Beat the'Demons of &nbsp;the Eight-legged Essay:&quot; Reflection on the Abolishment of Imperial Examination Systerm after One Hundred Years

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Studies in Qing History ›› 2017, Vol. 0 ›› Issue (1) : 1-32.

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Beat the'Demons of the Eight-legged Essay:" Reflection on the Abolishment of Imperial Examination Systerm after One Hundred Years

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Abstract

Since the late Qing Dynasty，the Imperial Examination System has always been narrowly regarded as an examination system distinguished by the Eight-legged essay. Therefore，the Imperial Examination System was fiercely criticized and demonized. In fact，there was a rich content to the ImperialExamination System，such as official selection，mobility for talented individuals，optimized allocation of personnel，local justice，and so on. The content of the examination，not only tested the scholars’familiarity with classical knowledge，but policy questions also dealt with the actual business of governing.The abolishment of the Imperial Examination System resulted in the end of official selection based oneducation，the destruction of optimized allocation of personnel，as well as the disappearance of gentry society and the Chinese style system of representation.

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YANG Nianqun. Beat the'Demons of the Eight-legged Essay:" Reflection on the Abolishment of Imperial Examination Systerm after One Hundred Years[J]. Studies in Qing History. 2017, 0(1): 1-32

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