Original: housha source wechat official account: housha has been authorized to reprint
The 2022 national unified college entrance examination begins today (June 7). This year, a total of 11.93 million candidates applied for the national college entrance examination. There were 330000 ordinary examination halls and 1.02 million invigilators and examination staff.
What is the college entrance examination? Simply put, it is the national college entrance examination, also known as university entrance examination.
The college entrance examination has two basic meanings:
1? For the country, it is the most basic system for selecting future talents;
2? For individuals, it is the fairest way to change their destiny.
The selection of talented people is an important condition for the healthy development of society, and all countries have made great efforts in this regard.
However, the difficulty is not the establishment of talent selection system, but how to ensure fairness?
At the beginning of the establishment of Chinese dynasties, they all attached great importance to the selection of talents, because the world was calm and a hundred wastes were waiting for prosperity. However, after the establishment of a certain selection system, fairness was lost due to various factors, and then a new round of dynasty change began. In the past twothousand years, China has had many talent selection systems.
Nine-rank system
This is the earliest relatively perfect system of “appointing the virtuous and selecting the capable” in China. It was established in the Cao Wei period, also known as the nine grade official system. It evolved from the way in which prefectures and states were raised and preserved in the Qin and Han Dynasties.
In the Han Dynasty, it adopted three ways:
Conscription (imperial court);
To remove (a cabinet);
Recommendation (local).
The purpose is to select talents and talents from all over the country and enrich them into the ranks of civil servants and military generals. But the biggest difficulty is how to identify talents? If there is no quantitative standard objectively, it is difficult to realize the subjective desire.
Han Yu of the Tang Dynasty said, “there are often thousands of miles of horses, but Bole is not often.”
In other words, the most important part of this system is those who can identify the virtuous, but why “Bole does not often exist”? On the surface, there are very few people who have the ability to identify talents. In the face of self-interest or pressure, there are even fewer “Bole” who can be moral, fair and equitable.
This was the case in the Han Dynasty. After the emergence of a stable powerful group in the country, “recruiting, eliminating and recommending” became their private tools. The children of famous families and old officials became the biggest beneficiaries.
Finally, the ugly situation of forming a party for personal gain and running for competition was formed. The original intention of the Han Dynasty was completely distorted.
After the fall of the Han Dynasty, the rulers of the Cao Wei Dynasty had seen this kind of malpractice. As a way of improvement, the Cao Wei Dynasty introduced the nine grade Zhongzheng system, setting up “Dazhong Zheng” in prefectures and “Zhongzheng” in counties.
Men of the right age, whether or not they become official, are all included in the status file.
Quality refers to moral conduct; Status refers to talent performance.
This is a fuzzy quantitative standard, which is better than that of the Han Dynasty. Men of school age are divided into nine grades:
Up, up, middle, up, down, up, middle, middle, down, up, up, middle, down.
Officials use this standard to absorb fresh blood. However, how many people can dazhongzheng and Zhongzheng judge? Therefore, the power of judgment can only be released to famous families and local gentry and tyrants.
So, how can a son of a tyrant and a son of a peasant be classified? The “evaluation form” received by Zhongzheng in the county was written by the tyrant. If he doesn’t check it, the children of the tyrant will have an advantage.
In the end, standards have become family status and wealth. The so-called nine grades of integrity have become empty shelves.
“Biography of Liu Chong in the book of Tang Dynasty” summarizes the nine grade Zhongzheng system in ten words: “there is no humble family in the top grade, and there is no aristocratic family in the bottom grade.”
Although there are still outstanding people in the aristocratic family, they have neither loyalty to serve the imperial court nor ambition to open up new territories and expand the territory because it is too easy to get fame and wealth.
Most of them were waiting for death. In the Cao Wei period, there was talk. In the Wei Dynasty, there were he Yan and Wang Bi, and in the Jin Dynasty, there were seven sages in the bamboo forest. They were keen to pursue celebrities, act as opinion leaders, and some played with medicine stones and were independent.
On the surface, they evade politics, but in essence, they are political speculation. Sometimes their cleverness is mistaken by their cleverness. For example, he Yan’s fate is that he Yan is a barbarian, because speculation fails.
In the northern and Southern Dynasties, they did not want to make progress, just as the so-called “480 temples in the Southern Dynasty were surrounded by misty rain”.
This shows that the nine grades system has failed in the selection, training and use of talents and must be changed.
Sui Tang Kaike
The Sui Dynasty once again completed the unification of China and began to establish a new talent selection system. During the reign of Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty, there was a talent department, but the resistance came from the strong inertia of the nine grade system.
People who have been admitted from the people will be hit by the hatred of aristocratic bureaucrats.
After Yang Guang, the emperor of the Sui Dynasty, ascended the throne, he decisively attacked the privileges of the aristocratic family and established the Jinshi Section, which took the examination results as the talent standard.
Through “Xiang, Xu, Guozi” and other institutions, Yang Guang gave Confucian scholars everywhere, rich and poor, the chance to pass the exam and get the chance to choose officials.
However, the Sui Dynasty soon collapsed, and this matter can only be left to the new dynasty.
