The first government university established by the unified central government with accurate written records in the history of world education was Taixue established by Liu Che, Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty.

In 124 BC, Liu Che accepted the advice of the great Confucian Dong Zhongshu and the prime minister Sun Hong, and formally established Taixue, which specialized in the study of knowledge and imparted knowledge, and was the highest institution of learning in the empire.

At that time, Taixue was very small, with only 5 teachers and 50 formal students: there were 5 doctors (teachers) of the Five Classics, who taught Confucian classics such as "Poems", "Books", "Rites", "Yi", and "Spring and Autumn", and each teacher brought 10 disciples (Tai students).

Due to the small number of enrollment places, the officially registered students can only be selected by the children of cadres who are "over 18 years old and have good manners" from Taichang (the first name of Fengchang in the Western Han Dynasty, one of the nine Qings, changed to Taichang when Emperor Jing, and was in charge of the etiquette of the temple). However, each county can select and escort young students who are "good, respect for superiors, purge politics and religion, follow the township, and go in and out" as audit students, which do not account for the establishment and the number is not large.

After one year, they pass the exam, and if they can pass more than one pass, they can line up to become officials in turn.

As Taixue has become an important way to enter politics, the demand for admission is very strong, and the scale of the school continues to expand. The number of students increased to 100 during Emperor Zhao, 1,000 during Emperor Xuan, and 3,000 when Emperor Cheng became emperor.

Due to the needs of political, economic, and cultural development, everyone wants to receive a good education, which is a good thing.

However, education is a science and an art, and it has its own laws. If we do not respect the laws of education, do not pay attention to the improvement of the connotation of education, the improvement of the level and the use of educational products (student employment), only pay attention to the blind expansion of the scale of schools and the random increase in the number of students, and even mix up false issues such as academic qualifications, the social role of education will be greatly reduced, and even become a social harm in some aspects.

For example, after Wang Mang's auxiliary government and the Han Dynasty, Taixue was greatly expanded.

Wang Mang is, of course, the most hypocritical and greedy man in Chinese history, and he became a rare incompetent person among the emperors of all dynasties in his later years, and at the same time an extremely murderous person.

If someone has these points concentrated on him, he has to lie there and not move, it may not be harmful. Or maybe he's just a civilian, and it's not a big deal if he's harmful.

If anyone has these points and he still has public power in his hands, then the harm is great.

It would be terrible if this person had the highest power in his hands.

Wang Mang is such a person.

We've already said how he snatched the throne of the first brother. In the process of pursuing power and after ascending to the position of first brother, he did a lot of things that violated objective laws.

Because he was too hypocritical, he was unwilling to admit that he was not suitable for the position; Because he was too greedy, he grabbed the world's interests for his own gains, scraped the ground, peeled the skin and knocked the bones into his private pocket; Because he was too incompetent, the relationship between the vast number of cadres and the masses in the country was extremely tense, many people starved to death, and the national politics were in a mess. Because he was too ferocious, he held a political axe and cut anyone who didn't like him, and he was also cut off himself.

Since we say so, there is sufficient evidence to show if necessary.

For example, in order to attract the majority of scholars, Wang Mang rapidly expanded the enrollment scale of Taixue, which at first glance seems to be attaching importance to education, but in fact, it is a face-saving project, which violates the law of education and the law of the growth of cadres and talents.

In any case, Taixue's expansion of enrollment has given Liu Xiu the opportunity to further his studies at the country's highest university from a young intellectual.

What Wang Mang himself did not expect was that the expansion of Taixue also made many Taixue students unable to learn well to become officials as they did during the Emperor Wu period. Under such conditions of dirty political ecology and unspoken rules, they came from humble backgrounds, did not have strong social connections, and could not find employment in time after a few years of study, so they had to go home.

Some of them, as the first awakened ones with knowledge and culture, became a positive force to shatter the old world and build a new society.

As early as 4 A.D., Wang Mang, who was in the auxiliary government, tried his best to win over scholars in order to finally become emperor, and one of the important ones was the expansion of this Taixue.

He expanded the student dormitories, added the Department of Economics, increased the number of teachers, and expanded the number of students led by each teacher to 360, so that the number of students in Tai Tai University rapidly expanded to 10,000.

Anyone with a little common sense knows that even today, with advanced science and technology and increasingly modern teaching conditions, even if a teacher has to lead dozens of students, it is still a heavy job.

