"Ten years obscurely spent in studious poverty / Are crowned, th'examination pass'd, with vast celebrity." In traditional China, where learned scholarship was always regarded as the noblest vocation, to become a government official was every scholar's highest ideal.
「十年寒窗無人問，一舉成名天下知」；在傳統中國社會，居「士農工商」排行榜首位的讀書人，一直是以做官為事業上的最高理想。到了民國初年，「官」變成了另一個名詞﹘﹘公務員。