As with many world-changing individuals, there are legends concerning Confucius's birth. For instance, one story tells of how dragons kept watch over his mother as she delivered him. Supposedly he descended from Huang Ti, one of China's legendary early emperors—not to be confused with Ch'in Shih Huang Ti (see entry).
Though his family possessed a noble title, the family had no money. His father, seventy years old at his birth, died before Confucius was three years old. His mother was able to give her boy little more than encouragement. He worked after school to help support her but did not think of quitting school: from the age of fifteen, he determined that he would be a great scholar.
Apparently Confucius married at the age of nineteen, then divorced four years later. In the meantime, he had become a teacher at age twenty-two. Perhaps as a result of his
Socrates
If there was ever anyone who represented "Western Culture"—or, more properly, Western Civilization—it was the Greek philosopher Socrates (c. 470-390 B. C.). He embodied the qualities that would later serve as a foundation for the Western mind: a restless curiosity, an unwillingness to accept easy answers, a striving for improvement. Other cultures value these qualities as well, but only in the West did they become central aspects of the society. Out of these longings came a desire for discovery and invention, which would later help the West in areas such as technology and science.
Like Confucius, Socrates (c. 470 B. C.-399 B. C.) was the father of a whole way of thinking, yet he wrote nothing himself. In the case of Socrates, however, he had a pupil who became as famous as he: Plato (see entry), who along with the historian Xenophon (ZEHN-uh-fahn; c. 431-c. 352 B. C.) is the major source of information on his life.
It was said of Confucius that his appearance had "49 remarkable peculiarities"; likewise Socrates was rather strange-looking, with a flat nose, bulging eyes, and a fat stomach. Again like Confucius, he came from humble circumstances: his father was a stonemason and his mother was a midwife. Later, with Confucius-like humility, Socrates would describe himself as a mere midwife for the ideas of others, helping them birth what was already within them.
Unlike Confucius, however, Socrates did not lead a quiet life. As a citizen of Athens, he served as a hoplite during the Peloponnesian War, where he gained a reputation for toughness. It was said that he walked barefoot over snow and ice while the Athenian army was fighting in northern Greece. Later he was a member of the assembly, Athens's chief governmental body, but he had no desire to take part in politics and soon became a full-time philosopher.
Socrates soon gathered around himself a group of devoted students, including Plato. He did not so much teach them a new philosophy as he encouraged
Own childhood hardships, he believed in offering an education not on the basis of what a student could pay but on the basis of how much the student hungered for learning.
World History
