title: Imperial examination

text: However, the political and ethical theories of Confucian classical curriculum have also been likened to the classical studies of humanism in European nations which proved instrumental in selecting an "all-rounded" top-level leadership. British and French civil service examinations adopted in the late 19th century were also heavily based on Greco-Roman classical subjects and general cultural studies, as well as assessing personal physique and character. US leaders included "virtue" such as reputation and support for the US constitution as a criterion for government service. These features have been compared to similar aspects of the earlier Chinese model. In the British civil service, just as it was in China, entrance to the civil service was usually based on a general education in ancient classics, which similarly gave bureaucrats greater prestige. The Oxbridge ideal of the civil service was identical to the Confucian ideal of a general education in world affairs through humanism. Well into the 20th century, classics, literature, history and language remained heavily favoured in British civil service examinations. In the period 1925–1935, 67 percent of British civil service entrants consisted of such graduates.


title: Imperial examination

text: In late imperial China, the examination system was the primary mechanism by which the central government captured and held the loyalty of local-level elites. Their loyalty, in turn, ensured the integration of the Chinese state, and countered tendencies toward regional autonomy and the breakup of the centralized system. The examination system distributed its prizes according to provincial and prefectural quotas, which meant that imperial officials were recruited from the whole country, in numbers roughly proportional to each province's population. Elite individuals all over China, even in the disadvantaged peripheral regions, had a chance at succeeding in the examinations and achieving the rewards and emoluments office brought.


title: Imperial examination

text: The examination-based civil service thus promoted stability and social mobility. The Confucianism-based examinations meant that the local elites and ambitious would-be members of those elites across the whole of China were taught with similar values. Even though only a small fraction (about 5 percent) of those who attempted the examinations actually passed them and even fewer received titles, the hope of eventual success sustained their commitment. Those who failed to pass did not lose wealth or local social standing; as dedicated believers in Confucian orthodoxy, they served, without the benefit of state appointments, as civilian teachers, patrons of the arts, and managers of local projects, such as irrigation works, schools, or charitable foundations.


title: Imperial examination

text: During the Tang dynasty, candidates were either recommended by their schools or had to register for exams at their home prefecture. By the Song dynasty, theoretically all adult Chinese men were eligible for the examinations. The only requirement was education.


title: Imperial examination

text: In practice, a number of official and unofficial restrictions applied to who was able to take the imperial exams. The commoners were divided into four groups according to occupation: scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants. Beneath the common people were the so-called "mean" people such as boat-people, beggars, sex-workers, entertainers, slaves, and low-level government employees. Among the forms of discrimination faced by the "mean" people were restriction from government office and the credential to take the imperial exam. Certain ethnic groups or castes such as the "degraded" Jin dynasty outcasts in Ningbo, around 3,000 people, were barred from taking the imperial exams as well. Women were excluded from taking the exams. Butchers and sorcerers were also excluded at times. Merchants were restricted from taking the exams until the Ming and Qing dynasties, although as early as 955, the scholar-officials themselves were involved in trading activities. During the Sui and Tang dynasties, artisans were also restricted from official service. During the Song dynasty, artisans, merchants, clerks, and Buddhist and Taoist priests were specifically excluded from the "jinshi" exam; and, in the Liao dynasty, physicians, diviners, butchers, and merchants were all prohibited from taking the examinations, citing "Liao-shih". At times, quota systems were also used to restrict the number of candidates allowed to take or to pass the imperial civil service examinations, by region or by other criteria.


title: Imperial examination

text: Aside from official restrictions, there was also the economic problem faced by men of poorer means. The route to a jinshi degree was long and the competition fierce. Men who achieved a jinshi degree in their twenties were considered extremely fortunate. Someone who obtained a jinshi degree in their thirties, the average age of jinshi candidates, was also considered on schedule. Both were expected to study continuously for years without interruption. Without the necessary financial support, studying for the exams would have been an impractical task. After completing their studies, candidates also had to pay for travel and lodging expenses, not to mention thank-you gifts for the examiners and tips for the staff. A jinshi candidate required someone in the bureaucracy to act as his patron to vouch for their integrity. Banquets and entertainment also had to be paid for. As a result of these expenses, the nurturing of a candidate was a common burden for the whole family.


title: Imperial examination

text: Each candidate arrived at an examination compound with only a few amenities: a water pitcher, a chamber pot, bedding, food (prepared by the examinee), an inkstone, ink and brushes. Guards verified a student's identity and searched him for hidden texts such as cheat sheets. The facilities provided for the examinee consisted of an isolated room or cell with a makeshift bed, desk, and bench. Each examinee was assigned to a cell according to their number. Paper was provided by the examiners and stamped with an official seal. The examinees of the Ming and Qing periods could take up to three days and two nights writing "eight-legged essays"—literary compositions with eight distinct sections. Interruptions and outside communication were forbidden for the duration of the exam. If a candidate died, officials wrapped his body in a straw mat and tossed it over the high walls that ringed the compound.


title: Imperial examination

text: At the end of the examination, answer sheets were processed by the sealing office. The Ming-era "The Book of Swindles" (c. 1617) contains an entire section of stories about "Corruption in Education", most of which involve swindlers exploiting exam-takers' desperate attempts to bribe the examiner. Exact quotes from the classics were required; misquoting even one character or writing it in the wrong form meant failure, so candidates went to great lengths to bring hidden copies of these texts with them, sometimes written on their underwear. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts holds an example of a Qing dynasty cheatsheet, a handkerchief with 10,000 characters of Confucian classics in microscopically small handwriting.


title: Imperial examination

text: To prevent cheating, the sealing office erased any information about the candidate found on the paper and assigned a number to each candidate's papers. Persons in the copy office then recopied the entire text three times so that the examiners would not be able to identify the author. The first review was carried out by an examining official, and the papers were then handed over to a secondary examining official and to an examiner, either the chief examiner or one of several vice examiners. Judgments by the first and second examining official were checked again by a determining official, who fixed the final grade. Working with the team of examiners were a legion of gate supervisors, registrars, sealers, copyists and specialist assessors of literature.


title: Imperial examination

text: The middle of the stairs of the main hall of the imperial palace during the Tang and Song dynasties were carved with an image of the mythical turtle Ao (). When the list of successful candidates of the palace examination was published, all the names of the graduates were read aloud in the presence of the emperor, and recorded in the archival documents of the dynasty. Graduates were given a green gown, a tablet as a symbol of status, and boots. The first ranked scholar received the title of Zhuàngyuán () and stood in the middle of the stairs on the carving of Ao. This gave rise to the phrase "to have seized Ao's head" ( "zhàn ào tóu"), or "to have alone seized Ao's head" ( "dú zhàn àotóu") to describe a Zhuàngyuán, and more generally to refer to someone who excels in a certain field.


title: Imperial examination

text: "Shengyuan" degree holders were given some general tax exemptions. Metropolitan exam graduates were allowed to buy themselves free of exile in cases of crime and to decrease the number of blows with the stick for a fee. Other than the title of jinshi, graduates of the palace examination were also exempted from all taxes and corvée labour.


title: Imperial examination

text: Graduates of the prefectural examination qualified for employment as teachers in local or family schools, as administrators of granaries or temples, and as subofficial local administrators. The top three graduates of the palace examinations were directly appointed to the Hanlin Academy. Lower ranked graduates could be appointed to offices like Hanlin bachelor, secretaries, messengers in the Ministry of Rites, case reviewers, erudites, prefectural judges, prefects or county magistrates (zhixian ).


title: Imperial examination

text: During the Tang dynasty, successful candidates reported to the Ministry of Personnel for placement examinations. Unassigned officials and honorary title holders were expected to take placement examinations at regular intervals. Non-assigned status could last a very long time especially when waiting for a substantive appointment. After being assigned to office, a junior official was given an annual merit rating. There was no specified term limit, but most junior officials served for at least three years or more in one post. Senior officials served indefinitely at the pleasure of the emperor.


title: Imperial examination

text: In the Song dynasty, successful candidates were appointed to office almost immediately and waiting periods between appointments were not long. Between 60 and 80 percent of the civil service was composed of low-ranking officials. They all started their careers in counties not in their home prefecture. These assignments lasted three to four years before they were reassigned to another locality and position. Annual merit ratings were still taken but officials could request evaluation for reassignment. Officials who wished to escape harsh assignments often requested reassignment as a state supervisor of a Taoist temple or monastery. Senior officials in the capital also sometimes nominated themselves for the position of prefect in obscure prefectures.


title: Imperial examination

text: Recruitment by examination during the Yuan dynasty constituted a very minor part of the Yuan administration. Hereditary Mongol nobility formed the elite nucleus of the government. Initially the Mongols drew administrators from their subjects. In 1261, Kublai Khan ordered the establishment of Mongolian schools to draw officials from. The School for the Sons of the State was established in 1271 to give two or three years of training for the sons of the Imperial Bodyguards so that they might become suitable for official recruitment.


title: Imperial examination

text: Recruitment by examination flourished after 1384 in the Ming dynasty. Provincial graduates were sometimes appointed to low-ranking offices or entered the Guozijian for further training, after which they might be considered for better appointments. Before appointment to office, metropolitan graduates were assigned to observe the functions of an office for up to one year. The maximum tenure for an office was nine years, but triennial evaluations were also taken, at which point an official could be reassigned. Magistrates of districts submitted monthly evaluation reports to their prefects and the prefects submitted annual evaluations to provincial authorities. Every third year, provincial authorities submitted evaluations to the central government, at which point an "outer evaluation" was conducted, requiring local administration to send representatives to attend a grand audience at the capital. Officials at the capital conducted an evaluation every six years. Capital officials of rank 4 and above were exempted from regular evaluations. Irregular evaluations were conducted by censorial officials.


title: Imperial examination

text: Graduates of the metropolitan examination during the Qing dynasty were assured influential posts in the officialdom. The Ministry of Personnel submitted a list of nominees to the emperor, who then decided all major appointments in the capital and in the provinces in consultation with the Grand Council. Appointments were generally on a three-year basis with an evaluation at the end and the option for renewal. Officials rank three and above were personally evaluated by the emperor. Due to a population boom in the early modern era, qualified men far exceeded vacancies in the bureaucracy so that many waited for years between active duty assignments. Purchase of office became a common practice during the 19th century since it was very hard for qualified men to be appointed to one of the very limited number of posts. Even receiving empty titles with no active assignment required a monetary contribution.


title: Imperial examination

text: The Ministry of Rites, under the Department of State Affairs, was responsible for organizing and carrying out the imperial examinations.


title: Imperial examination

text: The Hanlin Academy was an institution created during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (r. 712–755). It was located directly in the palace compound and staffed by officials who drafted official documents such as edicts. These officials, commonly appointed from the top three ranks of the palace examination graduates, came to be known as academicians ("xueshi") after 738, when a new building was constructed to provide them living quarters. The title "academician" was not only for the staff of the Hanlin Academy, but any special assignment to special posts. The number of academicians in the Hanlin Academy was fixed to six at a later date and they were given the task of doing paperwork and consulting the emperor. The Hanlin Academy drafted documents about the appointment and dismissal of high ministers, proclamation of amnesties, and imperial military commands. It also aided the emperor in reading documents.


title: Imperial examination

text: The number of Hanlin academicians was reduced to two during the Song dynasty. During the Yuan dynasty, a Hanlin Academy just for Mongols was created to translate documents. More emphasis was put on the oversight of imperial publications such as dynastic histories.


title: Imperial examination

text: In the Qing dynasty, the number of posts in the Hanlin Academy increased immensely and a Manchu official was installed at all times. The posts became purely honorary and the institution was reduced to just another stepping stone for persons seeking higher positions in the government. Lower officials in the Hanlin Academy often had other posts at the same time.


title: Imperial examination

text: The Taixue ("National University"), was the highest educational institution in imperial China. During the reign of Emperor Wu of Han (r. 141–87 BC), Confucianism was adopted as the state doctrine. The Confucian scholar Dong Zhongshu suggested establishing a National University ("Taixue") in the capital, Chang'an, so that erudites could teach the Classics. Teaching at the Taixue was a prestigious job because the emperor commonly picked from among them for appointment in high offices. At first the Taixue had only 50 students but increased to around 3,000 by the end of the millennium. Under the reign of Wang Mang (r. 9–23 AD), two other educational institutions called the Biyong and Mingtang were established south of the city walls, each able to house 10,000 students. The professors and students were able to exercise some political power by criticizing their opponents such as governors and eunuchs. This eventually led to the arrest of more than 1,000 professors and students by the eunuchs.


title: Imperial examination

text: After the collapse of the Han dynasty, the Taixue was reduced to just 19 teaching positions and 1,000 students but climbed back to 7,000 students under the Jin dynasty (266–420). After the nine rank system was introduced, a "Directorate of Education" ("Guozijian") was created for persons rank five and above, effectively making it the educational institution for nobles, while the Taixue was relegated to teaching commoners. Over the next two centuries, the Guozijian became the primary educational institute in the Southern Dynasties. The Sixteen Kingdoms and Northern Dynasties also created their own schools but they were only available for sons and relatives of high officials. The Northern Wei dynasty founded the Primary School of Four Gates.


title: Imperial examination

text: During the Sui dynasty, a Law School, Arithmetics School, and Calligraphy School were put under the administration of the Guozijian. These schools accepted the relatives of officials rank eight and below while the Taixue, Guozijian, and Four Gates School served higher ranks. By the start of the Tang dynasty (618-907), 300 students were enrolled in the Guozijian, 500 at the Taixue, 1,300 at the Four Gates School, 50 at the Law School, and a mere 30 at the Calligraphy and Arithmetics Schools. Emperor Gaozong of Tang (r. 649–683), founded a second Guozijian in Luoyang. The average age of admission was 14 to 19 but 18 to 25 for the Law School. Students of these institutions who applied for the state examinations had their names transmitted to the Ministry of Rites, which was also responsible for their appointment to a government post.


title: Imperial examination

text: During the Song dynasty, Emperor Renzong of Song founded a new Taixue at Kaifeng with 200 students enrolled. Emperor Shenzong of Song (r. 1067–1085) raised the number of students to 2,400. He also implemented the "three-colleges law" ("sanshefa" 三舍法) in 1079, which divided the Taixue into three colleges. Under the three-colleges law, students first attended the Outer College, then the Inner College, and finally the Superior College. One of the aims of the three-colleges was to provide a more balanced education for students and to de-emphasize Confucian learning. Students were taught in only one of the Confucian classics, depending on the college, as well as arithmetics and medicine. Students of the Outer College who passed a public and institutional examination were allowed to enter the Inner College. At the Inner College there were two exams over a two-year period on which the students were graded. Those who achieved the superior grade on both exams were directly appointed to office equal to that of a metropolitan exam graduate. Those who achieved an excellent grade on one exam but slightly worse on the other could still be considered for promotion, and having a good grade in one exam but mediocre in another still awarded merit equal to that of a provincial exam graduate.


title: Imperial examination

text: In 1104, the prefectural examinations were abolished in favor of the three-colleges system, which required each prefecture to send an annual quota of students to the Taixue. This drew criticism from some officials who claimed that the new system benefited the rich and young, and was less fair because the relatives of officials could enroll without being examined for their skills. In 1121, the local three-college system was abolished but retained at the national level. For a time, the national examination system was also abandoned in favor of directly appointing students of the Taixue to government posts. The Taixue itself did not survive the demise of the Song dynasty and ceased to exist afterwards, becoming a synonym for the Guozijian.


title: Imperial examination

text: The Guozijian ("Directorate of Education") was founded under Emperor Wu of Jin (r. 265–289) to educate the nobility. Under the Song dynasty, the Guozijian became the central administrative institution for all state schools throughout the empire. Among its duties were the maintenance of the buildings, the construction of new facilities, and the promotion of students. The Guozijian itself was equipped with a library and printing shop to create model printing blocks for distribution. The Guozijian was abolished in 1907.


title: Imperial examination

text: The examinations were given a formal structure and tier system during the Song dynasty but the exact number of tiers, their titles, degrees awarded, and names differed depending on era and dynasty. Sometimes examinations of the same tier from different dynasties had different names. For example, the palace examination was called "dianshi" or "yushi" during the Song, but "tingshi" in the Ming and the metropolitan examination was "shengshi" in the Song and "huishi" in the Jin, Yuan, and Ming. In other cases, examinations of different tiers used the same name. "Fushi" in the Liao meant prefectural examination but provincial examination in the Jin. The lowest tier exam was usually held annually while higher tier exams held triennially. Tight quotas restricted the number of successful candidates at each level—for example, only three hundred students could pass the metropolitan examinations. Students often took the examinations several times before earning a degree.


title: Imperial examination

text: By the Ming dynasty, the examinations and degrees formed a "ladder of success", with success generally being equated with being graduated as "jinshi", a degree similar to a modern Doctor of Literature degree, or PhD. Modifications to the basic "jinshi" or other degree were made for higher-placing graduates, similar to the modern Summa cum laude. The examination process extended down to the county level, and included examinations at the provincial and national levels. The highest level tests would be at the imperial court or palace level, of which the "jinshi" was the highest regular level, although special purpose tests were occasionally offered, by imperial decree:


title: Imperial examination

text: The classicist ("mingjing") originated as a category for recruitment by local authorities to the appointment of state offices. The term was created during the Han dynasty under Emperor Wu of Han for candidates eligible for official appointment or for enrolment in the Taixue. Classicists were expected to be familiar with the Confucian canon and the Taoist text "Laozi". The classicist category fell out of use under Cao Wei and the Jin dynasty but was revived during the Southern Dynasties for filling places in the Taixue.


title: Imperial examination

text: During the Sui dynasty, examinations for classicists and cultivated talents were introduced. Unlike cultivated talents, classicists were only tested on the Confucian canon, which was considered an easy task at the time, so those who passed were awarded posts in the lower rungs of officialdom. Classicists were tested by being presented phrases from the classic texts. They then had to write the whole paragraph to complete the phrase. If the examinee was able to correctly answer five of ten questions, they passed. This was considered such an easy task that a 30-year-old candidate was said to be old for a classicist examinee, but young to be a jinshi. An oral version of the classicist examination known as "moyi" also existed but consisted of 100 questions rather than just ten. In contrast, the jinshi examination tested not only the Confucian classics, but also history, proficiency in compiling official documents, inscriptions, discursive treatises, memorials, and poems and rhapsodies. In 742, Laozi was replaced in the examination by the glossary Erya. In 1071, Emperor Shenzong of Song (r. 1067–1085) abolished the classicist as well as various other examinations on law and arithmetics.


title: Imperial examination

text: The cultivated talent ("xiucai") originated in the Han dynasty when Emperor Wu of Han declared that each province had to present one cultivated talent per year to be appointed in the government. During the Sui dynasty, examinations for "cultivated talents" were introduced. They were tested on matters of statecraft and the Confucian canon. This type of examination was very limited in its implementation and there were only 11 or 12 graduates throughout its entire history. During the Song dynasty, cultivated talent became a general title for graduates of the state examinations.


title: Imperial examination

text: The strategic questions examination ("cewen") was a question-and-answer type essay examination introduced during the Han dynasty. The purpose of the exam was to ensure examinees could apply Confucian doctrine to practical matters of statecraft. A question on a problematic political issue was asked and the examinee was expected to answer it according to his own opinion and how the issue could be resolved. The strategic questions examination became obsolete during the Ming dynasty due to the prevalence of the eight-legged essay.


title: Imperial examination

text: During the reign of Wu Zetian the imperial government created military examinations for the selection of army officers as a response to the breakdown of garrison militias known as the Fubing system. The first formal military examinations (武舉 Wǔjǔ) were introduced in 702. The military examinations had the same general arrangement as the regular exams, with provincial, metropolitan and palace versions of the exams. Successful candidates were awarded military versions of Jinshi and Juren degrees: "Wujinshi" () and "Wujuren" (), and so on.


title: Imperial examination

text: The military exam included both a written and physical portion. In theory, candidates were supposed to master not only the same Confucian texts as required by the civil exam, but also Chinese military texts such as "The Art of War", in addition to martial skills such as archery and horsemanship. The district exam was conducted by the county magistrate and consisted of three sessions.


title: Imperial examination

text: The first session tested mounted archery by having candidates shoot three arrows while riding a horse toward a target at a distance of 35 and 80 paces. The target was in the shape of a man 1.6 meters high. A perfect score was three hits, a good score two, and one hit earned a pass. Those who fell off their horse or failed to score even one hit were eliminated. The second session was held in a garden at the prefectural office. Candidates were ordered to shoot five arrows at a target at 50 paces. Again, five hits were graded excellent while one hit earned a pass. Next they had to bend a bow into the shape of a full moon. The bows were graded by strength into 72 kg, 60 kg, and 48 kg weapons. Bending a 72 kg bow was excellent while bending a 48 kg bow earned a pass. Then they were ordered to perform a number of exercises with a halberd without it touching the ground. The halberds were graded by weight from 72 kg to 48 kg, with the lowest grade weapon earning a pass. For the final portion of the second session, candidates were required to lift a stone 35 cm off the ground. Lifting a 180 kg stone earned an excellent grade, a 150 kg stone good, and a 120 kg stone passing.


title: Imperial examination

text: The third session involved writing out by memory entire portions of the Seven Military Classics, but only three of the classics were ever used, those being "The Methods of the Sima", the "Wuzi", and "The Art of War". Even just memorizing the reduced portion of the classics was too difficult for most military examinees, who resorted to cheating and bringing with them miniature books to copy, a behavior the examiners let slide owing to the greater weighting of the first two sessions. In some cases the examinees still made mistakes while copying the text word for word. The contents of the military exam were largely the same at the prefectural, provincial, metropolitan, and palace levels, with the only difference being tougher grading.


title: Imperial examination

text: Military degrees were considered inferior to civil degrees and did not carry the same prestige. The names of civil "jinshi" were carved in marble whereas military "jinshi" were not. While the military and civil services were imagined in Chinese political philosophy as the two wheels of a chariot, in practice, the military examination degree was highly regarded by neither the army or the world at large. Soldiers preferred not having military exam graduates as commanders whose skills in test taking did not necessarily transfer to the army. Final decision for appointment in the military still came down to forces outside the examination system. For example, at the beginning of 755, An Lushan replaced 32 Han Chinese commanders with his own barbarian favorites without any repercussions. During the Qing dynasty, the pre-existing institutions of the Eight Banners and Green Standard Army had their own rules for promotion and left little room for military exam graduates. Some of the few military examination graduates who did achieve distinction include the Tang general Guo Ziyi, the father of the founder of the Song dynasty Zhao Hongyin, Ming generals Yu Dayou and Qi Jiguang, and Ming general turned traitor Wu Sangui. However these are but a minuscule number among those who passed the 282 military metropolitan exams held between their inception in 702 and abolishment in 1901. Even in desperate times of war, the majority of distinguished military figures in Chinese history have come from civil degree holders. The practices of the Ming and Qing military exams were incorporated into physical education in the Republic of China.


title: Imperial examination

text: During the Qing dynasty, translation examinations were held for young men from the Eight Banners who held no military post. Manchus, Mongols and Chinese Bannermen were allowed to participate in the Manchu exam while the Mongolian exam was restricted to Mongol Bannermen. The examinees did not take the examinations expecting to become translators. The content of the exam consisted of material from the Manchu or Mongol versions of the Four Books and the Five Classics, while only a minor part of the exam consisted of translation from Chinese into Manchu or Mongolian. Three levels of the exam were implemented but there was no palace examination. The quota on the provincial level was 33 persons for the Manchu, and 9 for the Mongolian examination. The number of graduates declined to just 7 and 3 persons, respectively, in 1828, and 4 and 1 in 1837. In 1840 the Mongolian exam was abolished because there were only 6 candidates. Graduates of the metropolitan translation examination were all given the title of regular metropolitan translation graduate without further gradation or extraordinary designations. Excellent graduates of the Manchu exam were directly appointed secretaries in one of the Six Ministries while those of the Mongol one were commonly made officials in the Court of Colonial Affairs.


title: Imperial examination

text: Besides the regular tests for the "jinshi" and other degrees, there were also occasionally special purpose examinations, by imperial decree ("zhiju"). Decree examinations could be for a number of purposes such as identifying talent for specific assignments, or to satisfy particular interest groups such as ethnic groups and the imperial clan. In the Tang dynasty, the emperor held on occasion irregular examinations for specialized topics. These were open to persons already employed by the government. During the Song dynasty, in 1061, Emperor Renzong of Song decreed special examinations for the purpose of finding men capable of "direct speech and full remonstrance" ("zhiyan jijian"): the testing procedure required the examinees to submit 50 previously prepared essays, 25 on particular contemporary problems, 25 on more general historical governmental themes. In the examination room, the examinees then had a day to write essays on six topics chosen by the test officials, and finally were required to write a 3,000 character essay on a complex policy problem, personally chosen by the emperor, Renzong. Among the few successful candidates were the Su brothers, Su Shi and Su Zhe (who had already attained their "jinshi" degrees, in 1057), with Su Shi scoring exceptionally high in the examinations, and subsequently having copies of his examination essays widely circulated.


title: Imperial examination

text: All Chinese imperial examinations were written in Classical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese, using the regular script ("kaishu"), which is today the most commonly seen calligraphic style in modern China. The importance of knowledge in Classical Chinese was retained in examination systems in other countries such as in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, where candidates were required to be well-versed in the Confucian classics, to be able to compose essays and poetry in Classical Chinese, and to be able to write in regular script. Owing to the examination system, Classical Chinese became a basic educational standard throughout these countries. Readers of Classical Chinese did not need to learn spoken Chinese to understand or read the text because of its logographic nature. Texts written in Classical Chinese could be "read and understood by any sufficiently literate person, even if a given text was ultimately voiced in Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese and not mutually intelligible in speech". This shared textual tradition and common understanding of the Confucian canon allowed these countries to communicate with each other through "brush talk" in the absence of a common language.


title: Imperial examination

text: In both Korea and Japan, forms of writing were developed to assist readers in understanding Classical Chinese. The Korean Gugyeol and Japanese Kanbun Kundoku writing systems modified the Chinese text with markers and annotations to represent their respective languages' pronunciation and grammatical order. Chinese script was also adapted to write Korean and Japanese in their respective native word order. In Korea this was called the Idu script (official reading) and in Japan, Man'yōgana (ten thousand leaves). In Japan, Kanbun was used to write official documents from the 8th century until after World War 2. In Korea, the Idu script was used for writing official documents and the civil service examinations from their establishment in 958 to termination in 1894. Vietnamese examinations used Chữ Hán (Chinese script), also called Chữ nho (Confucian script), which is virtually indistinguishable from Classical Chinese in its written form, but uses Vietnamese pronunciations when read aloud. Chữ nho was made the official writing system of Đại Việt in 1174 and remained the writing system of the administration until Vietnam was taken over by France in the 19th century. Similar to Korea and Japan, Vietnam also adapted Chinese script to write the Vietnamese language in what is known as Chữ Nôm (southern characters).


title: Imperial examination

text: Some of the main outstanding questions regarding the imperial examinations are in regard to poetry. There is a long history of debate on the usefulness of the procedure of testing the ability of the candidates to write poetry. During the Tang dynasty, a poetry section was added to the examinations, requiring the examinee to compose a "shi" poem in the five-character, 12-line regulated verse form and a "fu" composition of 300 to 400 characters. The poetry requirement remained standard for many decades, despite some controversy, although briefly abolished for the examination year 833–34 (by order of Li Deyu). During the Song dynasty, in the late 1060s Wang Anshi removed the traditional poetry composition sections (regulated verse and "fu"), on the grounds of irrelevancy to the official functions of bureaucratic office: on the other side of the debate, Su Shi (Dongpo) pointed out that the selection of great ministers of the past had not been obstructed by the poetry requirements, that the study and practice of poetry encouraged careful writing, and that the evaluation and grading of poetry was more objective than for the prose essays, due to the strict and detailed rules for writing verse according to the formal requirements.


title: Imperial examination

text: Starting from the Yuan dynasty, poetry was abolished as a subject in the examinations, being regarded as frivolous. This process was completed at the inception of the following Ming dynasty. It was revived in 1756 by the Qing dynasty.


title: Imperial examination

text: The imperial examinations influenced traditional Chinese religion as well as contemporary literary tradition. The examination system ostensibly represented the Confucian system in its most rationalist expression and was designed to achieve a society ruled by men of merit, as determined by an objective measure of the candidates' knowledge and intelligence. In practice, the examinations also included various religious and superstitious beliefs that extend the examinations beyond Confucian idealism. Traditional beliefs about fate, that cosmic forces predestine certain human affairs, and particularly that individual success or failure was subject to the will of Heaven and the influence and intervention by various deities, played into the interpretation of results when taking the tests. Zhong Kui, also known as Chung-kuei, was a deity associated with the examination system. The story is that he was a scholar who took the tests, and, despite his most excellent performance, he was unfairly deprived of the first-place prize by a corrupt system: in response, he killed himself, the act of suicide condemning him to be a ghost. Many people afraid of traveling on roads and paths that may be haunted by evil spirits have worshiped Zhong Kui as a protective deity. Also known as "Kechang Yiwen Lu", the "Strange Stories from the Examination Halls" was a collection of stories popular among Confucian scholars of the Qing dynasty. The theme of many of the stories is that good deeds are rewarded by success in the examination halls, often by Heaven-inspired deities acting on karmic principles; and evil deeds result in failure, often under the influence of the ghosts of victims.


