In particular, Confucius himself had stated his teaching principles: "I do not enlighten those who have not struggled to understand, nor give words to those who have not struggled to express themselves. If I show one corner and they cannot infer the other three, I do not repeat the lesson."
Put simply, this meant that when teaching students, he would not guide them until they had made an effort but failed to arrive at the correct understanding; he would not enlighten them until they had reached a bottleneck, clearly wanting to express something but falling just short of putting it into words. If students could not infer three things from one, he stopped teaching them.
When used to educate geniuses, this method was a stroke of divine inspiration. It was the culmination of Confucius's many years of teaching students, not mere lofty talk, but his actual life experience.
This method yielded the greatest results for the least effort.
However, this teaching method was suitable only for elite education, especially for people with strong personal initiative, self-control, and learning ability. Once applied to mass education, it was nothing short of an educational disaster.
It was precisely the Human Race's prolonged use of this teaching method that had led to a shortage of talent at every level, especially among the lower classes. It could even bury some geniuses who seemed slow early on but matured later.
However, Confucius had another teaching method, one praised by his disciple Yan Hui, also known as Yan Zi: "The Master skillfully guides people, step by orderly step."
In this statement, Yan Zi praised Confucius for guiding and teaching his disciples in an orderly manner, and its key word was "guiding."
But to Fang Yun, a crude way to describe Yan Zi's remark was, "It's easy to