Chapter 3369 3371【Education Reform】
After the reform of the official system, Xiang Nan subsequently carried out the reform of the education system.
Before this, he had opened schools in every village and township so that children could read, which greatly improved the literacy rate of the people.
Furthermore, the imperial examination has added mathematics, physics, geography, foreign languages, etc. to screen out a group of talents with comprehensive qualities. But with the growth of the empire and the needs of development, these talents alone are not enough.
The talent training mechanism is still too slow, and the skills of the trained talents are still lacking and cannot meet the needs of development.
For example, chemical talents are quite scarce, and civil engineering, geology, high-end physics, mechanical design, etc. are also facing huge gaps.
On the other hand, relying on the imperial examination, a group of talents is selected every four years, and each group only has about 200 people, which is not enough. You know, in the 21st century, China graduates tens of millions of college students every year.
Calculated based on the population ratio, in the 32nd year of Qianlong's reign, the country's population was 200 million, so the number of talents graduating every year should be as high as more than one million. But now there are only 200 people in four years, which is naturally not enough.
So the right way is to reform the education system and create more talents.
Xiang Nan continued to carry out drastic reforms, changing the schools, county schools, state schools, government schools, and Imperial College into primary schools, middle schools, universities, etc.
It consists of nine years of primary school, three years of secondary school and four years of university. For nine years of primary school, there are no tuition fees, miscellaneous fees, or book fees. From middle school to university, fees start to be charged. Each province allocates funds to establish secondary schools and universities.
There is one high school in each county, one university in each state, one master's station in each province, and only one doctoral station in Beijing. Admission based on merit.
Primary schools study mathematics, Chinese, foreign languages, physics, geography, middle schools add biology and chemistry, and universities add subjects such as physics, chemistry, finance, biology, medicine, oceanography, civil engineering, machinery, law, and chemical engineering.
And in the next twenty years, we will gradually abandon the imperial examination and instead recruit talents from universities, master's stations, and doctoral stations, and promote and reuse them.
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Such a reform is not actually radical. After all, the imperial examination system has changed significantly over the years.
Most young students have entered schools since childhood to study subjects such as foreign languages, physics, geography, and mathematics. In addition, the imperial examination has gradually changed in recent years, and the proportion of subjects such as physics, foreign languages, mathematics, and geography has increased.
At the beginning, although these subjects were also tested in the imperial examination, they were not included in the total score. It still depended on how well the eight-legged essay was written. Later, these subjects accounted for half of the total score, equally with the eight-part essay.
Nowadays, eight-part essays are no longer important and only account for the same score as mathematics, physics, geography, and foreign languages. The new generation of students has adapted to such changes.
Moreover, they are more welcoming to this kind of reform. Because in previous years, you had to pass the exam to be a civil servant before you could get an official position. Only by passing the Jinshi examination can you be sure of getting an official position.
The imperial examination was held every four years, and only one or two hundred people were admitted to each subject. As a result, many scholars have failed to read the classics and passed the exam from young to old age, and in the end they were just Hans.
But things are different now. As long as you have excellent grades, you can go to middle school. After middle school, you can go to university. You only look at your overall score. After graduation, you will be assigned a job. This is much more stable than the four-year imperial examination, so everyone welcomes it.
As for the older generation of scholars, I’m sorry. If they can’t keep up with the times, they will be abandoned by the times.
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For example, a scholar does not have to perform corvee service; he does not have to pay taxes and grain; he does not bow to officials; if a scholar commits a crime, if it is not a serious crime, it will only be punished by Confucianism. Call the slaves. Compared with scholars, the treatment of candidates is at a higher level. A person can be exempted from the land tax of one hundred and fifty acres of land and the corvee service of a dozen families;
If a person commits a crime, local officials cannot arrest and question him at will. He needs to report it to the provincial academic administration, who will come forward to educate and punish the person. If the person fails to pass the exam after repeated attempts, the court will assign a minor official, who can do it every month. Get a paycheck.
After the reform of the education system is completed and the imperial examination system is abolished, the privileges of scholars and candidates will naturally be gone. Although the scholars and scholars were very unconvinced, they were unable to think of anything they could do to the court.
The reason is very simple. Under the Qing Dynasty's rule for more than 300 years, there were only more than 400,000 scholars. In other words, the number of scholars in the Qianlong Dynasty was only one hundred thousand at most, and the number of candidates and Jinshi was even smaller.
Such a small number of people are not as large as the number of bannermen. When Xiang Nan reformed flag affairs, millions of bannermen didn't take it seriously. What did hundreds of thousands of scholars mean?
Moreover, as has been said since ancient times, "It takes ten years for a scholar to rebel." Xiang Nan will not take seriously a group of people who have read corrupt books.
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Of course, there is another important reason why scholars and scholars have not caused riots, and that is that there are many ways to make money now.
Those who are capable and capable can make a fortune without taking the imperial examination.
For example, now that trade is developed, businesses everywhere are very hungry for talents such as accountants, book offices, and assistant managers.
If you are literate, can speak foreign languages, and can calculate accounts, you can definitely hire a lot of people, and you won’t be afraid of not making any money at all.
No matter how talented you are, you can start your own business and sell silk, tea, and porcelain to Europe, and then sell furs, hams, and spices from Europe... You can't make enough money over and over again.
The Chinese people have this advantage. As long as they can survive, they will not rebel.
No matter how unprivileged those scholars and officials are, their lives are much better than those of ordinary people. Therefore, it is absolutely impossible for them to rebel at the risk of beheading.
So the most they can do is protest and make excuses, but when the court refuses to change, they have no choice but to forget it.
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With the restructuring of the education system, many scientific and technological inventions were made public by Xiang Nan.
For example, the principle, design and production of steam engines, such as the production of soap and glass, such as the production of cement, such as the design of spinning machines and looms...
Even steam engines were sold to private individuals, allowing them to spin, weave, and mine, which was much faster than using manual labor. One steam loom is as effective as eighty well-trained weavers.
Steam looms do not require wages and do not cause fatigue. They can work 24 hours a day without rest, so many big bosses are willing to buy them back.
In addition, many mine bosses saw the power of steam engines, which was much better than using horses, so they also bought them. Eventually there were more and more steam engines, and capable people developed more and more ways to use them.
For example, if a steam engine is installed on a merchant ship, it can sail freely on the water without having to use trackers to pull fiber; for example, if a steam engine is used as power to make flour, how many mules and horses can be supported; for example, if a steam engine is used to make paper, the pulp can be beaten fine and fine. uniform…
As a result, steam engines were welcomed by more and more businessmen, and the industrial revolution began to spread from top to bottom.
(End of this chapter)