title: Imperial examination

text: Some individuals were discriminated against because of their names, due to a naming taboo. For example, because the Tang dynasty poet Li He's father's name sounded like the "jin", in "jinshi", he was discouraged from taking the tests. The claim was that if Li He was called a "jinshi", it would be against the rule of etiquette that a son not be called by his father's name.


title: Imperial examination

text: Chinese legal institutions and the examination system began to heavily influence Japan during the Tang dynasty. In 728, Sugawara no Kiyotomo took part in the Tang examinations. Near the end of the Tang era, Japan implemented the examination system, which lasted for some 200 years during the Heian period (794–1185). According to the "Records of Palace Examinations", four "shinshi" ("jinshi") passed the exams in 916: Fujiwara Takaki, Oue Koretoki, Harubuchi Yoshiki, and Fujiwara Harufusa. Poets such as Sugawara no Michizane and Miyoshi Yoshimune mentioned their experiences with the examinations in their writing:


title: Imperial examination

text: Like the Chinese examinations, the curriculum revolved around the Confucian canon. As Japanese examinations developed, they diverged in practice from the Chinese ones. The "xiucai" exams became more popular than the "jinshi" because it was simpler and considered more practical. The Japanese examinations were also never opened to the common folk to the same extent as in China during the Song dynasty. Due to aristocratic influence, by the 10th century, only students recommended based on their reputation and record of service could take the exams. While the exams were still held after the 11th century, they had lost all practical value, and any candidates who had been nominated by dignitaries passed unconditionally. The Japanese imperial examinations gradually died out afterwards. The examinations were revived in 1787 during the Edo period. The new examinations, called "sodoku kugin", were more or less the same as the Chinese ones in terms of content (Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism), but did not confer official titles, only honorary titles. During the early Meiji era, Kanda Takahira wrote a letter advocating for the establishment of a Japanese recruitment system with the Chinese imperial examination system as a model. The proposal failed to gain support.


title: Imperial examination

text: Korea directly participated in the Chinese imperial examination system during the 9th century when as many as 88 Sillans received degrees after passing the Tang examinations.


title: Imperial examination

text: The Korean examination system was established in 958 under the reign of Gwangjong of Goryeo. The examination system was spread to Goryeo in 957 by a visiting Hanlin scholar named Shuang Ji from Later Zhou. Gwangjong was highly pleased with Shuang Ji and requested that he remain at the Korean court permanently.


title: Imperial examination

text: According to Xu Jing, writing during the Song dynasty, the Korean examinations were largely the same as the Chinese ones with some differences:


title: Imperial examination

text: Some Korean examination practices converged with the Chinese system. By the end of the Goryeo period, a military exam had been added, the triennial schedule observed, and the exam hierarchy organized into provincial, metropolitan, and palace levels, similar to the Chinese. Other practices, such as the inclusion of exams on Buddhism and the worship of Confucius, were not shared with China. Outside China, the examination system was most widely implemented in Korea, with enrollment rates surpassing even that of China. Any free man (not Nobi) was able to take the examinations. At the start of the Joseon period, 33 candidates were selected from every triennial examination, and the number increased to 50 later on. In comparison, China's selected candidates after each palace examination were no more than 40 to 300 from the Tang to Ming dynasties while encompassing a landmass six times larger than Korea. By the Joseon period, high offices were closed to aristocrats who had not passed the exams. Over the span of 600 years, the Joseon civil service selected more than 14,606 candidates in the highest level examinations on 744 occasions. The examination system continued until 1894 when it was abolished by the Gabo Reform. All Korean examinations were conducted using the Idu script from their establishment in 958 to their termination in 1894.


title: Imperial examination

text: The Confucian examination system in Vietnam was established in 1075 under the Lý dynasty Emperor Lý Nhân Tông and lasted until the Nguyễn dynasty Emperor Khải Định (1919). During the Lý dynasty (1009–1225) the imperial examinations had very limited influence. Only four were held throughout the entire duration of the dynasty, producing a small handful of officials. Later during the Trần dynasty (1225–1400), Trần Thái Tông began to filter students through the Tiến sĩ ("jinshi") examinations. From 1232 to 1314, ten Tiến sĩ examinations were held. In 1314, 50 Tiến sĩ were recruited in one exam. Throughout most of the Vietnamese examinations' history, there were only three levels to the Vietnamese system: interprovincial, pre-court, and court. A provincial examination was implemented by the Nguyễn dynasty (1802–1883) in 1807 and a metropolitan examination in 1825. Emperor Minh Mạng (r. 1820–1839) paid special attention to the examinations and even dined with newly recruited Tiến sĩ frequently. Although Confucian content took precedence in the examinations, material on Buddhism and Daoism were also included. In 1429, Lê Thái Tổ ordered famous Buddhist and Daoist monks to take the exams, and if they failed, they had to forfeit their religious life. Elephants were used to guard the examination halls until 1843 when the emperor said it was no longer necessary. During the 845 years of civil service examinations held in Vietnam, about 3,000 candidates passed the highest level exams and had their names carved on stelae in the Temple of Literature in Hanoi.


title: Imperial examination

text: The imperial examination system was known to Europeans as early as 1570. It received great attention from the Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552–1610), who viewed it and its Confucian appeal to rationalism favorably in comparison to religious reliance on "apocalypse". Knowledge of Confucianism and the examination system was disseminated broadly in Europe following the Latin translation of Ricci's journal in 1614. During the 18th century, the imperial examinations were often discussed in conjunction with Confucianism, which attracted great attention from contemporary European thinkers such as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Baron d'Holbach, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Friedrich Schiller. In France and Britain, Confucian ideology was used in attacking the privilege of the elite. Figures such as Voltaire claimed that the Chinese had "perfected moral science" and François Quesnay advocated an economic and political system modeled after that of the Chinese. According to Ferdinand Brunetière (1849–1906), followers of Physiocracy such as François Quesnay, whose theory of free trade was based on Chinese classical theory, were sinophiles bent on introducing the "Chinese spirit" to France. He also admits that French education was really based on Chinese literary examinations which were popularized in France by philosophers, especially Voltaire. Western perception of China in the 18th century admired the Chinese bureaucratic system as favourable over European governments for its seeming meritocracy. However those who admired China such as Christian Wolff were sometimes persecuted. In 1721 he gave a lecture at the University of Halle praising Confucianism, for which he was accused of atheism and forced to give up his position at the university.


title: Imperial examination

text: Johann Heinrich Gottlob Justi based much of his inspiration for cameralism on contemporary accounts of the Chinese imperial bureaucracy. The growth of cameralist studies, which played an important role in Prussian civil service training, may be traced to Justi's admiration for the Imperial examinations of China. Justi, like other cameralists, also lauded many Chinese public policies including the examination system.


title: Imperial examination

text: The earliest evidence of examinations in Europe date to 1215 or 1219 in Bologna. These were chiefly oral in the form of a question or answer, disputation, determination, defense, or public lecture. The candidate gave a public lecture of two prepared passages assigned to him from the civil or canon law, and then doctors asked him questions, or expressed objections to answers. Evidence of written examinations do not appear until 1702 at Trinity College, Cambridge. According to Sir Michael Sadler, Europe may have had written examinations since 1518 but he admits the "evidence is not very clear". In Prussia, medication examinations began in 1725. The Mathematical Tripos, founded in 1747, is commonly believed to be the first honor examination, but James Bass Mullinger considered "the candidates not having really undergone any examination whatsoever" because the qualification for a degree was merely four years of residence. France adopted the examination system in 1791 as a result of the French Revolution but it collapsed after only ten years. Germany implemented the examination system around 1800.


title: Imperial examination

text: Englishmen in the 18th century such as Eustace Budgell recommended imitating the Chinese examination system. Adam Smith recommended examinations to qualify for employment in 1776. In 1838, the Congregational church missionary Walter Henry Medhurst considered the Chinese exams to be "worthy of imitating". In 1806, the British East India Company established a Civil Service College near London for training of the Company's administrators in India. This was based on the recommendations of East India Company officials serving in China and had seen the Imperial examinations. In 1829, the company introduced civil service examinations in India on a limited basis. This established the principle of qualification process for civil servants in England. In 1847 and 1856, Thomas Taylor Meadows strongly recommended the adoption of the Chinese principle of competitive examinations in Great Britain. Both Thomas Babington Macaulay, who was instrumental in passing the Saint Helena Act 1833, and Stafford Northcote, 1st Earl of Iddesleigh, who prepared the Northcote–Trevelyan Report that catalyzed the British civil service, were familiar with Chinese history and institutions. When the report was brought up in parliament in 1853, Lord Monteagle argued against the implementation of open examinations because it was a Chinese system and China was not an "enlightened country". Lord Stanley called the examinations the "Chinese Principle". The Earl of Granville did not deny this but argued in favor of the examination system, considering that the minority Manchus had been able to rule China with it for over 200 years. In 1854, Edwin Chadwick reported that some noblemen did not agree with the measures introduced because they were Chinese. The examination system was finally implemented in the British Indian Civil Service in 1855, prior to which admission into the civil service was purely a matter of patronage, and in England in 1870. Even as late as ten years after the competitive examination plan was passed, people still attacked it as an "adopted Chinese culture". Alexander Baillie-Cochrane, 1st Baron Lamington insisted that the English "did not know that it was necessary for them to take lessons from the Celestial Empire". In 1875, Archibald Sayce voiced concern over the prevalence of competitive examinations, which he described as "the invasion of this new Chinese culture".


title: Imperial examination

text: After Great Britain's successful implementation of systematic, open, and competitive examinations in India in the 19th century, similar systems were instituted in the United Kingdom itself, and in other Western nations. Like the British, the development of the French and American civil service was influenced by the Chinese system. When Thomas Jenckes made a "Report from the Joint Select Committee on Retrenchment" in 1868, it contained a chapter on the civil service in China. In 1870, William Spear wrote a book called "The Oldest and the Newest Empire: China and the United States", in which he urged the United States government to adopt the Chinese examination system. Like in Britain, many of the American elites scorned the plan to implement competitive examinations, which they considered foreign, Chinese, and "un-American". As a result, the civil services reform introduced into the House of Representatives in 1868 was not passed until 1883. The Civil Service Commission tried to combat such sentiments in its report:


title: Imperial examination

text: After the fall of the Qing in 1912, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the leader of the newly risen Republic of China, developed similar procedures for the new political system through an institution called the Examination Yuan, one of the five branches of government, although this was quickly suspended due to the turmoil in China between the two world wars, such as the Warlord era and the Japanese invasion. The Kuomintang administration revived the Examination Yuan in 1947 after the defeat of Japan. This system continues into present times in Taiwan along with the government itself after loss of the mainland to the Chinese Communist Party.


title: Imperial examination

text: The Civil Service in the People's Republic of China (PRC) since the economic reform era maintains a system of examinations for selection and promotion of civil servants.


title: Imperial examination

text: In the Republic of China (ROC), the constitution specifies that a public servant cannot be employed without going through an examination. The employment is usually also lifelong (that is, until age about retirement).


title: Endonym and exonym

text: An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, "native" name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, or linguistic community in question; it is their self-designated name for themselves, their homeland, or their language.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: An exonym (from Greek: , 'outer' + , 'name'; also known as xenonym) is an established, "non-native" name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used only outside that particular place, group, or linguistic community. Exonyms exist not only for historico-geographical reasons but also in consideration of difficulties when pronouncing foreign words.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: For instance, is the endonym for the country that is also known by the exonym "Germany" in English, in Spanish and in French.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: The terms "autonym", "endonym", "exonym" and "xenonym" are formed by adding specific prefixes to the Greek root word (, 'name'), from Proto-Indo-European "".


title: Endonym and exonym

text: The terms "autonym" and "xenonym" also have different applications, thus leaving "endonym" and "exonym" as the preferred forms.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: Marcel Aurousseau, an Australian geographer, first used the term "exonym" in his work "The Rendering of Geographical Names" (1957). The term "endonym" was subsequently devised as a retronymic antonym for the term "exonym".


title: Endonym and exonym

text: As it pertains to geographical features, the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names defines:


title: Endonym and exonym

text: For example, "India", "China", "Egypt", and "Germany" are the English-language exonyms corresponding to the endonyms (), (), (), and "", respectively.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: In the case of endonyms and exonyms of language names (glossonyms), "Chinese," "German", and "Dutch", for example, are English-language exonyms for the languages that are endonymously known as (), , and "Nederlands", respectively.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: Sometimes, a place name may be unable to use many of the letters when transliterated into an exonym because of the corresponding language's lack of common sounds. Māori, having only one liquid consonant, is an example of this here.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: An example of a translated exonym is the name for the Netherlands ( in Dutch) used, respectively, in German (), French (), Italian (), Spanish (), Irish (), Portuguese () and Romanian (), all of which mean "Low Countries". However, note that the endonym is singular, while all the aforementioned translations are plural.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: Exonyms can also be divided into native and borrowed, e.g., from a third language. For example, the Slovene exonyms (Vienna) and (Venice) are native, but the Avar name of Paris, ("Parizh") is borrowed from Russian ("Parizh"), which comes from Polish , which comes from Italian .


title: Endonym and exonym

text: A substantial proportion of English-language exonyms for places in continental Europe are borrowed (or adapted) from French; for example:


title: Endonym and exonym

text: According to James Matisoff, who introduced the term "autonym" into linguistics: "Human nature being what it is, exonyms are liable to be pejorative rather than complimentary, especially where there is a real or fancied difference in cultural level between the ingroup and the outgroup." For example, Matisoff notes, "an opprobrious term indicating mixed race or parentage" is the Palaung name for Jingpo people and the Jingpo name for Chin people; both the Jingpo and Burmese use the Chinese word ("") as the name for Lisu people.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: Exonyms develop for places of significance for speakers of the language of the exonym. Consequently, many European capitals have English exonyms, for example:


title: Endonym and exonym

text: In contrast, historically less-prominent capitals such as Ljubljana and Zagreb do not have English exonyms, but do have exonyms in languages spoken nearby, e.g. German: and (the latter being obsolete); Italian: "Lubiana" and "Zagabria". Madrid, Berlin, Oslo, and Amsterdam, with identical names in most major European languages, are exceptions.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: Some European cities might be considered partial exceptions, in that whilst the spelling is the same across languages, the pronunciation can differ. For example, the city of Paris is spelled the same way in French and English, but the French pronunciation [] is different from the English pronunciation [].


title: Endonym and exonym

text: For places considered to be of lesser significance, attempts to reproduce local names have been made in English since the time of the Crusades. Livorno, for instance, was "Leghorn" because it was an Italian port essential to English merchants and, by the 18th century, to the British Navy; not far away, Rapallo, a minor port on the same sea, never received an exonym.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: In earlier times, the name of the first tribe or village encountered became the exonym for the whole people beyond. Thus, the Romans used the tribal names (Greek) and (Germanic), the Russians used the village name of "Chechen", medieval Europeans took the tribal name "Tatar" as emblematic for the whole Mongolic confederation (and then confused it with "Tartarus", a word for Hell, to produce "Tartar"), and the Magyar invaders were equated with the 500-years-earlier Hunnish invaders in the same territory, and were called "Hungarians".


title: Endonym and exonym

text: The Germanic invaders of the Roman Empire applied the word "Walha" to foreigners they encountered and this evolved in West Germanic languages as a generic name for all non-Germanic speakers; thence, the names Wallachia, Vlachs, Wallonia, Walloons, Cornwall, Wales, Wallasey, Welche in Alsace-Lorraine, and even the Polish name for Italy, .


title: Endonym and exonym

text: During the late 20th century, the use of exonyms often became controversial. Groups often prefer that outsiders avoid exonyms where they have come to be used in a pejorative way. For example, Romani people often prefer that term to exonyms such as "Gypsy" (from the name of Egypt), and the French term (from the name of Bohemia). People may also avoid exonyms for reasons of historical sensitivity, as in the case of German names for Polish and Czech places that, at one time, had been ethnically or politically German (e.g. Danzig/Gdańsk, Auschwitz/Oświęcim and Karlsbad/Karlovy Vary); and Russian names for non-Russian locations that were subsequently renamed or had their spelling changed (e.g. Kiev/Kyiv).


title: Endonym and exonym

text: In recent years, geographers have sought to reduce the use of exonyms to avoid this kind of problem. For example, it is now common for Spanish speakers to refer to the Turkish capital as Ankara rather than use the Spanish exonym . According to the United Nations Statistics Division:


title: Endonym and exonym

text: Time has, however, shown that initial ambitious attempts to rapidly decrease the number of exonyms were over-optimistic and not possible to realise in an intended way. The reason would appear to be that many exonyms have become common words in a language and can be seen as part of the language's cultural heritage.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: In some situations, the use of exonyms can be preferred. For instance, in multilingual cities such as Brussels, which is known for its linguistic tensions between Dutch- and French-speakers, a neutral name may be preferred so as to not offend anyone. Thus, an exonym such as Brussels in English could be used instead of favoring either one of the local names (Dutch/Flemish: ; French: ).


title: Endonym and exonym

text: Other difficulties with endonyms have to do with pronunciation, spelling, and word category. The endonym may include sounds and spellings that are highly unfamiliar to speakers of other languages, making appropriate usage difficult if not impossible for an outsider. Over the years, the endonym may have undergone phonetic changes, either in the original language or the borrowing language, thus changing an endonym into an exonym, as in the case of "Paris", where the "s" was formerly pronounced in French. Another example is the endonym for the German city of Cologne, where the Latin original of has evolved into in German, while the Italian and Spanish exonym or the Portuguese closely reflects the Latin original.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: In some cases, no standardised spelling is available, either because the language itself is unwritten (even unanalysed) or because there are competing non-standard spellings. Use of a misspelled endonym is perhaps more problematic than the respectful use of an existing exonym. Finally, an endonym may be a plural noun and may not naturally extend itself to adjectival usage in another language like English, which has the propensity to use the adjectives for describing culture and language. The attempt to use the endonym thus has a bizarre-sounding result.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: Sometimes the government of a country tries to endorse the use of an endonym instead of traditional exonyms outside the country:


