The principal defects and malversations in the system can soon be shown. Some are inherent, but others rather prove the badness of the material than of the system and its harmonious workings. One great difficulty in the way of the graduated students attaining office according to their merits is the favor shown to those who can buy nominal and real honors. Two censors, in 1822, laid a document before his Majesty, in which the evils attendant on selling office are shown; viz., elevating priests, highwaymen, merchants, and other unworthy or uneducated men, to responsible stations, and placing insurmountable difficulties in the way of hard-working, worthy students reaching the reward of their toil. They state that the plan of selling offices commenced during the Han dynasty, but speak of the greater disgrace attendant upon the plan at the present time, because the avails all go into the privy purse instead of being applied to the public service; they recommend, therefore, a reduction in the disbursements of the imperial establishment. Among the items mentioned by these oriental Joseph Humes, which they consider extravagant, are a lac of taels (100,000) for flowers and rouge in the seraglio, and 120,000 in salaries to waiting-boys; two lacs were expended on the gardens of Yuenming, and almost half a million of taels upon the parks at Jeh ho, while the salaries to officers and presents to women at Yuenming were over four lacs. “If these few items of expense were abolished,” they add, “there would be a saving of more than a million of taels of useless expenditure; talent might be brought forward to the service of the country, and the people’s wealth be secured.”
In consequence of the extensive sale of offices, they state that more than five thousand tsin-sz’ doctors, and more than twenty-seven thousand kü-jin licentiates, are waiting for employment; and those first on the list obtained their degrees thirty years ago, so that the probability is that when at last employed, they will be too old for service, and be declared superannuated in the first examination of official merits and demerits. The rules to be observed at the regular examinations are strict, but no questions are asked the buyers of office; and they enter, too, on their duties as soon as the money is paid. The censors quote three sales, whose united proceeds amounted to a quarter of a million of taels, and state that the whole income from this source for twenty years was only a few lacs. Examples of the flagitious conduct of these purse-proud magistrates are quoted in proof of the bad results of the plan. “Thus the priest Siang Yang, prohibited from holding office, bought his way to one; the intendant at Ningpo, from being a mounted highwayman, bought his way to office; besides others of the vilest parentage. But the covetousness and cruelty of these men are denominated purity and intelligence; they inflict severe punishments, which make the people terrified, and their superiors point them out as possessing decision: these are our able officers!”
After animadverting on the general practice “of all officers, from governor-generals down to village magistrates, combining to gain their purposes by hiding the truth from the sovereign,” and specifying the malversations of Tohtsin, the premier, in particular, they close their paper with a protestation of their integrity. “If your Majesty deems what we have now stated to be right, and will act thereon in the government, you will realize the designs of the souls of your sacred ancestors; and the army, the nation, and the poor people, will have cause for gladness of heart. Should we be subjected to the operation of the hatchet, or suffer death in the boiling caldron, we will not decline it.”
These censors place the proceeds of “button scrip” far too low, for in 1826, the sale produced about six millions of taels, and was continued at intervals during the three following years. In 1831, one of the sons of Howqua was created a kü-jin by patent for having subscribed nearly fifty thousand dollars to repair the dikes near Canton; and upon another was conferred the rank and title of “director of the salt monopoly” for a lac of taels toward the war in Turkestan. Neither of these persons ever held any office of power, nor probably did they expect it; and such may be the case with many of those who are satisfied with the titles and buttons, feathers and robes, which their money procures. The sale of office is rather accepted as a State necessity which does not necessarily bring tyrants upon the bench; but when, as was the case in 1863, Peiching, head of the Examining Board at Peking, fraudulently issued two or three diplomas, his execution vindicated the law, and deterred similar tampering with the life-springs of the system. During the present dynasty, military men have been frequently appointed to magistracies, and the detail of their offices intrusted to needy scholars, which has tended, still further, to disgust and dishearten the latter from resorting to the literary arena.
