204 SOCIAL REFORMman, and promoted from one scholarly title to another and afforded rank and
emoluments - all part of the same classical model extolled by Yu Hyongwon.
Chongjo held that it was not necessary to reproduce antiquity in its entirety; one
could also adopt the best of any age and adapt it to one's own time and place.
Thus, it might not be possible to recreate the Chou, but it would be feasible to
implement the principle of local recommendation, borrow the Ming practice of
enclosing examination candidates in sealed rooms, utilize the Han system of
the recommendation of the worthy, the good, and the filial, and adopt Chu Hsi's
recommendation to examine men in annual sequence in the Classics, Four Books,
Histories, and policy matters. "These [practices] would in no way do damage
to the intention of the ancients and still be suitable for implementation in the
present day."112
Despite all the pious references to antiquity and centuries of criticism of the
examination system, Chongjo's decree did not really sound the clarion call for
a radical elimination of the examination system. If the government-sponsored
Chung/)o MunhOnbigo can be taken as a collection of royally approved opin-
ion. one might conclude that Yu Hyongwon had played a significant but not exclu-
sive role in establishing state recognition of reform ideas by the late eighteenth
century, and yet this apparent victory in the realm of ideas had not brought the
prospect of meaningful reform any closer to reality.
Without the prospect of abolition of the examinations, the likelihood of major
financing of a totally refurbished system of government schools was hardly likely
either. By the eighteenth century, the main problem in the administration of
schools was no longer restoration of the defunct state schools ofthe early Choson
period, but the expansion of private academies. The main trend in educational
reform was putting a rein on the private academies. Even before Yu's death cer-
tain kings were imposing limits on their quotas of students and slaves, a process
that culminated in the Taewongun's bold moves between 1864 and I87! to abol-
ish all but forty-two academies and impose a number of other restrictions. 1 13
Yu did attack the private academies for distorting the true purpose of educa-
tion, and he was critical of the conversion of schools to private, political ends
by the yangban. His detailed regulations for the restoration of government schools
also show that he intended state schools to take over functions currently being
exercised by the private academies. 114 Furthermore, his contribution to the spread
of reform ideas in general probably did have some influence in the Taewongun's
reform program. Although the Taewongun did not abolish the examination sys-
tem, he did adopt limited versions of a number of the proposals advocated by
Yu - reform of the regulations for the National Academy to improve its perfor-
mance and prestige, periodic testing of academy students and suspension of those
who failed to pass, adoption of a system of local recommendation of men for
special provincial examinations, recommendation of men for office by incum-
bent officials, and abolition of all but forty-seven authorized private academies. 115