The concept of academic performance

   Among the disciples of Confucius, who had the best academic performance? Here we should clarify the concept of academic performance. Nowadays, when talking about academic performance, we usually refer to the test score, no matter you’re in a primary or secondary school, or in a college. And the test score comes from two forms, one is reviewing the performance, the other is the paper exam; both will be scored in the end. The one with the highest scores is the best student. If judged by the criteria, who was the best student of Confucius?

   Main courses of Confucius

   According to Shu Er, Chapter 25 of the Analects of Confucius, “Confucius taught his disciples four disciplines: letters, ethics, devotion of soul, and truthfulness.” This refers to the whole content and procedure of Confucius educating his students. Of the four disciplines, only the first one is the academic course which could be examined and scored, while the other three are teachings of social practices and moral trait, which are difficult to appraise and score. Therefore, if academic performance refers to the academic courses, which in Confucius age, were the liuyi (Six Arts), namely, rites, music, archery, riding, writing, and arithmetic. All the six courses could be scored. Therefore, the academic performance we refer to today was mainly reviewed from the Six Arts in the Confucius age.

   Ran You must be the student with best academic performance

   Of all the disciples of Confucius, Ran You must be the one with best academic performance. We could demonstrate from the following aspects:

    1. Confucius had a sharp eye on the strong points of his disciples. When Ji Kangzi wanted to recruit talents and asked for the opinion of Confucius about his three disciples, Confucius used a word to summarize the most remarkable merit of each one, saying, Zi Lu resolute, Zi Gong flexible, and Ran You versatile. Ran You was the most versatile one in the eyes of Confucius. Here he meant Ran You excelled in the Six Arts.

    2. When Zi Lu asked what could be called perfect personality, Confucius replied, “If a person, with the wisdom of Zang Wuzhong, the probity of Meng Gongchuo, the courage of Bian Zhuangzi, and the versatility of Ran You, is cultivated with rites and music, then he could be called a perfect man.” Confucius particularly mentioned the versatility (here refers to the Six Arts) of Ran You in the remark. We could know that when talking about the Six Arts, Ran You was not only the best among Confucius’s disciples, but also among the Qilu area (today’s Shandong Province). During the late period of Confucius’s touring around the states, the Lu State was badly in need of talents, and Confucius sent Ran You back to support, which testified that Confucius had great confidence in the ability of Ran You.

    Judging from the command of knowledge of the Six Arts and actual practice ability, Ran You was the best. If a list of the full-range test results was posted, Ran You should be ranked the first. Therefore, Ran You must be the one with best academic performance of all Confucius’s students.