Entry

The Grand Secretary Li Dong-yang and others memorialized: "The instructors of the Translators Institute have to be familiar with fan scripts and fan languages, as well as with the meanings of Han characters before they can be employed in these posts. Thus, when finding persons for posts in the Institute, it is necessary to seek in and have people recommended from the border areas. Recently, there has been a great shortage of instructors. The supervisory official of the Institute should be instructed to conduct fair examinations. Those who score best in the examinations should be sent to the Grand Secretariat for further examinations, and then they can be employed to fill the vacancies... It is also requested that the grand defenders and grand coordinators of Shan-xi and Yun-nan be ordered to seek out and obtain persons who are very familiar with Tatar, Western fan, Gao-chang, Indian (西天) or Bai-yi languages and scripts and also conversant with the meanings of Chinese characters and, in accordance with the regulations, send them to the capital." The Ministry memorialized: "It is requested that consideration be given to appointing officials to study with the instructors of this Institute. We must ensure that translation skills are passed on, so that problems do not arise in future." This was Imperially approved.