As people free from material cares, they were able to devote themselves
to scholarship. They went back to the old writings and studied them once
more. They even began to identify themselves with the nobles of feudal
times, to adopt the rules of good behaviour and the ceremonial described
in the Confucianist books, and very gradually, as time went on, to make
these their textbooks of good form. From this point the Confucianist
ideals first began to penetrate the official class recruited from the
gentry, and then the state organization itself. It was expected that an
official should be versed in Confucianism, and schools were set up for
Confucianist education. Around 100 B.C. this led to the introduction of
the examination system, which gradually became the one method of
selection of new officials. The system underwent many changes, but
remained in operation in principle until 1904. The object of the
examinations was not to test job efficiency but command of the ideals of
the gentry and knowledge of the literature inculcating them: this was
regarded as sufficient qualification for any position in the service of
the state.

In theory this path to training of character and to admission to the
state service was open to every "respectable" citizen. Of the
traditional four "classes" of Chinese society, only the first two,
officials (_shih_) and farmers (_nung_) were always regarded as fully
"respectable" (_liang-min_). Members of the other two classes, artisans
(_kung_) and merchants (_shang_), were under numerous restrictions.
Below these were classes of "lowly people" (_ch'ien-min_) and below
these the slaves which were not part of society proper. The privileges
and obligations of these categories were soon legally fixed. In
practice, during the first thousand years of the existence of the
examination system no peasant had a chance to become an official by
means of the examinations. In the Han period the provincial officials