The system of selecting scholars by scientific research in the Tang Dynasty was perfected from the old system in the Sui Dynasty. There are three ways of examination: imperial examination, apprentice examination (student in the school), and township member examination.
As for the children of aristocratic families, the Tang Dynasty specially set up “two halls and six schools” for them to avoid blocking the way of others.
The second hall is Hongwen hall and Chongwen hall, which only accept the relatives of the emperor and the children of dignitaries.
The six schools are: Guozi school, Taixue school, Simen school, law school, calligraphy school and mathematics school.
Guozi: the children of officials above the third grade; Imperial College: above five grades; Four courses: above seven grades, these are management talents.
Law, calligraphy and Mathematics: seven grades and below (practical talents).
This division was the most fair in the feudal dynasties, because one of the villagers tried it.
The poor man in white can be listed in the counties and prefectures by virtue of the “Huai die” and take part in the township member test to obtain the opportunity to become an official.
After the rise of the imperial examination system, it greatly enriched the talent pool of the Tang Dynasty and was one of the main policies to create a prosperous Tang Dynasty.
However, in the prosperous age of the Tang Dynasty, the problem of the “big name” family came into being, and the genealogy became a kind of selection standard. In the Tang Dynasty, for more than 400 years, there were 23 Zai Fu surnamed Cui, 11 Du Ge surnamed Yang, 10 Lu surnames and 8 Zheng surnames
The talent selection system is distorted into attachment, trust and care, and is no longer based on genuine talent and learning.
At the end of the Tang Dynasty, Huang Chao was a scholar who failed in the exam. After the uprising, he killed aristocratic family members to vent his anger, but unexpectedly cleared the door for the Song Dynasty.
Song, yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties
In the Song Dynasty, Wang Anshi once reorganized the Imperial College and established a system of three-way promotion. Students who were promoted to the upper dormitory could be directly sent to the ceremony department. After Wang Anshi left office, this method was abolished.
The subjects of imperial examination in the Tang Dynasty were complex. In the Song Dynasty, scholars were only divided into poetry and Fu and classics and righteousness. However, the privileged group developed the “Enyin” system. After the standard was changed, the result was rampant.
Zhaosicheng (Liqingzhao’s uncle), the Secretary of the central library, saw the crisis. He reported to Gaozong of song: “a lonely and cold man should stay in the election department for ten years. At the age of the ancestral hall, there are about 4000 nephews and nephews. Ten years later, there will be an increase of 12000 people. If the science and technology department fails to select a scholar, he will see that a poor man has not been transferred for 30 years!”
However, as soon as Gaozong died, the vested interest groups intensified their efforts to undermine the fairness of the imperial examination system.
The Yuan Dynasty merged the two branches of the Song Dynasty and then added game theory. The provincial examination and the general examination were carried out in a unified way, and the Ming and Qing Dynasties generally continued.
In the Ming Dynasty, it was stipulated that non Imperial College Students and students from prefectures and counties could not take the imperial examination. In this way, the school became an important stage for students to become useful.
At first, the Ming Dynasty also paid attention to fairness, but later it still failed. The established interest groups rose again, repackaged the Han Dynasty’s filial piety and integrity, and also engaged in “Su supervision”. Power and money became a ladder to rise until the country was subjugated.
In the Qing Dynasty, the imperial examination, tribute and supervision, and Yin Sheng were listed as the right way; We have classified saving and donation as different choices. Poor families and dignitaries go their own way.
During the Jiaqing period, officials from outside the Taoist temple and those from inside the Taoist temple and those from the doctor could all buy officials.
It has become a overtaking passage for the rich children. It has caused serious damage to the fairness of the imperial examination. After ten years of poor schooling, I’m not as rich as my father.
Yuan Shikai rectified the examination system during the period of Beiyang. After the establishment of the Nanjing government, he also set up an “examination institute” to select talents, but with little success.
China is weak and plundered by foreign enemies. There is no normal education system or selection system. People with knowledge, blood and ambition all threw themselves into the revolution.
The original intention of both the nine grades system and the imperial examination system is to be fair. At least, they try their best to provide an equal way to rise, but the resistance is getting greater and greater each time.
After the establishment and improvement of the college entrance examination system, new China has achieved maximum equality. Whether boss Ma or boss Wang has tens of millions in his family, his children can’t change their college entrance examination scores. Otherwise, you can take money to “donate” abroad.
But a few years ago, some people were advocating that the quality that could not be quantified should be included in the examination standard. Then, do you want temperament? Those who want to add “quality” to the test scores can never come from the masses.
In order to undermine fairness, some people distort the college entrance examination system in the field of public opinion.
Japanese children have a strong character when they travel with heavy loads.
Korean children are naked in the snow, which is called perseverance.
Chinese children study hard and are called “examination machines”.
Distorting the college entrance examination is to undermine fairness. Looking at Chinese history, who has been undermining fairness?
Talent is the foundation of the country, and fairness is the lifeline of the college entrance examination.
The college entrance examination is not the whole of life. There are many ways in life, but as long as we follow the right path, there will always be a bright future.