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Chinese Educational Commission to the United States: A Government Experiment in Western Education
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2011
Extract
The decade between 1870 and 1880 was a significant one in the history of the development of modern China. At the beginning of this period the internal disturbances caused by the great T'ai-p'ing rebellion had subsided. Under the stress and strain of the rebellion Tseng Kuo-fan and Li Hung-chang emerged as the two most powerful provincial officials in the Chinese mandarinate. Both men were forward-looking and fully realized that the sheer necessities of national existence required the Chinese to replace their traditional disdain for the “barbarian” West with a desire to seek out and learn the secrets of the strength of the Western nations. Both of these great Chinese officials, however, conceived of this strength in the narrow sense of military and naval prowess. Their primary concern, therefore, was to learn from the West the technical knowledge upon which western military and naval power rested, in order that China might create an army and navy as a protection against the aggressive tendencies of the Occidental nations.
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- Copyright © Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1941
References
1 See Chen, Gideon, Tseng Kuo-fan: pioneer promoter of the steamship in China (Peiping: Yen-ching University, 1935), passim.Google Scholar
2 Tseng Wen-cheng-kung chüan-chi: tsou kao [images/] [The collected public papers of Tseng Kuo-fan: memorials section] ([images/] 1888), eh. 30, pp. 3a–4a.Google Scholar
3 Ch'en Lan-pin [images/] was a native of Kwangtung and chin-shih of 1853. Later he became an undersecretary in the board of punishments. In 1872 he took the first contingent of students to the United States. In 1875 he was appointed minister to the United States, Spain, and Peru. He was recalled in 1881. In 1882 he was appointed to the Tsungli Yamen, the bureau in charge of conducting foreign affairs. In 1884 he was retired.
4 Yung Wing or Jung Hung [images/] (1828–1912) was one of the first pupils of the school of the Morrison Educational Society. In 1847 he came to the United States. He spent two years at Monson Academy, Monson, Mass. He then entered Yale College and was graduated in 1854. He returned to China and engaged in various business ventures. In 1864 he was commissioned by Tseng Kuo-fan to go abroad to purchase the machinery for what became the Kiangnan Arsenal. In 1870 he was called upon by Tseng to act as assistant commissioner to supervise the education of the students while they were abroad. In 1875 he was made co-minister to the United States with Ch'en Lan-pin. After the recall of the Mission, except for occasional trips to China, he lived in the United States. He died at Hartford, Conn., in 1912. See his autobiography, My life in China and America (New York, 1906).Google Scholar
5 Ta Ch'ing li-ch'ao shih-lu [images/] [The authentic chronicles of the Ch'ing dynasty, T'ung-chih period] (Tokyo, 1938), ch. 291, p. 3.Google Scholar
6 Li Wen-chung-kung wai-pu han-kao [images/] [Li Hung-chang's collected correspondence, section on foreign affairs] ([images/] 1902), ch. 1, pp. 17a–19b.Google Scholar
7 Tseng, , op. cit., ch. 30, pp. 13b–15bGoogle Scholar. Also in the Ch'ou-pan i-wu shih-mo [images/] [Documents relating to barbarian (foreign) affairs: T'ung-chih period] (Peip'ing: Palace Museum, 1930). ch. 82, pp. 46b–52a.Google Scholar
8 Heretofore, writers on the Chinese Educational Mission, Chinese as well as Western, have relied for their information upon Yung Wing's autobiography, My life in China and America. The autobiography was not written until many years after the events took place, and in recalling these events Yung Wing's memory seems to have been somewhat hazy at many points. One hesitates to withhold full credit from him as the originator of the plan to send students to the United States. In his autobiography he states that after his return to China in 1858 he sought for many years an opportunity to broach the plan to some influential official, and that finally through Ting Jih-ch'ang, the governor of Kiangsu, he brought it, together with a proposal to establish the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company and one to develop mining along modern lines, to the attention of Tseng Kuo-fan. It may well be that Yung Wing did first propose the Chinese Educational Mission. At the time the plan was conceived he was only a minor official in the yamen or headquarters of Governor-general Tseng, and therefore the credit due him may not have been recorded. A careful search of Tseng's correspondence with Ting Jih-ch'ang has failed to reveal any references to the proposal to send students abroad prior to the actual presentation of the memorial proposing the plan. Yung Wing undoubtedly had such a project in mind, but Tseng Kuo-fan himself had been slowly working toward some such solution of China's technical backwardness. Yung Wing happened to be the right man at the right moment for Tseng's purposes, and their mutuality of interests brought them together.
9 The treaty was signed at Washington on July 28, 1868. Art. VII reads: “Citizens of the United States shall enjoy all the privileges of the public educational institutions under the control of the Government of China: and reciprocally Chinese subjects shall enjoy all the privileges of the public educational institutions under the control of the Government of the United States, which are enjoyed in the respective countries by the citizens or subjects of the most favored nations.”
10 Ch'ou-pan i-wu shih-mo (T'ung-chih 10: 8, 1), ch. 83, pp. 1–2a.Google Scholar
11 Later changed on the recommendation of Prince Kung to twelve to sixteen years.
12 Prince Kung seems to have been responsible for these regulations requiring the students regularly to worship the emperor. See Ch'ou-pan i-wu shih-mo (T'ung-chih II:4, 7, May 13, 1872), ch. 86, pp. 13a–14b.Google Scholar
13 See Ping-chung, Wen, Tsui-hsicn liu Mei t'ung-hsüeh lu, [images/] [Records concerning the first students sent to America] (Peking, 1924), passimGoogle Scholar, for a complete list of all the students, giving their names, ages, and place of origin, etc. Lists indicate that out of a total of 120 students, 83 were from Kwangtung.
