The New York Review of Books: Passage to China »»

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17608
"The development of printing, had a powerful effect on the development of democracy, but even in the short run, it opened new possibilities for public communication and had enormous consequences for social and political life in China. Among other things, education achieved a new level of importance with the rise of learning, marked by the great spread of printing, literacy, and schooling."