142 SOCIAL REFORMtion system been adopted in the T'ang period than its critics began to voice protests
against it. During the reign ofEmperorT'ai-tsung (r. 626-49) Ma Chou deplored
the abandonment of the Han practice of judging candidates for magistrate on
their skill in management because after the Ministry of Personnel had assumed
responsibility for that, the quality and prestige of the magistrate had fallen.^69 In
the mid-seventh century Wei Hsiian-t'ung attributed the problem to the monop-
oly of personnel review and recommendation by "the hands of only a few men"
employed by the Ministries of Personnel and War, who were isolated in the cap-
ital from the realities of local affairs. Wei sought to reduce the responsibilities
of the Ministry of Personnel and require all officials from the third to the ninth
rank to recommend candidates for officeJo
Wei also argued that not only had the examination system failed to eliminate
the reliance on relationships with noble and aristocratic families and lineages
(munbl51) for gaining office and promotion, it had also functioned as a short-cut
to regular posts for holders of honorary and irregular positions. Restoration of
the Han recommendation system was the only way to obtain suitable magis-
trates with knowledge of ethical norms and ritual proceduresJ'
Emperor Kao-tsung did in fact ask his officials to recommend others for office,
but his prime minister, Li An-chi, complained that higher officials were only
recommending favorites to build their own factions (peng-tang), and many had
chosen to remain silent rather than run the risk of criticismY The idea was quickly
abandoned, but later in the dynasty in the 790S Lu Chih argued that the only
certain method to predict a man's reliability was to depend on village recom-
mendation and recommendations by senior officials for their subordinates and
provincial governors for their district magistrates. All superficial marks of char-
acter, such as "clever words, an insinuating appearance, and sycophancy" had
to be discounted, and recommenders had to be held responsible for their word.
His proposaL too. was not adoptedJ3
A third type of solution was a compromise between the examination and rec-
ommendation systems. Yang Kuan, an official in the Board of Rites during the
reign of Emperor T'ai-tsung. proposed a recommendation examination to be called
"the examination for filial and honest men." Candidates would be recommended
from their native villages to the prefectural magistrates to stand for a special exam-
ination confined to knowledge of the classics and its practical policy applica-
tions. Students at the National Academy would also be recommended by their
instructors and honored by participation in a wine rituaJ.74 Emperor T'ai-tsung
was sympathetic to Yang Kuan's idea, but he decided against it because the exam-
ination system had been in use too long to be changedJ5
Sung Anti-Etamination SentimentYu cited two memorials of the great Sung reform minister, Wang An-shih, to
Emperor Shen-tsung (r. 1068-86) in which Wang registered the same complaints
about the adverse effects of the examination system made in the T'ang dynasty: