He attempted to reform the examination system, requiring from the candidate not so much graces of style as a wide acquaintance with practical subjects.

"Accordingly," says one Chinese author, "even the pupils at the village schools threw away their text-books of rhetoric, and began to study primers of history, geography, and political economy"-- a striking anticipation of the movement in vogue to-day.

"I have myself been," he tells us, "an omnivorous reader of books of all kinds, even, for example, of ancient medical and botanical works.

I have, moreover, dipped into treatises on agriculture and on needlework, all of which I have found very profitable in aiding me to seize the great scheme of the Canon itself." But like many other great men, he was in advance of his age.

He fell into disfavour at court, and was dismissed to a provincial post; and although he was soon recalled, he retired into private life, shortly afterwards to die, but not before he had seen the whole of his policy reversed.
His career stands out in marked contrast with that of the great statesman and philosopher, Chu Hsi (pronounced _Choo Shee_), who flourished A.D.