title: Endonym and exonym

text: Following the 1979 declaration of Hanyu Pinyin spelling as the standard romanisation of Chinese, many Chinese endonyms have successfully replaced English exonyms, especially city and most provincial names in mainland China, for example: Beijing (), Qingdao ('), and the Province of Guangdong ('). However, older English exonyms are sometimes used in certain contexts, for example: Peking (Beijing; duck, opera, etc.), Tsingtao (Qingdao), and Canton (Guangdong). In some cases the traditional English exonym is based on a local Chinese dialect instead of Mandarin, in the case of Xiamen, where the name Amoy is closer to the Hokkien pronunciation.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: In the case of "Beijing", the adoption of the exonym by media outlets quickly gave rise to a hyperforeignised pronunciation, with the result that many English speakers actualize the "j" in "Beijing" as . One exception of Pinyin standardization in mainland China is the spelling of the province Shaanxi, which is the Gwoyeu Romatzyh spelling of the province. That is because if Pinyin were used to spell the province, it would be indistinguishable from its neighboring province Shanxi, where the pronunciations of the two provinces only differ by tones, which are usually not written down when used in English.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: In Taiwan, however, the standardization of Hanyu Pinyin has only seen mixed results. In Taipei, most (but not all) street and district names shifted to Hanyu Pinyin. For example, the Sinyi District is now spelled Xinyi. However, districts like Tamsui and even Taipei itself are not spelled according to Hanyu Pinyin spelling rules. As a matter of fact, most names of Taiwanese cities are still spelled using Chinese postal romanization, including Taipei, Taichung, Taitung, Keelung, and Kaohsiung.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: During the 1980's, the Singapore Government encouraged the use of Hanyu Pinyin spelling for place names, especially those with Teochew, Hokkien or Cantonese names, as part of the Speak Mandarin Campaign to promote Mandarin and discourage the use of dialects. For example, the area of Nee Soon, named after Teochew-Peranakan businessman Lim Nee Soon (Hanyu Pinyin: Lín Yìshùn) became Yishun and the neighbourhood schools and places established following the change used the Hanyu Pinyin spelling. In contrast, Hougang is the Hanyu Pinyin spelling but the Hokkien pronunciation "au-kang" is most commonly used. The changes to Hanyu Pinyin were not only financially costly but were unpopular with the locals, who opined that the Hanyu Pinyin versions were too difficult for non-Chinese or non-Mandarin speakers to pronounce. The government eventually stopped the changes by the 1990's, which has led to some place names within a locality having differing spellings. For example, Nee Soon Road and the Singapore Armed Forces base Nee Soon Camp are both located in Yishun but retained the old spelling.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: Matisoff wrote, "A group's autonym is often egocentric, equating the name of the people with 'mankind in general,' or the name of the language with 'human speech'."


title: Endonym and exonym

text: In Basque, the term " is used for speakers of any language different from Basque (usually Spanish or French).


title: Endonym and exonym

text: Many millennia earlier, the Greeks thought that all non-Greeks were uncultured and so called them "barbarians", which eventually gave rise to the exonym "Berber".


title: Endonym and exonym

text: Exonyms often describe others as "foreign-speaking", "non-speaking", or "nonsense-speaking". One example is the Slavic term for the Germans, , possibly deriving from plural of ("mute"); standard etymology has it that the Slavic peoples referred to their Germanic neighbors as "mutes" because their language was unintelligible. The term survives to this day in the Slavic languages (e.g. Russian ; ), and was borrowed into Hungarian, Romanian, and Ottoman Turkish (in which case it referred specifically to Austria).


title: Endonym and exonym

text: One of the more prominent theories regarding the origin of the term "Slav" suggests that it comes from the Slavic root (hence "Slovakia" and "Slovenia" for example), meaning 'word' or 'speech'. In this context, the Slavs are describing Germanic people as "mutes"—in contrast to themselves, "the speaking ones".


title: Endonym and exonym

text: The most common names of several Indigenous American tribes derive from pejorative exonyms. The name "Apache" most likely derives from a Zuni word meaning "enemy". The name "Sioux", an abbreviated form of , most likely derived from a Proto-Algonquian term, ('foreign-speaking). The name "Comanche" comes from the Ute word meaning "enemy, stranger". The Ancestral Puebloans are also known as the "Anasazi", a Navajo word meaning "ancient enemies", and contemporary Puebloans discourage the use of the exonym.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: Various Native-American autonyms are sometimes explained to English readers as having literal translations of "original people" or "normal people", with implicit contrast to other first nations as not original or not normal.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: Exonyms and endonyms must not be confused with the results of geographical renaming as in the case of Saint Petersburg, which became Petrograd (') in 1914, Leningrad (') in 1924, and again Saint Petersburg (", ) in 1991. In this case, although "Saint Petersburg" has a German etymology, it was never a German exonym for the city between 1914 and 1991, just as Nieuw Amsterdam, the Dutch name of New York City until 1664, is not its Dutch exonym.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: Old place names that have become outdated after renaming may afterward still be used as historicisms. For example, even today one would talk about the Siege of Leningrad, not the Siege of St. Petersburg because at that time (1941–1944) the city was called Leningrad. Likewise, one would say that Immanuel Kant was born in Königsberg in 1724, not in Kaliningrad ("), as it has been called since 1946.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: Likewise, Istanbul (Turkish: ) is still called (") in Greek, although the name was changed in Turkish to dissociate the city from its Greek past between 1923 and 1930 (the name Istanbul itself derives from a Medieval Greek phrase). Prior to , the city was known in Greek as (, ), named after its mythical founder, Byzas.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: Although the pronunciation for several names of Chinese cities such as Beijing and Nanjing has not changed for quite some time while in Mandarin Chinese (although the prestige dialect shifted from Nanjing dialect to Beijing dialect during the 19th century), they were called Peking and Nanking in English due to the older Chinese postal romanization convention, based largely on the Nanjing dialect, which was used for transcribing Chinese place names before Pinyin, based largely on the Beijing dialect became the official romanization method for Mandarin in the 1970s. Since the Mandarin pronunciation does not perfectly map to an English phoneme, English speakers using either romanization will not pronounce the names correctly if standard English pronunciation is used. Nonetheless, many older English speakers still refer to the cities by their older English names, and even today they are often used in their traditional associations, such as Peking duck, Peking opera, and Peking University. As for Saint Petersburg, the historical event called the Nanking Massacre (1937) uses the city's older name because that was the name of the city at the time of occurrence.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: Likewise, many Korean cities like Busan and Incheon (formerly Pusan and Inchǒn respectively) also underwent changes in spelling due to changes in romanization, even though the Korean pronunciations have largely stayed the same.


title: Endonym and exonym

text: The name Madras, now Chennai, maybe a special case. When the city was first settled by English people, in the early 17th century, both names were in use. They possibly referred to different villages which were fused into the new settlement. In any case, Madras became the exonym, while more recently, Chennai became the endonym. Madrasi, a term for a native of the city, has often been used derogatorily to refer to the people of Dravidian origin from the southern states of India.


title: Thuja

text: Thuja ( ) is a genus of coniferous tree or shrub in the Cupressaceae (cypress family). There are five species in the genus, two native to North America and three native to eastern Asia. The genus is monophyletic and sister to "Thujopsis". Members are commonly known as arborvitaes (from the Latin term for 'tree of life'), thujas or cedars.


title: Thuja

text: "Thuja" are evergreen trees growing from tall, with stringy-textured reddish-brown bark. The shoots are flat, with side shoots only in a single plane. The leaves are scale-like and long, except young seedlings in their first year, which have needle-like leaves. The scale leaves are arranged in alternating decussate pairs in four rows along the twigs. The male cones are small, inconspicuous, and are located at the tips of the twigs. The female cones start out similarly inconspicuous, but grow to about long at maturity when 6–8 months old; they have 6-12 overlapping, thin, leathery scales, each scale bearing 1–2 small seeds with a pair of narrow lateral wings.


title: Thuja

text: The five species in the genus "Thuja" are small to large evergreen trees with flattened branchlets. The leaves are arranged in flattened fan shaped groupings with resin-glands, and oppositely grouped in 4 ranks. The mature leaves are different from younger leaves, with those on larger branchlets having sharp, erect, free apices. The leaves on flattened lateral branchlets are crowded into appressed groups and scale-like and the lateral pairs are keeled. With the exception of "T. plicata", the lateral leaves are shorter than the facial leaves (Li "et al." 2005). The solitary flowers are produced terminally. Pollen cones with 2-6 pairs of 2-4 pollen sacked sporophylls. Seed cones are ellipsoid, typically long, and mature and open the first year. The thin woody cone scales number from 4-6 pairs and are persistent and overlapping, with an oblong shape, they are also basifixed. The central 2-3 pairs of cone scales are fertile. The seed cones produce 1 to 3 seeds per scale, the seeds are lenticular in shape and equally 2 winged. Seedlings produce 2 cotyledons.


title: Thuja

text: A hybrid between "T. standishi" and "T. plicata" has been named as the cultivar "Thuja" 'Green Giant'.


title: Thuja

text: Another very distinct and only distantly related species, formerly treated as "Thuja orientalis", is now treated in a genus of its own, as "Platycladus orientalis". The closest relatives of "Thuja" are "Thujopsis dolabrata", distinct in its thicker foliage and stouter cones, and "Tetraclinis articulata" (Ancient Greek or , formerly classed in the genus and after which "Thuja" is named), distinct in its quadrangular foliage (not flattened) and cones with four thick, woody scales.


title: Thuja

text: The genus "Thuja", like many other forms of conifers, is represented by ancestral forms in Cretaceous rocks of northern Europe, and with the advance of time is found to migrate from northerly to more southerly regions, until during the Pliocene period, when it disappeared from Europe. "Thuja" is also known in the Miocene beds of the Dakotas.


title: Thuja

text: The extant species "Thuja sutchuenensis" was believed to be extinct until 1999, when a small population was discovered in southeast China.


title: Thuja

text: "Thuja" species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including autumnal moth, the engrailed and juniper pug. The foliage is also readily eaten by deer, and where deer population density is high, can adversely affect the growth of young trees and the establishment of seedlings.


title: Thuja

text: The genus "Thuja" has current populations in both North America and East Asia. "T. plicata" has wide distribution in the Pacific Northwest from Northern California to Alaska, reaching East into Idaho and central British Columbia. "T. occidentalis" has populations in the Northeastern United States, reaching north into Ontario and Quebec, with some distribution as far south as Tennessee.


title: Thuja

text: "T. standishii" has populations in mountainous regions of Honshu and Shikoku islands in Japan, with no recorded population in the north of the country. "T. koraiensis" is native to both North and South Korea and has a small population in the Northern Chinese province of Jilin. The newly rediscovered species "T. sutchuenensis" has extremely limited distribution in the mountains of Chengkou county in southeastern China.


