The Great Learning, written in the early Han Dynasty,
《大学》作于汉初，
is in fact an essay in The Book of Rites. It preaches the cultivation of one's character and the wisdoms of governing a country during the “daxue” (or great learning or higher education) period of ancient China.
是《礼记》中一篇论述在古代的“大学”阶段如何学习修身与治国之道的文章，
It is the imagination of ancient education by the Han people,
是汉人对上古教育的悬想，
through which they can put forward their own educational theories.
借此来发挥自己的教育理论。
The authorship of the book is not clear, ft is assumed that it is the work of Zengshen, one of Confucius’ disciples,
旧说《大学》是孔子的学生曾参作的，
or that the disciple got it from Confucius.
而曾参又是从孔子那里听来的，
That is why Zhu Xi regarded, in a short commentary called Daxue Zhangjiu , the first part of the book or Pandect as the Canon ,
所以朱熹作《大学章句》把文章的第一大段总论部分作为“经”，
and the rest of the book explaining the canon as Commentaries, which are further divided into 10 parts.
把后边进一步阐述总论的文字分成十小段，作为“传”，给《大学》穿上了“圣经”的外衣。
He also moved two passages to the latter part of the book in accordance with the logic of the whole text,
朱熹还根据全文的逻辑关系，把前边的两段文字移到后边，
pointing out that certain sentences or passages might have been missing.
指出可能有的地方有脱文，
The result is that he added a passage to the book, a passage known as Gewuzhuan or On the Phenomena of Nature.
并补写了一段《格物传》。
。