BEIJING — It’s known among a small circle of scholars in China as “the Qian Xuesen question.” Four years ago Mr. Qian, the rocket scientist and genius architect of China’s space and missile programs who died in October at the age of 97, asked a prominent visitor a troubling question: “Why does China produce so many clever people, but so few geniuses?”

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s answer isn’t recorded, but my friend Bai Hua thinks she knows.

“Our education system is like ancient Sparta. Not physically, but mentally,” she said over coffee in a Beijing mall, where white marble sparkled under powerful lights. “Our children learn to calculate fast, play the piano, to do everything well. They have a lot of skills. But when they grow up they are lost, because no one ever asked them to think about what they want.”

The agoge of Sparta took 7-year-old boys and molded them into an elite corps of disciplined warriors loyal to the state. At Chinese school a powerful blend of Communist and Confucian ideologies demands obedience to hierarchy, bone-hard study and uncritical thinking.

Starting at 6, children are buried under an avalanche of studies until they graduate from high school. Twelve-hour days (less on weekends, but no days off) are common among first-graders. For his first Chinese New Year semester break, my 6-year-old son was given 42 pages of math and 42 pages of Chinese homework to complete in four weeks. The goal? Entrance to an elite college like Peking or Tsinghua University.