12th September.
Amone the Emperor Kuang Hsii's reforms, whose promulgation was the cause of his removal from power by his aunt, the Empress Dowager, in 1898, was one for the abolition of the examinations which for centuries had made China famous as the one autocratic coun: ry where by sheer intellectual merit the son' of the poorest peasant could rise to' the highest offices in the Empire. These examinations were regarded as part of the very bone and sinew of the Chinese constitution; China without her examinations was unthinkable Every foreign writer on China pointed out that China's decay was in reality due to these very exuminations and to the course of study which the student. who hoped® for success must follow. A thorough knowledge of the literature of two thousand and more years ago was the passport to success;. what the Literary Chancellor' himself had learnt when he was a candidate, no more and no less, was the measure of the knowledge which the Chinese student who hoped for a degree, the key to official life, must possess, Prompted by Kang Vu-wei, who was the Emiperor's secret adviser in all his reforms, the Emperor on the 23rd of June, 1898, issued a decree to the Board of Rites, ordering that Board entirely remodel the examinations, saying: "We have been compelled to -issue this' decree because our. examinations have degenerated to the, lowest pain!, and we see no other way to remedy matters than by
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.