Inheritance and Innovation of Talent Selection System: The Examination Yuan
摘要
“The fundamental work in running a country is merely ‘talent selection’ and ‘administration’. With the latter resting on the former, there is no better choice than a fair examination system to select talents.” (Shen, 1991, p.1) Therefore, ancient China created the world-famous imperial examination system. The selection mechanism of public officials has taken the lead for thousands of years, and even become the origin of the modern civil service examination system represented by Britain. Quite a few people even consider the imperial examination system as China’s “Fifth Invention” besides the Four Great Inventions and as the greatest contribution to the whole world in the field of spiritual civilization (Guangming Daily, 2011).