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A. L. Y. CHUNG
In helping the government to perform various functions in the Palace Examination, Metropolitan Examination and the Shun-t'ien Provincial Examination, the Hanlins served as examiners, assistant examiners and other members of the examining boards.45 Services in the capital entailed no travelling, but if they were assigned to the provinces as examiners, they had to embark on long journeys. Their work in the provinces, though educational in character, enabled them to know more of provincial conditions. Their inevitable intercourse with local officials and their contacts with scholars widened their experience and threw them into the realities of local government.
Another service relating to the Civil Service Examinations was the re-investigation of examination essays that had passed the examiners of the Provincial and Metropolitan Examinations. It needed scholars of high literary attainment to scrutinize the phraseology and syntax of these successful essays and to see, as a double safeguard, if any rules had been violated. This checking process was, in the beginning of the dynasty, an exclusive monopoly of high dignitaries and censors, but from 1736 onwards, the government ordered Hanlins to assist them in checking successful examination papers.46
Similar in character to the checking of successful essays was the publication of the best literary work in the Civil Service Examinations.47 In 1723, complying with a request from the Board of Rites, the Emperor Yung-cheng decreed that several readers, compilers and correctors of the Academy were to be enlisted to aid the Board of Rites in selecting brilliant essays from the public examinations. These were to be presented to the emperor for his perusal, after which they were published as model-answers for scholars of the Empire to emulate.48
In such literary functions, we see more clearly the ideological stamp of the Hanlins on the cultural development of the Empire. By choosing the model-essays and by doing service in the re-investigation of examination papers, they set the tone for scholarly pursuits of the time. Their literary tastes served to influence scholars of the whole country, who, aspiring to secure official positions, were compelled to follow their example.
Special Functions of the Hanlins
The Hanlins were at times called upon to perform special