THE PASSING OF CHINA'S ANCIENT SYSTEM 105 



who underwent preliminary tests at some 1,705 matriculation centers 



before they could enter the lists for the first degree. (In the United 



States the enrolment in public high schools and private academies and 



seminaries for 1902 was 735,000). 



Nor does it count the candidates 



for the third degree, triennially 



conferred at the capital. The 



stone lists at Peking show the 



award of 60,000 third degrees in 



the last 600 years. This system, 



operating at the 271 degree-giving 



halls throughout the empire, has 



produced every two years about 



29,000 ' bachelors/ and every three 



years over 1,500 ' masters ' and 



some 300 ' doctors/ or a total of 



123,000 successful graduates in the 



three grades every six years. (In 



all the universities of Europe the 



enrolment is less than 110,000.) 



With regard then to mere num- 

 bers the recent changes in the ex- 

 amination system affect some two 

 million men, the flower of the na- 

 tion. Of supreme significance is the part which they have played and 

 are still playing in the national life. As Mr. E. E. Lewis has so well 

 expressed it, the competitive civil service examinations of China have 

 resulted in : 



First : A literary caste, which fills practically all the offices of the empire, 

 and which is, therefore, the ruling force in the affairs of China, influencing the 

 throne, and providing the administrators of the government. Second: The 

 literati are the guardians of letters, and the examplars of the ' orthodox ' re- 

 ligion. With them, letters and religion are not distinct, but the inseparable 

 parts of a whole. Third: Not only are they the practical rulers of the em- 

 pire, but in all matters pertaining to western civilization or progress, com- 

 mercial and educational, they were up to 1898 the most absolutely conserva- 

 tive. Fourth: Not only have they been the rulers and the conservatives of 

 China, but the student class was in the nineteenth century Christianity's 

 strongest opponent. Besides blocking the wheels of what all western nations 

 consider progress, they, as a class, for years stood athwart the pathway of 

 Christianity with sullen defiance. 



Now, by a recent imperial edict practically the whole scheme of 

 literary civil service examinations is abolished, and no better indica- 

 tion of the depth to which new ideas have permeated the empire could 

 be given than the fact that as yet, at least, scarcely a word of protest 

 or remonstrance has been raised, even by this class of influential men 



Literary Degree Poles, erected in the 

 native village of the graduates. 



