@article{1479435,
      recid = {1479435},
      author = {Elman, Benjamin A.,},
      title = {Civil Examinations and Meritocracy in Late Imperial China  /},
      pages = {1 online resource :},
      abstract = {During China's late imperial period (roughly 1400-1900  CE), men gathered by the millions every two or three years  outside official examination compounds sprinkled across  China. Only one percent of candidates would complete the  academic regimen that would earn them a post in the  administrative bureaucracy. Civil Examinations assesses the  role of education, examination, and China's civil service  in fostering the world's first professional class based on  demonstrated knowledge and skill. Civil examinations were  instituted in China in the seventh century CE, but in the  Ming and Qing eras they were at the center of a complex  social web that held together the intellectual, political,  and economic life of imperial China. Local elites and the  court sought to influence how the government regulated the  classical curriculum and selected civil officials. As a  guarantor of educational merit, examinations tied the  dynasty to the privileged gentry and literati classes--both  ideologically and institutionally. China eliminated its  classical examination system in 1905. But this carefully  balanced, constantly contested piece of social engineering,  worked out over centuries, was an early harbinger of the  meritocratic regime of college boards and other entrance  exams that undergirds higher education in much of the world  today.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/1479435},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674726048},
}