On the Eight-part Essay of the Jinwen School of the Late Qing Dynasty.

The School of Eight-part Essay of Jinwen (New Script), which formed during the mid-and-late Guangxu Reign of the Qing Dynasty, was constituted by a group of scholars insisting on interpreting The Four Books in the manner advocated by the so-called Jinwen School (whose major academic ideologies are embodied in its studies on Gongyang). Heavily influenced by the Jinwen Scholars in Classics Studies such as Gong Zizhen and Wei Yuan and by the rise of western learning in the early modern period, the school was considered heretical at its emergence. As its representative, Kang Youwei borrowed the ideas from the studies on Gongyang to advocate his political views on constitutional reform, thus forming a social trend of thoughts that promoted the spread of western learning and political reforms. Therefore, the school is believed to be both the critic and the terminator of the Eight-part Essay System of the imperial examination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]