NEW SCHOOLS 199chants, artisans, and shamans would still remain at the bottom, and even in his
new schools members of the royal family and scions of yangban would be
afforded a number of privileges that would assuage their fears and induce accep-
tance of the plan. Yet even if his systems of official schools and appointment to
office through the recommendation of morally superior individuals were achieved
and the yangban replaced by a new elite selected solely on the basis of superior
moral behavior, his new officials and students in his new schools would possess
higher status than commoners.
No matter what the nature of society outside his schools, Yu wanted to pre-
serve status as the basis for ranking the students, but only on the basis of age.
Since this would create conflicts between two systems of status, Yu had to work
out methods for resolving them, either the choice of one system over the other
depending on the locus of action, or avoidance of contact that would force an
embarrassing choice. What Yu had done was not to replace a society of status
groups with a society of atomized individuals, or reject status as a legitimate
means of social stratification, but to reject inheritance as the basis for status and
replace it with moral behavior for his encapsulated schools, for all of society
sometime in the future.
No Fear of Social DestabilizationFew Could Overcome Psychophysical Energy. To assuage opponents of his
plan to accept students of various social backgrounds into the schools and dif-
ferentiate among them only on the basis of age, Yu sought to persuade them that
the plan would have no serious destabilizing consequences for contemporary
respect relations and social structure. To prove this point he cited the current
situation in the high-level military examinations (mukwa) where men were tested
solely on their skill in archery and horseback riding. Most of the candidates were
"coarse and base people" and the successful ones were then ranked together with
the members of the hereditary elite (sajok) and commoners in terms of their mil-
itary skills. Despite this practice, he had never heard that it had resulted in dis-
respectful or disobedient behavior on the part of these people of inferior status.
"If it is like this for people with skill and strength, then how much more so should
it be for the selection of men of virtue and righteousness?"IOO In other words,
equal opportunity in recruitment does and should not lead to a disruptive egal-
itarian ethic in social life.
A more serious and telling indication of a conservative streak in his thought,
however, was his view that emphasis on moral behavior and age in the new schools
would do little to overturn the current pattern of social stratification.
"Moreover, even though it were done like this, those people who would be
members of 'the class of scholars [saryu]' would all be the sons or younger broth-
ers of hereditary lineages l sejok] anyway, As for those who might rise from the
commoners, it would be lucky if there were even one or two of" them" lUI (ital-
ics added),