| As a textbook for the enlightenment of the young emperor, Zhang Juzheng’s Tutorial Pictures for the Emperors exhibits characteristics that are different from those of ordinary children’s books, due to the special nature of its target audience and its future development requirements. Firstly, the book plays a pioneering role in the education of the Wanli emperor, addressing the problem of forming a preliminary understanding of the holy lord and the wise ruler, and being relevant in terms of educational objectives. Secondly, the book focuses on the training objective of cultivating one’s own body and family, ruling the country and pacifying the world, and includes 117 allusions to the relationship between ruler and subject, ruler and people, and the personalities of kings, which are closely aligned with the training objective in the selection and organization of the teaching materials. Thirdly, the book adopted an appropriate educational approach and achieved good educational results in the early Wanli period. It is mainly edited in the form of an illustrated book, with popular language and illustrations, and follows the psychological characteristics of children. In the process of education, Zhang Juzheng used the Tutorial Pictures for the Emperors as the basis for a combination of positive and negative education, with positive education as the main focus, which had strong educational implications. The text is based on historical texts, which are unique, and the language used is gentle and reasoned, which makes it easier for the audience to accept, showing the dedication of the emperor’s education. |