The language itself of the Chinese, which has for centuries aided in preserving their institutions and strengthening national homogeneity amid so many local varieties of speech, is now rather in the way of their progress, and may be pointed to as another unfortunate feature which infects this system of education and examination; for it is impossible for a native to write a treatise on grammar about another language in his own tongue, through which another Chinese can, unaided, learn to speak that language. This people have, therefore, no ready means of learning the best thoughts of foreign minds. Such being the case, the ignorance of their first scholars as regards other races, ages, and lands has been their misfortune far more than their fault, and they have suffered the evils of their isolation. One has been an utter ignorance of what would have conferred lasting benefit resulting from the study of outside conceptions of morals, science, and politics. Inasmuch as neither geography, natural history, mathematics, nor the history or languages of other lands forms part of the curriculum, these men, trained alone in the classics, have naturally grown up with distorted views of their own country. The officials are imbued with conceit, ignorance, and arrogance as to its power, resources, and comparative influence, and are helpless when met by greater skill or strength. However, these disadvantages, great as they are and have been, have mostly resulted naturally from their secluded position, and are rapidly yielding to the new influences which are acting upon government and people. To one contemplating this startling metamorphosis, the foremost wish, indeed, must be that these causes do not disintegrate their ancient economies too fast for the recuperation and preservation of whatever is good therein.
SALE OF DEGREES AND FORGED DIPLOMAS.
Another evil is the bribery practised to attain the degrees. By certain signs placed on the essays, the examiner can easily pick out those he is to approve; $8,000 was said to be the price of a bachelor’s degree in Canton, but this sum is within the reach of few out of the six thousand candidates. The poor scholars sell their services to the rich, and for a certain price will enter the hall of examination, and personate their employer, running the risk and penalties of a disgraceful exposure if detected; for a less sum they will drill them before examination, or write the essays entirely, which the rich booby must commit to memory. The purchase of forged diplomas is another mode of obtaining a graduate’s honors, which, from some discoveries made at Peking, is so extensively practised, that when this and other corruptions are considered, it is surprising that any person can be so eager in his studies, or confident of his abilities, as ever to think he can get into office by them alone. In 1830, the Gazette contained some documents showing that an inferior officer, aided by some of the clerks in the Board of Revenue, during the successive superintendence of twenty presidents of the Board had sold twenty thousand four hundred and nineteen forged diplomas; and in the province of Nganhwui, the writers in the office attached to the Board of Revenue had carried on the same practice for four years, and forty-six persons in that province were convicted of possessing them. All the principal criminals convicted at this time were sentenced to decapitation, but these cases are enough to show that the real talent of the country does not often find its way into the magistrate’s seat without the aid of money; nor is it likely that the tales of such delinquencies often appear in the Gazette. Literary chancellors also sell bachelors’ degrees to the exclusion of deserving poor scholars; the office of the hiohching of Kiangsí was searched in 1828 by a special commission, and four lacs of taels found in it; he hung himself to avoid further punishment, as did also the same dignitary in Canton in 1833, as was supposed, for a similar cause. It is in this way, no doubt, that the ill-gotten gains of most officers return to the general circulation.
Notwithstanding these startling corruptions, which seem to involve the principle on which the harmony and efficiency of the whole machinery of state stand, it cannot be denied, judging from the results, that the highest officers of the Chinese government do possess a very respectable rank of talent and knowledge, and carry on the unwieldy machine with a degree of integrity, patriotism, industry, and good order which shows that the leading minds in it are well chosen. The person who has originally obtained his rank by a forged diploma, or by direct purchase, cannot hope to rise or to maintain even his first standing, without some knowledge and parts. One of the three commissioners whom Kíying associated with himself in his negotiations with the American minister in 1844, was a supernumerary chíhien of forbidding appearance, who could hardly write a common document, but it was easy to see the low estimation the ignoramus was held in. It may therefore be fairly inferred that enough large prizes are drawn to incite successive generations of scholars to compete for them, and thus to maintain the literary spirit of the people. At these examinations the superior minds of the country are brought together in large bodies, and thus they learn each others views, and are able to check official oppressions with something like a public opinion. In Peking the concourse of several thousands, from the remotest provinces, to compete at or assist in the triennial examinations, exerts a great and healthy influence upon their rulers and themselves. Nothing like it ever has been seen in any other metropolis.
INFLUENCE AND RESPECT OBTAINED BY BACHELORS.
The enjoyment of no small degree of power and influence in their native village, is also to be considered in estimating the rewards of studious toil, whether the student get a diploma or not; and this local consideration is the most common reward attending the life of a scholar. In those villages where no governmental officer is specially appointed, such men are almost sure to become the headmen and most influential persons in the very spot where a Chinese loves to be distinguished. Graduates are likewise allowed to erect flag-staffs, or put up a red sign over the door of their houses showing the degree they have obtained, which is both a harmless and gratifying reward of study; like the additions of Cantab. or Oxon., D.D. or LL.D., to their owner’s names in other lands.