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special ceremonies. Under him, the system of education, dimly begun before Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees and continued till to-day, took on most of its modern aspects, so that 627 A. D. may be taken as the real birth time of this method of preparing statesmen by study and degrees. The colleges in Peking and all the chief cities were coordinated, and the officers of the empire recruited from the examination halls. These literary degrees in China dating from the seventh