What does it mean to choose talents and abilities for the public?

It means: the world is shared by the people, and people with high moral character and ability are selected from the Book of Rites. The original excerpt is as follows:

Confucius said: "The trip to the Avenue is also different from the English of three generations. If you don't catch it, you are determined to win it. The trip to the avenue is also for the public, choosing talents and talents, and honesty. An old friend is not only a relative, but also an only son.

Translation:

Confucius said, "Kong Qiu failed to catch up with the era when the Avenue was implemented and outstanding people in Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties were in power, but I am interested in it. In the era of avenue operation, the world belongs to everyone. We should select talented people to be in power, pay attention to each other's credit and establish harmonious relations. So people not only treat their relatives as relatives, but also treat their sons as sons.

Extended data:

The Book of Rites is about 90,000 words, with a wide range of contents and diverse categories, involving politics, law, morality, philosophy, history, sacrifice, literature and art, daily life, calendar, geography and many other aspects. It is almost all-encompassing, reflecting the political, philosophical and ethical thoughts of pre-Qin Confucianism. It is an important material for studying the pre-Qin society.

The Book of Rites is written in prose, and some chapters have considerable literary value. Some use short and vivid stories to illustrate a certain truth, some are magnificent and precise in structure, some are concise, some are good at psychological description and characterization, and there are a lot of philosophical aphorisms in the book, which are incisive and profound.