The Passage

Hover over (or tap on mobile) Chinese characters for pinyin and definitions

This is a statement about how to properly conduct education: don't classify. Confucius believed teaching should be done without classification (無類 wúlèi), accepting students from all backgrounds without discrimination.

Philosophical Discussion

Confucius the Teacher

Ask almost anyone who Confucius was, and they'll say he was a philosopher. But first and foremost, he was a teacher. For many Chinese people, Confucius remains history's supreme model of an educator, a sort of patron saint of all things education.

The Analects itself demonstrates this focus on teaching:

• 教 (jiào, to teach) appears 7 times
• 誨 (huì, to instruct) appears 8 times
• 學 (xué, to learn) appears 65 times
• 知 (zhī, to know/wisdom) appears 117 times
• References to his students: over 500 times

The fact that Confucius's students wrote the Analects themselves is perhaps the best endorsement of his teaching abilities.

Teaching Without Classification

Confucius's students were remarkably diverse for ancient China. They came from:

• Beggar families and the political elite
• Business and government backgrounds
• Various age groups—some nearly his age, others fifty years younger
• Multiple generations from the same family

This egalitarian approach was radical for his time, when education was typically a privilege of the elite.

Related Passages

Passage 6.14 tells of Tantai Miemeng (澹臺滅明), whom Confucius initially dismissed due to his rough appearance but later accepted and found to be an excellent student. This shows that even in old age, Confucius worked to overcome his biases.

Passage 7.7 contains his famous statement that he'd accept any student who could give as little as "a bundle of dried meat." In a time when education was restricted to the elite, this was truly revolutionary.

Beyond Student Backgrounds

The phrase 無類 (wúlèi, "no classification") might extend beyond just student backgrounds to the subject matter itself. Confucius taught broadly across many disciplines:

• The "six arts": ritual, music, archery, charioting, writing, and arithmetic
• Culture, conduct, wholeheartedness, and trustworthiness
• Human-heartedness (仁 rén)
• And much more—students were encouraged to "wander in the arts"

In passage 6.27, he explains that the 君子 (jūnzǐ, exemplary person) who is "broadly learned in culture" (博 bó) is not likely to go astray. This character 博 later appears in the title 博士 (bóshì), meaning both "broadly learned scholar" and, in modern Chinese, "PhD."

Language Notes

有 (yǒu) and 無 (wú)

有 means "to have" and is one of the first characters Chinese learners encounter. Its opposite, 無, means "to not have" or "without." While modern Chinese typically uses 沒有 (méiyǒu) for "don't have," 無 is the classical single-character form.

The pair 有...無... creates a natural grammatical balance in this passage: "In having teaching, there is no classification."

教 (jiào/jiāo) - To Teach

教 appears in many common modern Chinese words:

• 教課 (jiāo kè) - to teach a class (1st tone, verb)
• 教師 (jiàoshī) - teacher (4th tone, noun)
• 教授 (jiàoshòu) - professor (4th tone, noun)

Tone note: As a verb, 教 uses 1st tone (jiāo). As a noun, it uses 4th tone (jiào).

Interestingly, 教 contains the character 孝 (xiào, filial piety), suggesting the ancient Chinese belief that education is what makes children behave properly.

類 (lèi) - Type/Category

類 remains important in modern Chinese:

• 這類人 (zhè lèi rén) - this type of person
• 類型 (lèixíng) - type, category
• 人類 (rénlèi) - humankind

Context in the Analects

This is one of the shortest passages detailing Confucius's pedagogical philosophy, but its message is clear and powerful: great teaching transcends boundaries of class, background, and subject matter. True education should be accessible to all who seek it.