Imagining the Chinese Examination System: Historical Nature and Modern Usefulness

The study of the history of the examination system in China took on a double significance in 2005, as that year marked the one hundredth anniversary of the abolition of the keju system, which arguably was founded in 605 and was continued for exactly 1,300 years. The appearance at this time of the two books under review here is especially important, because they represent the most recent rethinking of the significance of the keju for Chinese civilization and indeed for all of human society. (Each book is published in both Chinese and English.) Liu Haifeng of Xiamen University is now recognized as the foremost authority on the subject in China, and his championing of "Civil Examination Studies" (he calls it "Imperial Examination Studies" [kejuxue]) as a proper genre of academic research has received support in the Chinese scholarly community. Kejuxue daolun is representative of his work and has been chosen for discussion here. Benjamin Elman of Princeton, who is the Western leader in the field, quite convincingly has called for a comprehensive rethinking of the cultural significance of the keju examinations in late Imperial China. Although A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China came out only in 2000, he has been making his appeal for some time now. This huge work, at nearly nine hundred pages, has intimidated even the most diligent readers, and few have yet to write a review of it.¹

Let me start with Elman's book.

To begin with, it is necessary to reiterate that this is by far the most important study on the traditional Chinese civil examinations as practiced in the Ming and Qing periods. Its importance is measured by the extent to which it will influence our understanding of the institution, and I dare say that it will indeed be talked about for many years to come as the definitive study on the subject.

Elman makes the following important claims. First of all, the examination system should be understood in the context of cultural history and not simply as an aspect of the political or even the educational system. Second, the traditional Chinese examination system affected the changing structure of Chinese society and its cultural reproduction. More specifically, it influenced the pattern of social mobility and the family/lineage organization, the writing of textbooks and primers or elementary readers, and, above all, the development of scholarship and intellectual orientation. Third, the "eight-legged essays" were not necessarily such a bad literary style or examination form after all. The traditional Chinese disdain for it should be reexamined. Fourth, the examination system did not adversely affect the development of scientific studies, since there were questions on the examination that did test the candidates' knowledge about nature.² Other claims by Elman are related to his advocacy of, or a generally revisionist approach to, the examination as a social and even cultural system; for example, the imperial Chinese government did not intend to use the system to exercise ideological control, and by 1500 evidentiary scholarship based on textual research (kaoju) or criticism (kaozheng) was already on the rise, thanks to the approach to the civil examination system during the Ming dynasty.

All these claims are very important, and Elman documents them based on his meticulous research.³ Sometimes one must wonder if it was indeed necessary to do some of these extraordinarily detailed studies in order to support some minor point.⁴ Overall, however, the work is solid, comprehensive, and definitely persuasive.

My first point will be brief. This concerns the old issue of "social mobility" that has cost so much time and effort on the part of modern students of the imperial examinations. While not refuting the conclusions of researchers such as Hart-well and...