title: Thuja

text: Current research suggests that "Thuja" originated in the Americas and migrated to East Asia via the Bering land bridge in the Miocene. Fossil records show that Thuja was significantly more widely distributed during the late Cretaceous and early Tertiary than we see today. The oldest known "Thuja" fossil is of "T. polaris" (an extinct species) from the Paleocene of Ellesmere Island in present-day Nunavut, Canada.


title: Thuja

text: Other hypotheses of "Thuja" origin involved an East Asian origin, with the genus migrating twice; once east into North-western America and then west to the North-eastern America, but since no reliable fossil records of "Thuja" exist in either Western Asia or Europe, the possibility can be eliminated.


title: Thuja

text: Thuja is a monophyletic genus that sits within the order Pinales in the Cupressaceae. "Thuja" is in the Cupressoid clade and is sister to the genus "Thujopsis". The sister relationship between "Thuja" and "Thujopsis" is supported with 100% bootstrap support and 1.0 posterior probability.


title: Thuja

text: Within the genus the taxonomy is in flux, but most recent research based on molecular analysis of plastomes in the genus "Thuja" showed evidence for a new grouping, with two sister clades: "T. standishii" and "T. koraiensis" together and "T. occidentalis" and "T. sutchuenensis" together, with "T. plicata" sister to "T. occidentails" and "T. sutchuenensis." This newest grouping is hypothesized to be the result of reticulate evolution and hybridization within the genus.


title: Thuja

text: They are widely grown as ornamental trees, and extensively used for hedges. A number of cultivars are grown and used in landscapes. Homeowners will sometimes plant them as privacy trees. The cultivar 'Green Giant' is popular as a very vigorous hedging plant, growing up to 80 cm/year when young.


title: Thuja

text: The wood is light, soft and aromatic. It can be easily split and resists decay. The wood has been used for many applications from making chests that repel moths to shingles. "Thuja" poles are also often used to make fence posts and rails. The wood of "Thuja plicata" is commonly used for guitar sound boards. Its combination of light weight and resistance to decay has also led to "T. plicata" being widely used for the construction of bee hives.


title: Thuja

text: "T. plicata" is an important tree to the First Nations people of the Pacific Northwest and is sometimes called "Canoe Tree" because of its use as a material for Native American canoes.


title: Thuja

text: Oil of "Thuja" contains the terpene thujone which has been studied for its GABA receptor antagonizing effects, with potentially lethal properties. Cedarwood oil and cedar leaf oil, which are derived from "Thuja occidentalis", have different properties and uses.


title: Thuja

text: The natives of Canada used the scaled leaves of "Thuja occidentalis" to make a tea that has been shown to contain 50 mg of vitamin C per 100 grams; this helped prevent and treat scurvy.


title: Thuja

text: In the 19th century, "Thuja" was commonly used as an externally applied tincture or ointment for the treatment of warts, ringworm and thrush, and a local injection of the tincture was used for treating venereal warts.


title: Thuja

text: A 2017 trial showed that its extract effectively killed both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria.


title: Thuja

text: As with many Cupressaceae, "Thuja" can induce allergic reactions, including skin, eye and breathing problems.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: Choate Rosemary Hall (often known as Choate; ) is a private, co-educational, college-preparatory boarding school in Wallingford, Connecticut, United States. Choate is currently ranked as the second best boarding school and third best private high school in America. Founded in 1890, it took its present name and began a co-educational system with the 1971 merger of The Choate School for boys and Rosemary Hall for girls. It is part of the Eight Schools Association and the Ten Schools Admissions Organization. Its alumni include many members of the American political elite.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: The schools that would eventually become Choate Rosemary Hall were begun by members of two prominent New England families, the Choates and Atwaters.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: Rosemary Hall was founded in 1890 by Mary Atwater Choate at Rosemary Farm in Wallingford, her girlhood home and the summer residence of her and her husband, William Gardner Choate. Mary, an alumna of Miss Porter's School, was the great-granddaughter of Caleb Atwater (1741–1832), a Connecticut merchant magnate who supplied the American forces during the Revolutionary War. In 1775 General George Washington visited the Atwater store in Wallingford en route to assuming command of the Continental Army. On that occasion, Washington took tea with Judge Oliver Stanley at the "Red House" (built 1690–1750), now Squire Stanley House on the Choate campus.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: In 1878 Mary Atwater Choate had co-founded a vocational organization for Civil War widows, the New York Exchange for Women's Work, a prototype of many such exchanges across the country (it survived until 2003). In 1889, Mary planned a new institution on the same principle of female self-sufficiency, and she advertised in "The New York Times" for a headmistress to run a school that would train girls in the "domestic arts." The advertisement was answered by Caroline Ruutz-Rees (1865–1954), a 25-year-old Briton teaching in New Jersey.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: On October 3, 1890, the "New Haven Morning News" reported: "The opening of Rosemary Hall took place at Wallingford yesterday ... at the beautiful Rosemary Farms, which have been the property of Mrs. Choate's family for five generations. ... Rev. Edward Everett Hale addressed the school girls in his inimitable way, at once attractive and helpful. 'Never forget,' said he, 'that it is a great art to do what you do well. If you limp, limp well, and if you dance, dance well'."


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: The eight arriving girls occupied the original school building, "old Atwater House" (built 1758), located at the northwest corner of Christian and Elm streets, where the new Atwater House now stands. They also used "Atwater homestead" (built 1774, now known as Homestead), which stands at the center of the present-day campus, on the northeast corner of Christian and Elm streets.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: Caroline Ruutz-Rees (pronounced "roots-reece," the first syllable rhyming with "foot"), headmistress of Rosemary Hall until 1938, was a figure of extraordinary personality and influence, a militant feminist and suffragist of national prominence. On the Wallingford golf course, she wore bloomers, which shocked the locals, and on buggy rides to Wallingford station, she carried a pistol. She quickly changed Rosemary Hall's mission from "domestic arts" to that of a contemporary boys' school.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: The Choate School was founded by William and Mary Choate in 1896. William Gardner Choate (1830–1921), Harvard class of 1852, was U.S. District Judge for the Southern Circuit of New York from 1878 to 1881, and afterward a partner of Shipman, Barlow, Laroque, and Choate. He was a national authority on admiralty, railroad, bankruptcy, and corporation law. Like his younger, more famous brother, he was a prominent club man (Harvard and The Century). That brother was Joseph Hodges Choate, lawyer, a prosecutor of the Tweed Ring, and Ambassador to the Court of St. James's.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: William and Mary Choate invited Mark Pitman (1830–1905), their tenant in the aforementioned Red House, to start a boys' school under their sponsorship. Pitman, Bowdoin class of 1859, was 66 years old, a widower, and had been principal of Woolsey School in New Haven, Connecticut, since 1872. He accepted the Choates' offer, not least perhaps because it would employ his unmarried adult daughters, Leila, Elizabeth, and Helen. Six boys entered the new school in fall term 1896, their average age about ten. Four of the six lived in Red House with the Pitmans, the first of many periods when Red House (now Squire Stanley House) has served as a dormitory for the youngest students.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: Pitman taught Latin, English, history, and science; Elizabeth taught art, Helen piano, and Leila was a writing teacher and school nurse. Mary Choate's physician brother, Huntington Atwater, taught crafts and was a school doctor. There was no formal relationship with the Choates' other foundation, Rosemary Hall, a hundred yards to the east on Christian Street, but there were coeducational audiences for plays and recitals, and Mary Choate hosted dances at the Homestead.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: In 1897, the boys' school erected Choate House across the street from Red House, the first purpose-built institutional building (and John F. Kennedy's dormitory in 1931-2). It contained recitation rooms, an infirmary, a dining room, and housing for fifteen boys. In 1899 Choate House was the venue for the first "Junior Dance", but a year later, the Rosemary girls would depart for a seventy-one-year absence.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: The official history of Choate Rosemary Hall, written by Tom Generous, says that the rift between Caroline Ruutz-Rees and Mary Choate, proponents of two very different sorts of feminism, was public knowledge as early as 1896. In that year, the two women did not share the lectern at Prize Day, and local newspapers published "denials" of a rumor that Ruutz-Rees would leave the school. But by 1900, the headmistress and her educational style had acquired influential champions among the students' parents, and two of them, residents of Greenwich, Connecticut, joined forces to effect the removal of the school to their town.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: Shipping magnate Nathaniel Witherell donated of land in the Rock Ridge section of Greenwich. Julian Curtiss gathered a group of investors and established a joint-stock corporation funded through the sale of six-percent bonds. Ruutz-Rees was the chief shareholder. The Greenwich residence of Rosemary Hall began in the fall term 1900 when 57 girl students moved into the Main Building, known as "The School", a U-shaped shingled house on Zaccheus Mead Lane.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: In Wallingford, Mark Pitman died on December 3, 1905. Until 1908 Sumner Blakemore was titular headmaster, but the school was effectively the domain of the three Pitman sisters. At the 1908 graduation ceremony, the Japanese Consul General watched his countryman Noyobu Masuda give the valedictory address. Then Judge Choate introduced the man who would assume the headmastership in the fall, George St. John, and his wife, Clara Seymour St. John. She was a Bryn Mawr alumna, member of a well-connected Connecticut family, sister of future (1937–1951) Yale president Charles Seymour, and descendant of Yale president (1740–1766) Thomas Clap.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: George Clair St. John (1877–1966), Harvard class of 1902 and aged 31 in the fall of 1908, had grown up on a farm in Hoskins Station, Connecticut. He was an ordained Episcopal priest. He had taught at The Hill School in Pennsylvania and Adirondack-Florida School, and was teaching at Hackley School in Tarrytown, N.Y., when Samuel Dutton of Columbia Teachers College recruited him for the headmastership. St. John "knew, long before I read Mr. Dutton's letter, that I wanted some day to have a school of my own. In my thought about it, Dean Briggs was my first text." This was LeBaron Russell Briggs, dean of men at Harvard when St. John was there and afterward dean of the faculty until 1925. Briggs, St. John wrote, "fathered the whole college", and the St. Johns too would serve "in loco parentis".


