Mèng Zǐ (孟子) — Great Thinker and Philosopher of Ancient China

Mèng Zǐ (372 BC - 289BC) was called a “Sub-saint” second only to the great Confucius in Chinese history. He was born in Lǔguó (鲁国 now Shangdong Province). Educated by ZǐSī ( 子思), grandson of Confucius, Mèng Zǐ inherited and developed Confucianism. He advised that rulers should carry out policies of benevolence and put the people’s interests in priority. Learning from Confucius he led his students and followers traveling about states to promote his theories of administration of the country. His ideas were not accepted by rulers of the day because they were wild about their tyranny and fiercely competitive. However Mèng Zǐ was regarded as representative of Confucianism and his thoughts were canonized by the later rulers as the doctrine of Confucius and Mencius (孔孟之道) because after all it coincided with the desires of the common people and the law of the social development.

It is said that Mèng Zǐ was deeply influenced by the moral and ethical thinking of his mother Zhāng Shì (仉氏), The results have been considered as the exemplary of Chinese education. Here are two vivid stories indicating typical Chinese traditional culture.

It was said that when Mèng Zǐ was young his father died early and his mother had provided for his livelihood and education. At first his home was close to the a cemetery where there were many funeral activities. The young Mèng Zǐ had such good sense of imitation that he learned much knowledge of funerals including crying with stamping feet. This made his mother embarrassed and she told Mèng Zǐ “This is not what you should learn and we should move to other proper places.” Then the family moved to the center of the city which was close to a butcher’s shop. The clever Mèng Zǐ learned a lot about killing and cutting — even the yo-heave-ho of the butchers. Seeing this his mother felt uneasy and decided to move near a school. Then Mèng Zǐ had the chance to read books and learned various courtesies and manners in the school. This time his mother satisfied and this story became an idiom “迁地教子 qiān dì jiāo zǐ ”which means to choose the best place and condition for the education of children.

Another story relates that the young Mèng Zǐ was too mischievous to study well. Then one day when he came to his mother’s weaving loom, his mother tore off a piece of thread and told Mèng Zǐ that if the thread was broken it would be impossible to weave any piece of cloth, implying that if Mèng Zǐ did not study hard he would not be succeed. Nowadays the saying “断机教子 duàn jī jiāo zǐ” or “孟母断机 Mèng mǔ duàn jī” praises Mèng Zǐ ’s mother for her excellent teaching method, emphasizing education by subtle inducement not by scolding.

In his late days, Mèng Zǐ and his students compiled a book “Mèng Zǐ” recording theory of Confucianism which collected his quotations and recalled his activities. The book is famous for its heritage of Confucianism and Chinese ancient culture. Now many famous sayings, idioms, adages and proverbs used in the Chinese language are from this book. For instance, “得道多助，失道寡助。dé dào duō zhù, shī dào guǎ zhù” means a just cause gains great support, and an unjust one gains little. “劳心者治人，劳力者治于人。láo xīn zhě zhì rén, láo lì zhě zhì yǔ rén” means that those working with their brains dominate others while those working with their muscles are dominated by others. His theory has had a great influence on generations of Chinese people and Chinese people regard him as important as Confucius.