Who Was Confucius?

My son recently needed to write an essay for his home school class. His typing is pretty accurate (currently 98%) and he’s working on his speed (around 12 words per minute I think) so it takes him awhile to complete an assignment.  Thankfully his interest level is well above 100% – as I think you’ll agree after you read his essay below.

He sent his essay to my husband, his grandparents and me with the following opener:

This is my essay on Confucius. Do you like receiving essays and stuff and seeing how well I’m doing? Do you think it is interesting to learn about Confucius? I had two choices to pick from. I picked Confucius for my essay because I knew stuff already about King Tut and I wanted to learn something new. My essay was supposed to be 100 words and mine is over 300. Do you appreciate that? I really worked hard on this and I hope you like it. Tanner Spellman

Confucius was a philosopher and a government official – the Socrates of his day. He was born in China in 551 B.C. in the state of Lu. His real name was Kong Qiu, which means Great Master K’ung. Confucius is the Latin translation and it is the only name most people have heard of.

According to the Records of the Historian, Confucius was a descendant of the aristocratic royal house of Shang, who ruled China before the warring Chou family. When his father was old he left his first wife because she had only daughters and a disfigured son. Then he married a 15 year old girl from the Yen clan, who gave birth to Confucius.

His dad died when he was only four. His mom worked a lot and was only a teenager. It was written that he became educated in music, philosophy, history, poetry and sports.

Confucius got married when he was 19 and had one son. He started working for the governor of his district when he was 20. Then his mom died and he was very sad for a long time. He studied poetry, music, history, government, etiquette and how to tell the future.

“Confucianism’s” are from a set of books that were mostly written before Kong Qiu lived. But, most people think that he made them up.

Confucianism teaches six main values:

Ritual(respect for custom)
Righteousness (respect for religion)
Family (respect for elders and relations)
Loyalty (respect for law)
Honesty (respect for truth)
Benevolence (respect for life and humanity)

When Confucius was 22, he started his own school where he taught for many years. He was a good teacher and had many wise sayings. One of the most famous is “A man should practice what he preaches, but a man should also preach what he practices.”

Confucius died when he was 73 and was buried in Kufow. Temples were built in every city in China to honor him.

He thought he had failed at what he had tried to do his whole life. After he died, most of the customs of China and even Asia were based off of his teachings.

From Rhonda – I don’t know about you but I learned from this! How very interesting it is to learn about people who have made such an impact on the world! Your thoughts and comments are appreciated. Please leave them here so that we can share them with others!