, in which ethics was
considered as the most important of all studies. It was said that
in the Academy there were more than three thousand students who
were able and virtuous in nearly all respects, while the total
enrolment, including aspirants from Korea and Japan, was as high
as eight thousand. At the same time, there was a system of
"elections" through which able and virtuous men were recommended
by different districts to the Emperor for appointment to public
offices. College training and local elections supplemented each
other, but in both moral virtues were given the greatest
emphasis.

Although the Imperial Academy exists till this day, it has never
been as nourishing as during that period. For this change the
introduction of the competitive examination or Ko-chue system,
must be held responsible. The "election" system furnished no
fixed standard for the recommendation of public service
candidates, and, as a result, tended to create an aristocratic
class from which alone were to be found eligible men.
Consequently, the Sung Emperors (960-1277 A.D.) abolished the
elections, set aside the Imperial Academy, and inaugurated the
competitive examination system in their place. The examinations
were to supply both scholars and practical statesmen, and they
were periodically held throughout the later dynasties until the
introduction of the modern educational regime. Useless and
stereotyped as they were in later days, they once served some
useful purpose. Besides, the ethical background of Chinese
education had already been so firmly established, that, in spite
of the emphasis laid by these examinations on pure literary
attainments, moral teachings have survived till this day in
family education and in private schools.

Although the system of awarding Government posts for proficiency in
examinations is much better than most other systems that have prevailed,
such as nepotism, bribery, threats of insurrection, etc., yet the
Chinese system, at any rate after it assumed its final form, was harmful
through the fact that it was based solely on the classics, that it was
purely literary, and that it allowed no scope whatever for originality.
The system was established in its final form by the Emperor Hung Wu
(1368-1398), and remained unchanged until 1905. One of the first objects
of m