The outbreak of the fraud case in the Susong Provincial Examination Center has once again put the reform of scientific examinations on the agenda.
Originally, the content of the imperial examination in the Shun Dynasty was very different from that in the previous dynasty. The main reason was that the eight-legged essay was changed to policy theory, the content of the Six Classics was reduced, and the proportion of the assessment of history books was increased.
However, this also leads to the fact that when judging papers, the subjective tendency of the examiner has a much greater impact on the final scores of the candidates than in the era of eight-legged essays.
After all, the eight-part essay is a style of writing that has clear requirements in terms of writing logic: break the topic, carry the topic, start the speech, enter the topic, start the part, middle part, back part, end part...
This is a particularly standard, particularly normative, and particularly reasonable narrative logic for argumentative essays.
As an examination style, the eight-legged essay has its unique advantage, which is that it is highly formalized. This can be compared with the poems and poems in the imperial examinations of the Tang and Song Dynasties.
In the early Northern Song Dynasty, there was always controversy about the imperial examination. One of the focus issues of the controversy was whether to use poems and poems to select scholars.
Many officials at that time believed that the assessment type of poems and poems was of little significance. The imperial court would not be able to select talents by using such useless things for examinations. Therefore, when the imperial examination reform in Xining was carried out, poems and poems were abandoned.
But looking at it now, this view is actually rather one-sided. Although poetry has nothing to do with actual politics, it meets an important requirement of standardized examinations, which is to have objective evaluation criteria.
It's the same as writing poetry, but if your poem doesn't rhyme, your score will be low.
This is an advantage of a highly formalized style, which can provide clear criteria for judging papers.
Because it is actually difficult to have an objective standard for the quality of the content. If there is not a big difference in knowledge, insight, etc., then the high score and the low score are closely related to the personal preferences of the judge. The eight-part essay
The situation is similar, that is, highly formalized external stylistic features can provide objective criteria for evaluation.
If we really look into it carefully, we can see that the policies are actually just words on paper, and their usefulness in selecting talents may not be able to play an immediate reform role.
To say that the most objective thing is probably Tie Jing, which is fill-in-the-blank questions. However, the disadvantage of this examination method is that the degree of differentiation is too low. After all, the scope of the examination is limited, and everyone can memorize it. There will be no gap in the examination, and it will not be affordable.
For the purpose of selection. The eight-part essay obviously has a higher degree of distinction in form and content than the Tie Jing.
The eight-part essay is actually better in terms of fairness than the policies currently being promoted by Dashun.
The recent fraud case in the Susong Provincial Examination Center is that the candidates and the examiners colluded with each other to take advantage of the system flaws of the standardized evaluation of policy theory examinations, which made it possible for poor candidates to pass the examination and even participate in more advanced examinations.
In the examination, even the imperial examination for selecting Jinshi was affected.
Its bad influence was not limited to the scope of one province, which eventually led to the death of several high-ranking officials of the third rank and above, making people in several southeastern provinces panic.
Therefore, the content of the imperial examinations in the Shun Dynasty has returned to the direction of standardized development after this imperial examination fraud case.
Although the main item of the exam is policy theory, the main textbooks referenced in the exam are Zhuzi and the Twenty-Four Histories instead of the Four Books and Five Classics. There is a trend in which the status of history is rising, and the status of Confucianism is declining. It can be said that at this point,
The Shun Dynasty restored the Tang Dynasty and abandoned the emphasis on Confucian classics since the Song Dynasty.
However, the entire writing logic and writing standards of the policy argument have been greatly strengthened, and the content that candidates were originally allowed to express freely has also been greatly restricted.
In this regard, Li Laiheng has no good solution for the time being. After all, the eight-part essay has been popular for hundreds of years, so it certainly does not have some institutional advantages.
It is still very difficult for the new policy theory examination to completely replace stereotyped writing in all aspects.
Later, Li Laiheng simply gave instructions to the official government and the ritual government to restore the Ming Fa, Ming Shu, Ming Suan and other examination subjects of the Tang Dynasty.
The imperial examinations in the Tang Dynasty were held every year, and the subjects tested mainly included six subjects, namely, Jinshi, Mingjing, Xiucai, Mingfa, Mingshu, and Mingshu.
Among them, the Jinshi, Mingjing, and Xiucai subjects tested the creation of the Four Books and Five Classics as well as poems and poems, which were also the prototype of the content of the later imperial examinations in the Song and Ming Dynasties.
There are three subjects: Ming Fa, Ming Shu, and Ming Suan. The test is about the art of Xing Ming Qian Gu.
Due to the separation of officials and officials in the late Tang Dynasty, the art of punishment, money and grain became a knowledge and skill monopolized by the officials, and ordinary officials did not master it.
Moreover, due to the three subjects of Ming Fa, Ming Shu, and Ming Calculation in the Tang Dynasty, even after passing the exam, you can only start from the ninth rank, the official career.
Science people.
Therefore, people with higher level and better talent rarely devote their energy to the "little skills" of clarifying the law and calculating the punishment, name, money and grain.
Even today's Dashun mainly lets some subordinate officials from the previous dynasty teach Xingming Qiangu courses in the township official school. However, most of the graduates of the township official school only work as county-level field envoys and judicial referrals.
A low-level official position.
This is very different from the difference between being a candidate and being a Jinshi. You can start directly from the county magistrate level, and your official career.asxs.
However, the Shun Dynasty used township official schools to train lower-level administrative officials, which was at least better than the Ming Dynasty, which allowed subordinate officials to inbreed, replace hereditary officials, and grasp local administrative power.
Officials trained in rural official schools have, on the one hand, clean origins, and on the other hand, their channels for advancement. Although they are not as good as scholars who came from a good background, they are still better than the subordinate officials in the past, and they have the opportunity to be promoted to the third rank or above.
of senior officials.
In this way, rural officials will not resort to corruption and use the little power they have to the limit without caring about their future because they can only stay at the grassroots level throughout their career.
After all, rural officials have to consider that when they are promoted to the center of the imperial court in the future, if their past dark history is revealed by political opponents, etc., so they generally have more concerns when handling administrative affairs at the grassroots level, and their behavior is more corrupt than in the previous dynasty.
There are far fewer subordinate staff.
Now Li Laiheng's intention is to improve the status of the township officials' schools. After all, the establishment of township officials' schools in the past during the Shun Dynasty was mainly due to the excessive and insufficient manpower of grassroots officials. It was a temporary measure and not a long-term policy.
The emperor intended to include several contents assessed in the township official schools, such as arithmetic, geography, drawing, criminal naming, defense and other "little skills", into the scope of the imperial examination.
This rumor spread like wildfire, immediately triggering protests from a large number of Imperial College students. They even risked their lives and surrounded the palace gates to prevent the imperial court from implementing this new measure of imperial examination reform.
After all, in the past, the eight-legged essay was replaced by policy theory, and the classics was replaced by history. For most scholars, it only increased the difficulty of adapting a little bit, and they could be mastered by spending a few months on surprise training.
Moreover, the policy reform is fair to all candidates, and the asxs and basics are the same. Whoever masters it faster depends on their talent.
But now the content of the examination of criminal names and Qiangu has been added to the imperial examination. These brand-new things are not as easy to adapt to as the study of Confucian classics is replaced by the study of history.
What's more, whether they are graduates of the rural official school, subordinate officials of the previous dynasty, or even local masters and lawyers, their knowledge base in punishment, name, money and valley is much better than that of the scholars!
Isn't such an examination completely unfair?
What's more, is it to completely hand over the scholars of the dynasty to the hands of a group of subordinate officials who have no shame and morality and have no understanding of the principles of spring and autumn?