The concept of friendship in Alfonso Vagnone S.J.’s work "Tongyou Jiaoyu 童幼教育 (On the Education of Children, c.1632)"

Alfonso Vagnone S.J. (1566 – 1640) is one of the most prolific humanistic writers in Chinese of late Ming China. His pedagogic treatise 《Tongyou Jiaoyu 童幼教育 (On the Education of Children)》 (published around 1632) is the result of over a decade of work, and deals with various matters of child education from two perspectives (teaching and learning). The book is thought to be “the oldest proof of Sino-Western exchange in the field of pedagogy” and is aimed at introducing notions of Western learning and philosophy to the Chinese readers. This paper intends to shed light on the way Vagnone introduced the concept of friendship in the ninth chapter of the second volume,《Jiaoyou 交友 (Friendship) 》of his treatise 《Tongyou Jiaoyu 童幼教育》. It will attempt to uncover some of the source material he made use of, paying particular attention to the notions he borrowed from both the European and the Chinese classical traditions. Finally this paper also hopes to find out if it’s appropriate to talk about “Friendship with Chinese characteristics”.