It is published daily, but was not printed until the fifteenth century.
Every Chinese boy may be said to have his chance.

The slightest sign of a capacity for book-learning is watched for, even among the poorest.
Besides the opportunity of free schools, a clever boy will soon find a patron; and in many cases, the funds for carrying on a curriculum, and for entering the first of the great competitions, will be subscribed in the district, on which the candidate will confer a lasting honour by his success.

A promising young graduate, who has won his first degree with honours, is at once an object of importance to wealthy fathers who desire to secure him as a son-in-law, and who will see that money is not wanting to carry him triumphantly up the official ladder.

Boys without any gifts of the kind required, remain to fill the humbler positions; those who advance to a certain point are drafted into trade; while hosts of others who just fall short of the highest, become tutors in private families, schoolmasters, doctors, fortune-tellers, geomancers, and booksellers' hacks.
Of high-class Chinese literature, it is not possible to give even the faintest idea in the space at disposal.

It must suffice to say that all branches are adequately represented, histories, biographies, philosophy, poetry and essays on all manner of subjects, offering a wide field even to the most insatiate reader.
And here a remark may be interjected, which is very necessary for the information of those who wish to form a true estimate of the Chinese people.