In 1985, I was at Stanford University as a visiting scholar, and a recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship. Students and professors at the university who were interested in Asian area studies asked me to give a lecture on the educational system of the R.O.C. In the discussion which followed the lecture, a great interest was expressed in the school entrance examinations on Taiwan. Next to the National Palace Museum, the feature of Taipei that impresses visitors most, according to the opinions of the audience, is the large number of cram schools designed to prepare for the college entrance examination, the TOEFL, and other examinations. The fact that the cram schools even made it on the list is surprising in itself.

The media reported recently that some people who operate cram schools for students seeking admission to high school entrance went to the Shihlin Junior High School to demonstrate against the principal, who is opposed to his students taking classes at the cram schools. Afterwards they lifted up an effigy and confronted the parents of the students as they argued. Of course there are some in the business who hold the view that such demonstrations only hurt the image of the cram school business as a whole, and called for self-restraint. Cram schools have spread like wildfire for more than thirty years with the ever-increasing need to do well on examinations such as the joint-entrance examination, TOEFL, and the GRE. This phenomenon has become food for thought in the minds of those who research education and changes in culture.

The British philosopher Bertrand Russell noted that one of the characteristics of traditional Chinese culture is that scholars are chosen to run the country by means of an examination system, and not by a system of inherited nobility. Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of the R.O.C., once said that, "one of the unique characteristics of Chinese culture has been the holding of examinations throughout history by which real talent has been spotted. Such an examination system has won praise abroad recently by foreign scholars who have taken a closer look at our system, and have followed China's system of finding talented people. An example of this is the palace examination held in England recently, which is fashioned after the Chinese system." From this we can see that the system of testing is one of the cultural traditions of the Chinese, and still remains a strong influence on us today.

From the above we can see that modern phenomena of today actually have roots in history. In other words, this historical background and cultural tradition may be called "historical tradition." Every people and nation has its own historical tradition; it includes different parts. The good points and bad points of an era change with the passing of time. The pressure on students today to squeeze through the "gate" to higher education and study abroad is partly a carryover from the system of the past. Similarly, the difficulty of advocating a democratic government has been mainly due to the influence of several thousand years of sovereign rule.

In our generation society and cultural environment are ever changing. The thing to watch out for is at which level these changes are taking place. Change is always the easy part to spot; it's something outward, yet the basic structure remains unchanged. Since culture is something which is learned, it's passed down from one generation to the next. Of course not every aspect of a culture's tradition makes the transmission, but it is still an influential force, otherwise today everything would be exactly the same as in the past.

No matter what nation or people, its present cultural expressions have been influenced by its former traditions in history. In other words, today's expression finds its origin in history.

Cram schools of every kind can be found in Taipei. As soon as spring rolls around, news concerning the joint entrance examination appears in the newspapers, and doesn't end until about the fall. Entrance exams and study abroad preoccupy a rather large part of our society, because they affect a person's future and occupation. Isn't this simply another manifestation of the civil service examinations found in history?