REMOLDING THE RULING CLASS 149
tern in Chinese history that a number of other adverse consequences had flowed
from the domination of the system as the main method of recruiting officials.
The most serious charge was the diversion of attention from the proper end of
education - moral cultivation - to the means of education, skill in the use of
words. This tendency had produced an excessive diversion into useless knowl-
edge, poetic style, flights of rhetoric, and rote memorization, rather than useful
knowledge, ethics and problems of statecraft, simple and serious writing style,
and true understanding of Confucian moral principles.^102 The competitive
atmosphere of the examinations had stimulated avarice and ambition, created a
surplus of degree-holders and aspirants for degrees that wasted considerable
human resources, and drained the countryside of scholars and potential moral
leaders, are of whom flocked to the capital where the examinations were held.
Yu believed that the examination system in Korea had not only failed to incul-
cate proper Confucian moral standards among the men preparing for the exam-
inations, but became one of the major tools used by the semihereditary yangban
to perpetuate their own power. Consistent with his view that misguided institu-
tions were responsible for human tragedies, he held that the failure of man
(women were not central to his concept of the problem here) in living up to his
inner moral capacity for goodness was not caused only by individual short-
comings, but by the examination system, which by its inherent evils had led men
astray. "If we did not have the examination system," as he put it, "then even if
you tried to whip people on a daily basis to force them to be frivolous and vain,
you still could not make them be that way."^103 He concluded, therefore, that a
plan to rectify it, or replace it with something else, was the method by which a
proper elite could be obtained and true methods of education and recruitment
achieved.
REFORM IN THE SUNG: REDISCOVERY OF THE ANCIENT MODEL
Utility: Wang An-shih and Chu HsiAs we have seen above, Yu was interested in the proposals made by Chinese
scholars and officials for replacing the examination system. In discussing the
Sung period Yu chose to focus on the views of leading statesmen and philoso-
phers rather than provide the kind of chronological description used for previ-
ous dynasties. Despite Wang An-shih's poor reputation in both Sung and
post-Sung literature on statecraft and Yu's own objections to Wang's "green
shoots" (ch'ing-miao) grain-loan policy, in many respects he found himself in
agreement with Wang's analysis of education and recruitment, possibly because
he was aware of Chu Hsi's praise for Wang's policies on education.^104
He was undoubtedly happy to quote Wang's argument for the adoption of rec-
ommendation procedures, an improved school system, and instruction in knowl-
edge of greater utility. Wang had praised the practice of ancient rulers in selecting
only the best men to be high ministers, and then delegating responsibility to them