The six arts are six subjects: ritual, meaning ceremony and proper conduct; music; archery; charioteering; writing; and arithmetic. Among the six are both civil and military studies, which is why the curriculum is called one that joins the two.
The state schools of the Western Zhou, the schools run by the government, taught the sons of the nobility the six arts. The system of the time was that learning lay with the government.
In the late Spring and Autumn period Confucius also taught his students the six arts. The six arts passed from being taught only in aristocratic official schools to the scholars who taught privately.
What changed at this step was who taught and who was taught. This class holds the make-up of the curriculum, and the rise of private teaching is treated in the Private Academies class.
Six Arts Curriculum is the class in the chapter on Education on the early curriculum. It covers the six arts of ritual, music, archery, charioteering, writing and arithmetic: the state schools of the Western Zhou used them to teach the sons of the nobility, forming a curriculum that joined civil and military training, and in the late Spring and Autumn period Confucius taught the six arts to his disciples, carrying them from official schools to private teaching.
