CHAPTER IV TRANSITION FROM TRADITIONAL TO EDUCATION (A. D. 1842-1905) Beginnings of Modern Schools The beginning of modern schools may be said to date from 1842, the year which marks the opening of the five Chinese ports to foreign trade and commerce. The pioneers of the movement were the missionaries who had been waiting at the door for an opportunity to come into China. They lost no time in establishing schools as an instrument for the dissemination of Christian knowledge and faith. The schools thus founded, though not strictly confined to the children of the Christians, remained chiefly as the place where new converts were educated and preserved from too intimate contact with the unbelieving world. At all events the work of those pioneer missionaries did not have the scope and character which it has assumed in recent years. They had no well-established educational policy. Each school was opened as the exigency of the occasion demanded and the funds of the home board permitted. Their schools were, moreover, confined to the children of the humbler classes. The few who acquired a western education therein had little prospect of employment in the government. In spite of these and other shortcomings, it must be admitted that for some time the schools of the missionaries were practically the only institutions where some form of modern knowledge was taught and for this reason they may justly claim to have been the first modern educational institutions in China. The treaty of Tientsin, ratified in 1860, called into being the Tsungli Yamen or Foreign Office. With its establishment there was at once felt an urgent need of men familiar with both the written and the spoken languages of the several treaty Powers, in order to carry on diplomatic relations with them. To be 64 sure, the treaty in question contains a clause requiring that all despatches should be accompanied by a Chinese translation, but this arrangement was to last only for a period of three years, and was made to allow the Chinese government time to provide her own interpreters. In order to meet this demand, the government established, in 1862, through the recommendation of the Tsungli Yamen, a school in Peking, until recently known as the T'ung Wen Kuan, for the training of official interpreters.1 This school, though connected with the Foreign Office, was placed under the direction of the late Sir Robert Hart who was then Inspector General of Maritime Customs. In 1866 it wasTM raised to the rank of a college. Before that time only foreign languages were taught; then a scientific department was added. In 1868 Dr. W. A. P. Martin was called to the professorship of international law, and in 1869 he was appointed the first president of the college. Soon after the establishment of the T'ung Wen Kuan, the Tsungli Yamen established two auxiliary schools, one of which was located at Shanghai and the other at Canton. At different times graduates of these schools were sent to the T'ung Wen Kuan at Peking for further study, the latter being the higher school and offering a more advanced course of study. As the years went by and occasion demanded, departments of foreign languages, such as English, French, Russian, and Japanese, were added one after another to these schools. Besides the T'ung Wen Kuan and its auxiliary schools, several other institutions of learning came into existence and these in turn became the forerunners of the modern school system. In 1867 Viceroy Tseng Kuo Fan, through the persuasion of Yung Wing, established a mechanical school as an annex to the Kiangnan Arsenal at Shanghai in order to teach the theory as well as the practice of mechanical engineering, with a view to enabling China in time to dispense with the employment of foreign mechanical engineers and machinists, and thus to be perfectly independent. In the same year two naval schools, one French and the other English, were established in Foochow. The Northern Government Telegraph College was established at Tientsin in the year 1879. In 1887 Li Hung Chang formulated 1 The T'ung Wen Kuan was in 1903 amalgamated with another school known as I Hsüeh Kuan (school of the science of translation). the plan of establishing a university at Tientsin. With funds contributed by both Chinese and Europeans a spacious building was constructed. Dr. Charles D. Tenny was called to the presidency of the proposed university, but for some reason no further steps were taken to carry out the plan until after the war with Japan. In 1890 the Chinese Imperial Naval College was established at Nanking, and two years later the government Mining and Engineering College of the Hupeh Board of Mines was established at Wuchang. One year later, in 1893, the medical college for the army was established in Tientsin. At Wuchang Viceroy Chang Chih Tung also attempted to institute reforms by introducing western education. Colleges of agriculture, languages, mechanics, mining, and military science were organized. Professors were invited from America, Belgium, England, Germany, and Russia. Early Attempts to Modernize the Examination System Meanwhile, attempts were made to introduce reforms in the time-honored examination system itself. As early as the year 1869 the viceroy of the Fukien province memorialized the throne suggesting that a knowledge of mathematics should be required of candidates competing for degrees in the examinations. In 1875 Li Hung Chang, then viceroy of Chili, presented a similar memorial recommending the introduction of physical science as well as mathematics among the