Was Confucius an "Educator of the Whole People"?

Abstract

Reactionary rulers of the past encomiastically hailed Confucius as "the eternal paragon for teachers." The May 4th Movement in 1919 decried this by raising the slogan "Down with the Confucian Shop;" Later, bourgeois men of letters and scholars catering to the needs of the reactionary rulers again set off a reactionary countercurrent of worshipping Confucius and studying the Confucian canon. They gave much publicity to yu chiao wu lui (which really means "regional training without distinction of clans") advocated by Confucius who, they asserted, wanted to recruit students regardless of their class origin. In this way they disguised Confucius as an "educator of the whole people."