An emperor does not rule a country alone. He needs to recruit officials to assist in governing the realm. The Song founder inherited a civil service examinations system originating in the Sui dynasty (581–618) that rose to prominence in the Tang dynasty (618–907), whose chief purpose became the selection of deserving candidates for public service. Yet the extent to which the examination system could select genuinely capable and morally upright officials was always in question, since it evaluated candidates based primarily on written work, not personal conduct. In reaction, some officials in the Northern Song (960–1127) argued that government schools should play some role in the official recruitment process to better guarantee the moral comportment of students. Fan Zhongyan ...