subjects of examination. Both of these recommendations, however, failed to receive the royal sanction, showing that the time was not yet ripe for the change. But while the central government was so reluctant to modify the examination system, the new learning was all the time gaining in popularity with the more progressive literati of the country. Finally, in 1887, two years after the close of the war with France, the government, now fully convinced of the necessity of reforming the educational system, decreed that mathematics and science be introduced in the government examinations, and for the first time in Chinese history modern sciences were placed on a par with classical learning. This official recognition of the parity between science and linguistics, indicating the coming victory of realism over humanism, is remarkable in that it preceded similar events in most of the modern nations; for example, this did not happen in Germany until the adoption of the reform program of 1901, and in France not until the adoption of the reform program of 1902. Owing to the fact, however, that the literary chancellors who presided over the examinations were themselves unfamiliar with the new subjects, very little was actually accomplished in the way of modifying the old stereotyped classical examinations. Nevertheless, the step taken was of great significance, and its importance in the history of Chinese education cannot be overestimated. A writer of the time, commenting upon the reform thus introduced, remarks that the thin edge of the wedge has been driven into the competitive examination system which in the end will rive asunder the old wall of Chinese conservatism, liberalizing the minds of the literati and setting them forward in the path of progress and reform. Educational Commissions to Western Countries The educational commissions of this early period played no less important part in the development of modern education in China. One of these commissions was brought about by the late Dr. Yung Wing, who was a Chinese graduate of Yale College. In 1868 he proposed to the high authorities in China a scheme for sending picked students to America to be thoroughly educated for government service. As an experiment one hundred and twenty students were to be selected and divided into four groups of thirty students each, one group to be sent out each year. They were to have fifteen years to finish their education. Their average age was to be from twelve to fourteen years. If the first and second years' work proved to be successful, the scheme was to be continued indefinitely. Chinese teachers were to be provided to keep up their knowledge of Chinese while in the United States. Over the whole enterprise two commissioners were to be appointed, and the government was to appropriate a certain percentage of the Shanghai customs revenue to maintain the mission. Largely through the influence of Tseng Kuo Fan, Ting Yi Chang, and others high in authority, the scheme received the sanction of the emperor soon after the Tientsin massacre (1870) and Yung Wing and Chin Lan Pin, the latter a member of the Hanlin Academy, were Cf. Yung Wing: My Life in China and America. appointed to take charge of the newly created commission. In 1871 a preparatory school for the training of students to be sent. abroad was established in Shanghai under the supervision of Liu Kai Sing, who for a number of years was one of the secretaries of Viceroy Tseng Kuo Fan. In the latter part of the summer of 1872, the first thirty students were sent over to the United States, and by the fall of 1875 the last group of students had arrived in America. The youths were distributed by twos or by fours in New England families, where they were cared for and instructed until they were able to join classes in graded schools. In course of time, they proved themselves almost without exception to be capable and active in the tasks set before them, and as their hold upon the English language increased, they began even to outrank the brightest of their American classmates. The Commission made its permanent headquarters in Hartford, Connecticut, where, at the recommendation of the commission, and with the approval of Li Hung Chang, who had assumed charge of the Commission upon the death of Tseng Kuo Fan, a handsome and substantial building was erected in 1874 and occupied at the beginning of the following year. To the great disappointment of the thoughtful men of the time, the scheme, so auspiciously inaugurated, did not live long. The complexion of this educational enterprise began to change with the installation of Wu Tzu Tung as head of the Commission in 1876. No sooner was this man placed in office than he began to make misrepresentations to the Chinese government regarding the intellectual and moral character of the students. and the general result of the Commission. These false reports continued for some time till a censor from the ranks of the reactionary party came forward and, taking advantage of the strong anti-Chinese prejudice in America, memorialized the government to break up the mission and have all the students recalled. This proved the death-knell of the enterprise, for in 1881 we see the actual break-up of the Commission and the recall of all the students, numbering one hundred in all. The real motive which prompted the government to withdraw the students when they were about to gather in the most important advantages from their studies, and the humiliations to which these young students were subjected upon their return to the |