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: Their first move to secure parental powers was decisive. In September 1909, as the official history tells it, the St. Johns "signed with the Choates an 'Agreement to Lease and Purchase.' Under its terms, the younger couple rented the school, its property and reputation, for five years at a sum equal to 11 percent of The Choate School's net income per year. ... Less than twenty months later, on May 12, 1911, St. John reported to the trustees that he had purchased the title to the school by acquiring mortgages of roughly $41,000. He resold the title in turn to The Choate School, Incorporated, for $23,000 cash and $38,000 in stock ... For all intents and purposes, The Choate School belonged to George St. John."


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: In his first quarter-century as headmaster, St. John created much of Choate as it is regarded today. Of the Georgian brick and stone campus, he had built by 1932 Hill House, West Wing, the Gymnasium, Memorial House, the Chapel, the Library, the Winter Exercise Building, and Archbold Infirmary, which was the largest school infirmary in the country. He grew the enrollment from 35 to 505 boys and the faculty from 5 to 64 masters. In the decade following the First World War (classes of 1918 to 1928), Choate sent 412 of its 618 graduates to Yale, Princeton, and Harvard, according to a table published in "The Choate News" in fall term 1928.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: George St. John belonged to the generation of legendary, long-serving headmasters who shaped the New England prep school, chief among whom were Endicott Peabody of Groton School, Frank Boyden of Deerfield Academy, Horace Dutton Taft of Taft School, Frederick Sill of Kent School, Samuel Drury of St. Paul's School, Alfred Stearns of Phillips Academy Andover, Lewis Perry of Phillips Exeter Academy, and George Van Santvoord of Hotchkiss School.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: The Rev. George St. John of Choate was succeeded in 1947 by his son, the Rev. Seymour St. John '31 (1912–2006), and the "St. John dynasty" was continued to 1973. Seymour was Yale class of 1935 and was ordained after graduating from Virginia Theological Seminary in 1942. During his time as head, he built as many buildings as his father had built, greatly broadened the curriculum, raised the national profile of the school, and made it more progressive (Eleanor Roosevelt, Norman Thomas, and William Sloane Coffin were regular speakers) and cosmopolitan (Russian, Near Eastern, and Afro-American studies centers were founded, and Russian, Chinese, and Arabic courses were begun). St. John was a longtime advocate of coeducation and initiated the Choate-Rosemary contacts. At his death, headmaster Edward Shanahan told the "New York Times", "The merger demanded an enormous expenditure of resources by Choate because the building of a new campus was to occur within the footprints of its property. Seymour was central to the decision to expand those resources."


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: In 1931 John F. Kennedy entered Choate as a third form (9th grade) student, following his older brother Joe Jr., who was a star athlete at the school. Jack Kennedy—sickly, underweight, and nicknamed Rat Face by his schoolfellows—spent his first two years at Choate in his brother's shadow, and compensated for it with rebellious behavior that attracted a coterie. He named his group The Muckers Club, which had thirteen members—Kennedy and twelve disciples. Among these was Kennedy's lifelong inseparable friend Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings, who kept an apartment in the White House during JFK's presidency.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: As Headmaster of Choate, George St. John's chapel talks included a recurring phrase that was widely remembered by Choate alumni. In 2008, school archivist Judy Donald found the phrase in St. John's notebooks, and in 2011 journalist Chris Matthews published the discovery in his biography of JFK. St. John's phrase (borrowed from Harvard dean LeBaron Briggs) was, "The youth who loves his alma mater will always ask not 'What can she do for me?' but 'What can I do for her?'" Speculation that this was the original of JFK's inaugural address "Ask not" goes back at least as far as a 1966 "Time" magazine article, and several of JFK's Choate contemporaries noticed the echo in 1961. Kennedy graduated from Choate in 1935. In senior class polling for the yearbook (of which he was business manager), Kennedy was voted Most Likely to Succeed.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: In 2017, it acknowledged a decades-long sex abuse scandal, with multiple victims being subjected to abuse from faculty members.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: Choate's curriculum includes elective and interdisciplinary courses, from astronomy and architecture to printmaking and post-modernism to digital video and development economics. There are more than 300 courses in the curriculum, which has requirements in community service and in contemporary global studies. All disciplines except English have honors courses. As of 2017, Choate no longer offers AP (Advanced Placement) courses.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: The Choate signature programs include the Advanced Robotics Program, Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies, Arts Concentration, Capstone, Environmental Immersion Program, JFK Program in Government and Public Service, Science Research Program, and the Global Education Program.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: The two-year intensive Science Research Program includes mentored laboratory work during the summer at universities in the United States and abroad. The Capstone Program allows sixth form (senior) students to explore an area of the curriculum in depth. Working under a faculty adviser, students take at least five courses that focus on a curricular theme, culminating in a substantial final project. During the college application process, Choate's College Counseling Office highlights Capstone Project participation in letters of recommendation.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: The performing and visual arts are supported by the resources of the Paul Mellon Arts Center. Among extracurricular arts clubs are five "a cappella" groups; step dance, slam poetry, hip hop, and rap groups; improv, musical theater, and instrumental ensembles of all sizes; photography and film-making clubs; and supporting publications for the arts, fashion, and culture. The Arts Concentration Program provides students with individually tailored instruction and class scheduling.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: The Senior Project Program provides on- or off-campus internships in academic research, visual art, and the performing arts. Other specialized programs include American Studies, creative writing, economics, FBLA, mathematics, philosophy, psychology, religion, debate, and the Fed Challenge. The 2011–12 academic year saw the introduction of an Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies Program (AMES). Choate's Office of Global Studies supports study-abroad and other international initiatives. One-third of Choate students participate in programs in China, France, Japan, Spain, and Jordan.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: The Kohler Environmental Center, designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, opened in 2012 and is located on a 268-acre site in the northeast quadrant of the campus. It has been described as "the first teaching, research and residential environmental center in U.S. secondary education." It can house up to 20 students and two faculty members and supports the curricular Environmental Immersion Program.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: In February 2015 the school opened the Lanphier Center for Mathematics and Computer Science, a $17 million, 35,000-square foot campus hub for information technology, applied mathematics, and robotics. The center, designed by architect César Pelli's firm Pelli Clarke Pelli, contains laboratories, classrooms, a lecture hall, and common spaces. It composes a U-shaped courtyard centering on a giant weeping beech tree, and is linked by a footbridge spanning Science Center Pond to the Icahn Center for Science.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: Choate's Fed Challenge team was the 2009 national champion and has won the New England District Championship in 12 of the past 13 years. In the 2012 American Mathematics Competitions (AMC) 12-A, Choate's team finished first in the nation, with the highest combined score of all 2631 participating schools.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: The Choate chamber orchestra performed at the White House in December 2009 and the school's symphony orchestra toured Europe in 2010 and 2011, giving concerts in ten countries. The festival and chamber choruses performed at St. Patrick's Day mass at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome in 2011. The Maiyeros, an "a cappella" group, performed at Westminster Abbey in 2008. Choate orchestras and choral groups toured East Asia in 2000, 2005, 2007, and 2014. The June 2014 tour comprised concerts in Seoul, Hong Kong, and Macau, at the Great Wall at Ju Yong Guan, and in ensemble with the Concert Band of Beijing Children's Palace. Choate orchestras have also performed at Lincoln Center in New York, Carnegie Hall, and the Guggenheim Museum. The school's student-operated radio station, WWEB, was FCC-licensed and founded in 1969.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: In 2012 Choate became the first among its peer preparatory schools to require that all faculty and students own an iPad. The fall term that year saw the beginning of full integration of the tablet's capabilities into the syllabus. Choate's director of academic technology discussed Choate's iPad program in an August 2012 article in "US News".


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: Choate enrolls 846 students, has 120.4 full-time equivalent teaching staff, and a student-teacher ratio of 7.0 for the 2015-2016 school year.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: Financial aid totaling more than $10 million was awarded to 32 percent of the student body, the average award being $38,000 for boarders and $26,000 for day students.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: In the fiscal year ending June 2014 Choate's endowment was $356.7 million. Among member institutions of the Eight Schools Association Choate led in gifts from parents, with $2.1 million. Total gifts received in that fiscal year were $28.9 million. In November 2006 the school inaugurated a capital campaign with a target of $200 million and by the campaign's close in 2011 gifts and pledges of $220 million had been secured.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim chaplains serve Choate's campus ministry. Services include Christian fellowship, Protestant evening services, Roman Catholic Mass, Buddhist meditation, Hillel, Spiritual Alternatives, Reflections Program, and other student worship groups.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: The school fields 81 interscholastic athletic teams in 32 sports. Choate's historical archrival in athletic competition is Deerfield Academy. The final weekend of the fall season is Deerfield Day (called Choate Day at Deerfield), when the two schools compete in every sport.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: On July 1, 2011, Alex Curtis succeeded Edward Shanahan as headmaster of Choate. Shanahan had served as head for twenty years from 1991, when he arrived from Dartmouth College. Curtis was selected by unanimous vote of the Choate board on November 4, 2010. Before Choate, Curtis was headmaster of Morristown-Beard School in New Jersey for seven years.


title: Choate Rosemary Hall

text: The campus contains 121 buildings in a variety of architectural styles. Georgian Revival predominates (examples by famed traditionalist architect Ralph Adams Cram and by Polhemus & Coffin), but there are also eighteenth- and nineteenth-century houses and dramatic modernist structures (examples by I.M. Pei and by James Polshek).