閥閱

On a second thought, the admission system of many kindergartens and primary schools gives me a deja vu feeling of the ancient China.

You know what, in the Han (漢) dynasty, families of the upper social class used to put up two stone columns at the side of the gate door of their house. The one on the right side of the gate described the merits and achievements of the family and was called "閥"; that on the left gave details of specific government titles that members of this family held in the past, it was called "閱".

The catch is: the government selected its officials largely by the information on these two columns rather than the capability of the candidate living inside the house.

Well, this discriminating system was maintained until the Tang (唐) dynasty, when the empire used the Imperial Examination (科舉) for the selection of government official. Although the examination system was heavily criticized by many authorities, I tend to agree with Ch'ien Mu (錢穆): It was by and large a fair system; young people from the lower social class had a more-or-less equal chance of gaining entrance to the central government. In other words, it creates hope for the poor people.

That's all we need to keep the society in harmony.

PS. To be fair, part of the problem was that paper remained expensive in late Han dynasty and printing was not invented until the Tang era. Books were all handwritten and therefore unbelievably expensive - so that only the rich people could afford to have education.