I think that scholarly knowledge can help us the most in the long run. If/when we can go back to the palace and rejoin the Prince, we could turn into a somewhat useful ally if we have more book smarts. We could advise him on tactics or governance as treave said. Artistic ability is cool, and I wouldn't mind it that much, but I don't see it helping us all that much.
I think we also need to remember that we are responsible for shaping Jing. We have already made a lot of decisions about his personality, but since this is in interactive LP, we can force him to make decisions, and his personality can change based upon what we make him do, so "Jing wouldn't like studying" doesn't really hit me as all that convincing of a reason. Even the Southern Maniac has a lot of books, and appears to be at least somewhat well read and intelligent.