At present, Corean literary men possess a highly critical knowledge of Chinese. Most intelligent scholars read the classics with ease and fluency. Penmanship is an art as much prized and as widely practised as in Japan, and reading and writing constitute education. From the fifth to the seventeenth century the Corean youth of gentle blood went to Nanking to receive or complete their education. Since Peking has been the Chinese capital (under the Mongols from 1279, and under the Ming emperors from 1410) few young men have gone abroad to study until within the last year, when numbers of Corean lads have entered the naval, military, and literary schools of the imperial government. The practical democratic element pervading China was long absent from the nations which were her pupils and vassals. Of all these borrowers, Corea has most closely imitated her teacher. She fosters education by making scholastic ability, as tested in the literary examination, the basis of appointment to office. This “Civil Service Reform” was established in Chō-sen by the now ruling dynasty early in the fifteenth century. Education in Corea is public, and encouraged by the government only in this sense, that it is made the road to government employ and official promotion. By instituting literary examinations for the civil and military service, and nominally opening them to all competitors, and filling all vacancies with the successful candidates, there is created and maintained a constant stimulus to culture.