System of Sponsorship. To find suitable candidates for public service, the Tang court created a system of sponsorship allowing certain senior officials to nominate family members for governmental appointment. This method of recruitment was justified by a saying of Confucius: "Raise to office those of virtue and talent whom you know." The sponsorship system emphasized character, and the official had to guarantee the candidate's ability when nominating him.

Song Personnel Administration. Personnel administration in the Song dynasty (960-1279) generally developed in the patterns created during the Tang dynasty (618-907). The Tang requirement of sponsorship inevitably favored the influential families. To recruit the right type of personnel for the bureaucracy, the Song court tried to make the system of personnel administration more open by building state-supported schools in the prefectures, by abolishing the monopoly on entrance to the national university (which sons...