14 Note of B. G. Northrop, secretary of the board of education of the state of Connecticut, dated New Haven, Oct. 1, 1872.
“The response to the call for homes and instruction for Chinese boys has been surprisingly prompt and cordial. One hundred and twenty-two families have offered to receive two each, so that homes are open for two hundred and forty-four, while, as yet, only thirty have arrived. The number, and especially the character, of the applicants show that this liberal and far-reaching plan of the Chinese government has enlisted the practical sympathy of philanthropists widely over this country. A desire to aid in promoting the progress of the largest nation on the globe, with the hope that these ambitious boys, when disciplined and equipped by the best education which America can impart in a thorough course of fifteen years’ study, will become the exponents of a higher civilization and the benefactors of their country, is the explanation of this general interest in their culture.” United States, Foreign relations, 1873–1874 (Washington, 1874), vol. 1, pp. 141–42.Google Scholar
15 This letter, together with other material of a like nature on the Chinese Educational Commission, has been made available to the author through the kind generosity of Mr. Arthur G. Robinson, formerly of Tientsin, who for many years interested himself in the careers of the students subsequent to their return to China.
16 Notably in the Denver and Wyoming riots.
17 Yung Wing quite definitely states in his autobiography (pp. 207–208) that when in 1878 he requested that certain of the students be admitted to West Point and Annapolis, the curt refusal of the State Department was an important factor in the recall of the Mission. This refusal could hardly have been important in the eventual decision to withdraw the Mission, as in 1875 Li Hung-chang had inquired as to the possibility of Chinese being admitted to Annapolis and West Point and had been informed of the remote likelihood of Congress passing legislation which would permit foreigners to these two schools. See letter of Secretary of War William W. Belknap to the Secretary of State, State Department, Miscellaneous papers, Feb. 15, 1875. In this letter Belknap cites the refusal of Congress to authorize the admittance of six Japanese youths to the Military Academy and also its unfavorable action upon the recommendation of the President to admit four or six Argentinians to West Point. A copy of this letter was transmitted to B. P. A very, American minister to China, to show to Li Hung-chang as a means of replying to his inquiry. (See Instructions, China, 1867–1878, National Archives, and U. S., Foreign relations, 1875, p. 227.)Google Scholar
18 Li Hung-chang's correspondence, op. cit. (section on correspondence with colleagues [images/])ch.21, p. 4.
Yung Wing lays the blame for the recall of the mission upon Wu Tze-teng [images/] who was sent to America in 1878 to be in direct charge of the Mission at Hartford. Yung Wing says that Wu immediately became antagonistic to the Mission and began to send unfavorable reports about it to Li Hung-chang, and that it was these unfavorable reports that caused the recall of the Mission. (See his autobiography, op. cit., pp. 201 ff.) Yung Wing also says that when he returned to China in 1881 and revealed to Li Hung-chang the falsity of Wu's accusations, Li was greatly chagrined and immediately dismissed Wu from office. Yung Wing seems to have allowed his personal differences with Wu to affect his judgment. Wu did attempt to get the students to pay more attention to their Chinese lessons and to Chinese politeness, but he advocated not that the Mission be suddenly abolished, but that it be gradually given up and that the students already in colleges and technical schools be allowed to finish their studies. Yung Wing's statement that Wu disappeared from public life because of Li's anger at his “false” reports is not correct. After the recall of the Mission, Wu Tze-teng was appointed minister to France, although he seems never to have taken up this post. (See Ch'ing shih kao [images/] [Draft history of the Ch'ing dynasty] (Mukden, 1937), ch. 507, p. 13a). Furthermore, Yung Wing's statement in regard to the curt refusal of the State Department to his request to admit some of the students to West Point and Annapolis seems to be without foundation. (See his autobiography, op. cit., p. 207.) No record of any such application appears either in the National Archives (Notes, Chinese Legation, vol. I) or in the records of the War Department. In view of the definite intimation made to Li Hung-chang in 1875 (see Note 17) that foreign students would not be admitted, it seems hardly likely that Yung Wing would be instructed to make such applications.
19 Ibid.
20 Li Hung-chang's correspondence, op. cit. (Section on foreign affairs [images/]), ch. 25, pp. 6b–8a.
21 Ta Ch'ing li-ch'ao shih-lu (Kuang-hsü, 7: 5, 10).
22 In 1875 several students who had completed the course of training in shipbuilding and engine design at the Foochow Arsenal were sent to France for further study. In 1876 a group of seven military students were sent to Germany. In the same year a party of thirty students were sent to France and England for study in shipbuilding, navigation, naval discipline, etc. An additional ten were sent to these two countries in 1881. In 1890 the Chinese government inaugurated the system of attaching to its legations for observation and travel a number of students. In this year two each were assigned to England, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States, and in 1895 four more were assigned to the above European legations. In 1896 a party of thirteen students were the first government students to be sent to Japan. See Shu Hsin-ch'eng, Chinrtai Chung-kuo liu-hsüeh shih [images/] [A history of Chinese overseas students in modern times] (Shanghai, 1927), passim.
23 In a later work the author hopes to trace the careers of the students of the Mission after they returned to China. Suffice it to say here that after a period of discouragement the majority of them found useful positions in the service of the government. Several of them rose to positions of authority and significance. Their value was particularly recognized after the Boxer crisis of 1900, when the Manchu regime launched a general reform movement.