Civil Service
Though the European enthusiasm regarding China died away after 1789, it left behind it one very important practical heritage. This is the modern civil service system now prevailing in many Western countries.
As mentioned earlier, the Chinese examination system, from which the various European civil service systems are ultimately derived, seems to have been started in 165 B.C., when certain candidates for public office were called to the Chinese capital for examination by the emperor on their moral excellence. In following centuries the system grew until finally almost anyone who wished to become an official had to prove his worth by passing written government examinations.
From A.D. 1370 onward, the system was adjusted to include three sets of examinations, one held in the local counties, another in the capitals of the provinces, and a third — the highest examination of all — in Peking, the national capital. Some were conducted annually, and others once every three years. The honors thus attained corresponded roughly to our B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees. This system operated with great regularity until it was finally abolished in 1905. Even today the government of China is officially pledged to its re-establishment, though in greatly modified form.
A Chinese Examination Paper
The examinations took place within huge walled enclosures, inside of which were thousands of small brick cells, laid out in straight rows like the houses of a town. Each cell contained a bench and table, and housed a nervous candidate. Every precaution was taken to prevent cheating. Candidates were searched before entering the enclosure, carefully watched while the examination was in progress, and not permitted to leave until it was over. Each examination commonly lasted several days and was of unbelievable difficulty. In 1889, for example, out of more than 14,000 candidates taking the examination in Peking, only slightly over 300 passed. The reward for success, however, was entry into the honored ranks of the mandarins who governed the country.
The chief defect in this system was its emphasis upon literary style and a detailed knowledge of the Chinese classics, at the expense of more practical matters. Another was the failure of the Chinese government to provide anything approaching a national system of free education. Hence, most candidates had to prepare themselves for the examinations at their own expense and the inevitable result was that the majority of those able to take them came from the well-to-do. Nevertheless, the system had two important advantages. It was open, with trifling exceptions, to all members of society, thus making it the world's most democratic means, before modern times, for selecting government officials. And it ensured the presence in the government of men of high education.
Nothing like such a system seems to have been known among the other great civilizations of antiquity. In the universities of Europe, written examinations seem to have been unheard of before 1702. As for government-administered civil service examinations, these were of considerably later date. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Chinese examinations were described repeatedly in Western literature on China of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and aroused intense admiration among such men as Voltaire and Quesnay.
In France the earliest civil service system seems to have been established in 1791 shortly after the outbreak of the Revolution. After ten years, however, it was allowed to lapse, but was re-established in the 1840's. Though little attention seems to have been given to its early history, several writers on French history maintain that it owes its origin to the Chinese example.
The origins of the British civil service are better known. During the eighteenth century a number of Englishmen wrote in praise of the Chinese examination system, some of them going so far as to urge the adoption for England of something similar. The first concrete step in this direction was taken by the British East India Company in 1806. In that year the Company established a small college near London whose purpose was to train Company employees for administrative service in India, the British-controlled portions of which were at that time still governed by the Company on behalf of the British Crown. The proposal for establishing this college came, significantly, from members of the East India Company's trading post in Canton, China. Thus the principle was established of using for public administration men who possessed certain preparatory qualifications.
During the next several decades many Englishmen referred to the example of China as an argument for establishing a universal civil service system in England itself. Most persistent among them was Thomas Taylor Meadows, a gifted man who served for many years in the British diplomatic service in China. In 1847 he published a book, Desultory Notes on the Government and People of China, whose main purpose, in his own words, was "to urge the institution of Public Service Competitive Examinations for all British subjects with a view to the Improvement of the British Executive and the Union of the British Empire." In it he described the Chinese system and argued that "the long duration of the Chinese empire is solely and altogether owing to the good government which consists in the advancement of men of talent and merit only."
Such public statements finally led the British government to create a committee to investigate the matter. In l853 this committee presented to Parliament a report entitled "The Organization of the Permanent Civil Service." The report recommended that a central board of examiners be formed to prepare examinations on the general knowledge of the candidates; that these examinations should be held regularly and should be open to all; and that promotion in government service should be based on merit instead of favoritism. All these were principles that had governed the Chinese system for many centuries. Though bitterly attacked in Parliament, the report resulted in the creation of Britain's first civil service commission in 1855.
The British example was undoubtedly chiefly responsible for the establishment in America of a similar civil service system. Nevertheless, some Chinese influence is also apparent. When, for example, Thomas A. Jenckes of Rhode Island first recommended to Congress in 1868 that an American civil service system be created, his report on the subject contained a chapter on the civil service in China. The same year Emerson, who, as we have seen, was interested in China, made a speech in Boston at a reception in honor of a visiting embassy from China, in which he praised the Chinese examination system and urged that the Jenckes proposal be adopted.
As in England, however, many people who derived personal benefit from the old spoils system strongly opposed the new idea. Some protested that the use of examinations to determine the fitness of candidates for office was Chinese, foreign, and, therefore, "un-American!" Consequently, it was not until 1883 that the proposal of l 868 was finally passed by the Congress.
Today the principle of the civil service system has been accepted in virtually all democratic countries. More and more, persons are entering government service because of personal merit rather than political favoritism. As a result, much of the political corruption that was so common a century ago has disappeared. The civil service system is undoubtedly one of China's most precious intellectual gifts to the West.