In those days when there were no projectors and microphones, a teacher had to take hundreds of students, and he had to fool everyone often.

Wang Mang also ordered all localities to send people who are good at all kinds of learning and even square skills to the capital Taixue at public expense.

He also set up Taixue branch schools in various counties.

Here, I will say a little more about the official school system at that time, and I will talk about his Taixue life after Liu Xiu is enrolled. In this way, everyone will have a deeper understanding of Liu Xiu's study and life in recent years.

Otherwise, everyone may think that he just went to the capital to bury his head in study, but in fact, it is not.

China's ancient official school system was not formally established until the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and it was not until two years before Liu Xiu's birth (3 AD) that the system was initially formed.

At that time, the official credit was divided into 5 levels: the central level had Taixue, and the local government was divided into 4 levels according to the administrative level: school, school, Zhen, and order. Among them, Taixue is a national university that teaches the Confucian Five Classics (later expanded to the Six Classics). The school and school are organized by the county and county, and belong to the middle school level, and they are specialized in one school. Zhen and Xu are run by the township and belong to the nature of primary schools.

In addition to the fact that Taixue is the highest institution of learning in the country and has a respected status, the division of local schools at all levels is not obvious, and there is no affiliation between them, and they have no affiliation with Taixue.

However, only students who have come out of school are eligible to enter Taixue. This is somewhat similar to the old days when you only had to graduate from high school to get into college.

At that time, there was no special education department and leader, and the imperial court was in charge of education, and he was also in charge of the ceremonial affairs of the temple.

All local schools are under the concurrent management of the chief executives at all levels, and they have posts such as county history (official names) and township elders, who are not only in charge of education, but also in charge of culture and ideological and political work among the masses.

After Wang Mang took power, he did not act in accordance with the laws of education, and without comprehensively considering and deploying the entire educational work, including basic education, he rapidly expanded Taixue on a large scale.

At first, the majority of scholars really thought that Wang Mang attached great importance to knowledge and talents, and was very grateful to him.

However, due to the large number of students and the limited positions and opportunities for officials, the career path of the vast majority of people after graduation is very problematic.

Liu Xiu came to Taixue and studied "Shangshu" under Xu Ziwei, a native of Lujiang.

At this time, the teacher's teaching effect was far less than before.

The teacher of Taixue is called a doctor, which means erudite and versatile.

Doctor is not a title, but an official position, and his job responsibilities are not only teaching, but also making ceremonies, collecting books, and discussing politics (including preparing for the imperial court's advisors).

The doctor is busy.

However, this also has the advantage that the teacher does not stay in an ivory tower, and it is easy to connect theory with practice.

At this time, the origin of students was also very complex, there were too many students, and there were great differences in age, knowledge, and family and social relations.

At this time, Taixue, management is very flexible, which is manifested in many aspects.

In fact, there is no way to be flexible, the size of the school's student body has swelled dramatically, there is no time to establish and implement a strict management system, and there are not even enough teachers, let alone anything else.

Anyway, Wang Mang and the imperial court didn't care about the quality of teaching, and they just brought the scholars together to play.

This flexible management is manifested in the teaching method, that is, because there are too few teachers and too many students, the school must do this:

One is to give big lectures; the second is that high-achieving students or senior students will give lectures for teachers; The third is to allow students to devote more energy to self-study and seek advice from external experts.

This kind of flexible management is manifested in student management, that is, wide in and wide out.

At this time, the admission conditions were much looser than those of Emperor Wu, and after entering the school, there was no fixed number of years of schooling.

As long as there are no serious violations of law and discipline, you can learn to be white.

Regular exams, those who pass can be an official, or they may not be given to you as an official.

In other words, it is not that if you study well, you will definitely be able to become an official, but there are other factors to be an official.

If you learn to go out to be an official or do other things at a certain time, you can take the time to come back and study for a few more days.

There are many things worth studying in ancient higher education in China, including higher education in the Han and Han dynasties, and I have paid attention to it because of my work, which is indeed very interesting.

In order not to delay everyone's time too much, and not to delay Liu Xiu's good performance, we will not go into details.

It should be particularly pointed out that this kind of management that has to be flexible, or "being flexible", is not conducive to the teaching and research of searching for chapters and sentences and quoting scriptures, but is biased and correct, and is conducive to the development of those students who are good at integrating theory with practice and applying what they have learned.