The Chinese exalt learning and, alone among the nations of
the earth, make scholarship a test of fitness for official position.
True, that scholarship moves along narrow lines of Confucian
classics, but surely such knowledge is a higher qualification for
office than the brute strength which for centuries gave precedence
among our ancestors. A Chinese writer explains as follows
the gradations in relative worth as they are esteemed by
his countrymen: ``First the scholar: because mind is superior
to wealth, and it is the intellect that distinguishes man above
the lower orders of beings, and enables him to provide food
and raiment and shelter for himself and for other creatures.
Second, the farmer: because the mind cannot act without the
body, and the body cannot exist without food, so that farming
is essential to the existence of man, especially in civilized
society. Third, the mechanic: because next to food, shelter
is a necessity, and the man who builds a house comes next in
honour to the man who provides food. Fourth, the tradesman:
because, as society increases and its wants are multiplied,
men to carry on exchange and barter become a necessity,
and so the merchant comes into existence. His occupation
--shaving both sides, the producer and consumer--tempts him
to act dishonestly; hence his low grade. Fifth, the soldier
stands last and lowest in the list, because his business is to
destroy and not to build up society. He consumes what others
produce, but produces nothing himself that can benefit mankind.
He is, perhaps, a necessary evil.''[11]


[11] Quoted by Beach, ``Dawn on the Hills of T'ang,'' pp. 45, 46.