In this case, the cost of building a school and subsequent teaching will be approved by the Ministry of Finance." ”

Fang Xuanling was about to nod, but Li Chengqian said with a smile, "Actually, this cost will not be very large, because, like the village of Shannan Province, there is a local chamber of commerce industry, and there will be more and more cases of funding for education expenses, and in the future, most of what the imperial court needs to invest is just money for building schools." ”

The benefits generated by public resources should be fed back to public services, which are some of the views that Sun Xiangfu brought to him in later generations.

Because in later generations, there are many places where there are obviously coal mines, but in the end only a small number of coal bosses and corrupt officials who collude with coal bosses, this is very undeserved.

Therefore, before that, Sun Xiangfu wanted to let the local people participate in the operation and management of these local resource industries, grasp part of the right to speak, and share most of the benefits brought by these industries.

And as these industries do more and more, bigger and bigger, to meet the needs of the whole people's medical care, education, pension, will not be a problem, because, the resources that Datang now has in his hands are many times more than that of China in later generations, however, the population that needs to be fed is only more than 30 million, not even a fraction of a fraction, and the per capita allocation of resources is more than 100 times higher than that of the most developed countries in later generations.

Under the bypass, Fang Xuanling felt that not only the education system should be upgraded, but all other aspects could actually be upgraded, because Datang is rich now! Promoting infrastructure construction and ensuring people's livelihood are all things that are helpful to the country's long-term peace and stability.

His idea hit the nail on the head of Sun Xiangfu's imagination some time ago, so that all the mountains and rivers become beautiful and colorful, and all the rivers become docile and peaceful······

So, in October of the ninth year of Zhenguan, Li Chengqian, the prince of the prison state, together with the left and right Shangshu servants Fang Xuanling and Wen Yanbo, as well as Tang Jian, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, set a development plan for the next ten years within the Tang Dynasty.

The cost of this round of planning to invest in schools, hospitals, waterways, highways, docks, and even city renovation projects every year, starting from 50 million yuan in the first year, will increase year by year, and ten years later, the infrastructure construction of the entire country must reach a certain level, at least to ensure the living environment of all the people in Datang, not to lose to the people in the current Shannan Dao area.

Of course, ten years later, it is difficult to say what kind of life the people in the Yuantian area of Shannan Province live, at least, more than half of the houses in Jiuyuan County this year have been replaced with exquisitely decorated buildings, and in the next one or two years, Yingzhou, Yuantian County under the rule of Fuzhou, it is estimated that they will also follow up.