During the examination at Wu Chang a subordinate official of the examination hall was convicted of having passed manuscripts to one of the candidates. The punishment was summary. The official was beheaded, the candidate banished to the frontiers, and the graduate who wrote the forged essay was sentenced to be executed when captured. As the writer of the article in the Cycle, from which I have quoted, observes, “It is interesting to find the Chinese authorities so prompt and just in punishing the guilty. If some unfortunate foreigner had been murdered by these precious literati, the governor would have declared it to be impossible to touch the offenders in the presence of a myriad of members of their order.” More probably he would either have declared that he could not find them, or have executed a certain number of jail-birds as substitutes.
Perhaps the candidate was a foolish candidate, and hush-money was either wanting or insufficient. But in that case it was as it should be, for by not bribing he clearly showed his incapacity for holding high official position. He did not recognise the privileges of the class which it was his ambition to enter, and he gave the officers of the hall an opportunity of showing a little cheap zeal in the execution of their duty, to his great discomfiture.
When the three tests are ended and the degrees have all been conferred, the superintendent of the examination hall addresses a petition to the Emperor, praying that a day may be fixed for publishing the names of the successful candidates. This generally takes place on the 10th day of the following month. On the first day of the ceremonies of publication a table is ordered to be set out in the hall called Chih Kung Tang, the Hall of Justice unsurpassed. The three chief examiners, with the two chief superintendents, solemnly take their places at the table, and on either side, spread out diagonally “like a goose’s wings,” as the Chinese writer puts it, are the eighteen junior examiners, all clad in their official robes. All this galaxy of learning and wisdom is gathered together to witness the breaking of the seals of the exercises, and to hear the calling out of the names which are written on the list. Next morning, before daybreak, the list is rolled up and placed inside a palanquin of honour, richly decorated with coloured silks; a procession is formed, headed by standard-bearers carrying emblems, as at a wedding, and the whole heaven is filled with the sound of drums and of delicate music, gongs being beaten to clear the road. Immediately behind the palanquin containing the precious list march the chief examiners and their subordinates, who accompany it outside the Dragon Gate. This gate of the examination hall is so called allegorically, because in the same way as the fish rose from the sea to heaven, and became perfected into the heavenly dragon, so the successful candidates have, by the grace of learning, cast off the grosser clay of which they were formed, and have risen to the heaven of rank and fame. The superintendents of the hall escort the list as far as the outer gate of the provincial capital, where it is hung up on a high platform specially erected for the purpose.
When the list has thus been finally published, etiquette requires that the new Masters of Arts should go and pay their respects to the chief and junior examiners. At these visits much wine is drunk, and an adjournment to the theatre takes place, where the party witness the deadly dulness of an historical piece, relieved, it is true, by the performance of grossly indecent farces, and by the consumption of the usual refreshments of fried melon-seeds, sweetmeats, cakes, and tea.
In spite of all the pains taken nominally to insure fairness and exclude any possibility of trickery, Chinese ingenuity would belie itself if it did not find means of giving the slip to all law and rule, and of satisfying greed thereby. Though the candidate’s name is not known until the papers have been examined and judged, they will be framed in such a way as to let the examiner know who is the author—as, for instance, by agreeing beforehand that the briber’s essay shall begin and end with certain words. On the other hand, if the officers of the copying and comparing departments have not received their fee, they can throw any candidate’s work all out of tune with the greatest ease. Nor is there any appeal. The copy in red ink which is sent in to the junior examiners stands as the ipsissima verba of the writer. By one slip a spiteful copyist may spoil the best essay.
The examination for the third and highest degree, that of Chin Shih, or Doctor, does not differ materially in character from that of Chü Jên or Master of Arts, except in the fact that whereas the latter is held in provincial capitals, the former is held only at Shun Tien Fu, at which city the candidates from every part of the empire have to attend. The expense and difficulties of what may be a very long and expensive journey naturally tend to limit the number of aspirants.
After the publication of the list of successful candidates a last examination is held at Peking in the Imperial palace. According to their performances in this final test the doctors are divided into three classes. The first class consists only of the three best men in order of merit, who are called respectively Chuang Yüan, Pang Yüan, and Tan Hwa, which might be translated Senior Wrangler, Second Wrangler, and Golden Spoon; the second class contains from seven to ten names; and the third class is made up of the remainder, and may consist of two hundred men or more. At the second part of this examination the doctors are presented to the Son of Heaven, who in person appoints them to various offices in the state. The Senior Wrangler is usually employed as a writer of records in the Forest of Pencils, while the Second Wrangler and the Golden Spoon are appointed to be correctors. All the doctors are sure of obtaining some appointment, but not of keeping it unless they show official capacity, of which the most infallible proof is the liberal opening of a long purse.
“In the olden time,” writes a native author, “a man need only pass the degree of Hsin Tsai, or Bachelor, to be sure of obtaining some office in the state. But nowadays there are too many who buy their rank, so that a man’s merit is measured by the capacity of his purse, while the right men are pushed out of the right place. Hence it comes that many a ripe scholar, if he have but enough means to keep the life within him, and be a man of spirit to boot, will rather remain in obscurity as a private individual than be mixed up with such men as hold office. Good men holding aloof, the officials of the country are but a sorry lot after all. How can we be surprised if discontent and treason are rife?”
These are the words of a modern scholar, savouring somewhat of sour grapes, it is true. Yet as early as five hundred years before Christ, Lao Tsŭ, the founder of the Taoist sect, pointed out the vanity and hollowness of the system of education and government into which the country was drifting. “If some men,” said the sage, “would abandon their learning and cast away their wisdom the people would be benefited a hundred-fold.” Of all the Chinese philosophers Lao Tsŭ was probably the one whose teaching of simple virtue approached the nearest to the Christian standard. Confucius himself, after having had an interview with him, said to his disciples, “I know how the birds fly, how the fishes swim, how the beasts run, and the runner may be snared, the swimmer may be hooked, and the flyer may be shot by the arrow.[20] But there is the dragon. I cannot tell how he mounts on the wind through the clouds and rises to heaven. To-day I have seen Lao Tsŭ, and can only compare him to the dragon.”[21]
It can hardly be said that matters have improved since the old days of Lao Tsŭ.