THE CHINESE EDUCATIONAL MISSION
Taking advantage of their presence, I seized the opportunity to press my
educational scheme upon the attention of Ting Yih Chang and urged him to
present the subject to the Board of Commissioners of which Tsang Kwoh
Fan was president. I knew Ting sympathized with me in the scheme, and I
knew, too, that Tsang Kwoh Fan had been well informed of it three years
before through Governor Ting. Governor Ting took up the matter in dead
earnest and held many private interviews with Tsang Kwoh Fan as well as
with the other members of the Commission. One evening, returning to his
headquarters very late, he came to my room and awakened me and told me
that Viceroy Tsang and the other Commissioners had unanimously decided
to sign their names conjointly in a memorial to the government to adopt
my four propositions. This piece of news was too much to allow me to
sleep any more that night; while lying on my bed, as wakeful as an owl,
I felt as though I were treading on clouds and walking in air. Two days
after this stirring piece of news, the memorial was jointly signed with
Viceroy Tsang Kwoh Fan’s name heading the list, and was on its way to
Peking by pony express. Meanwhile, before the Board of Commissioners
disbanded and Viceroy Tsang took his departure for Nanking, it was
decided that Chin Lan Pin, a member of the Hanlin College, who had
served twenty years as a clerk in the Board of Punishment, should be
recommended by Ting to co-operate with me in charge of the Chinese
Educational Commission. The ground upon which Chin Lan Pin was
recommended as a co-commissioner was that he was a Han Lin and a
regularly educated Chinese, and the enterprise would not be so likely to
meet with the opposition it might have if I were to attempt to carry it
out alone, because the scheme in principle and significance was against
the Chinese theory of national education, and it would not have taken
much to create a reaction to defeat the plan on account of the intense
conservatism of the government. The wisdom and the shrewd policy of such
a move appealed to me at once, and I accepted the suggestion with
pleasure and alacrity. So Chin Lan Pin was written to and came to
Tientsin. The next day, after a farewell dinner had been accorded to the
Board of Commissioners before it broke up, Governor Ting introduced me
to Chin Lan Pin, whom I had never met before and who was to be my
associate in the educational scheme. He evidently was pleased to quit
Peking, where he had been cooped up in the Board of Punishment for
twenty years as a clerk. He had never filled a government position in
any other capacity in his life, nor did he show any practical experience
in the world of business and hard facts. In his habits he was very
retiring, but very scholarly. In disposition he was kindly and pleasant,
but very timid and afraid of responsibilities of even a feather’s
weight.
In the winter of 1870, Tsang Kwoh Fan, after having settled the Tientsin
imbroglio, returned to Nanking, his headquarters as the viceroy of the
two Kiangs. There he received the imperial rescript sanctioning his
joint memorial on the four proposals submitted through Ting Yih Chang
for adoption by the government. He notified me on the subject. It was a
glorious piece of news, and the Chinese educational project thus became
a veritable historical fact, marking a new era in the annals of China.
Tsang invited me to repair to Nanking, and during that visit the most
important points connected with the mission were settled, viz.: the
establishment of a preparatory school; the number of students to be
selected to be sent abroad; where the money was to come from to support
the students while there; the number of years they were to be allowed to
remain there for their education.
The educational commission was to consist of two commissioners, Chin Lan
Pin and myself. Chin Lan Pin’s duty was to see that the students should
keep up their knowledge of Chinese while in America; my duty was to look
after their foreign education and to find suitable homes for them. Chin
Lan Pin and myself were to look after their expenses conjointly. Two
Chinese teachers were provided to keep up their studies in Chinese, and
an interpreter was provided for the Commission. Yeh Shu Tung and Yung
Yune Foo were the Chinese teachers and Tsang Lai Sun was the
interpreter. Such was the composition of the Chinese Educational
Commission.
As to the character and selection of the students: the whole number to
be sent abroad for education was one hundred and twenty; they were to
be divided into four installments of thirty members each, one
installment to be sent each year for four successive years at about the
same time. The candidates to be selected were not to be younger than
twelve or older than fifteen years of age. They were to show respectable
parentage or responsible and respectable guardians. They were required
to pass a medical examination, and an examination in their Chinese
studies according to regulation--reading and writing in Chinese--also to
pass an English examination if a candidate had been in an English
school. All successful candidates were required to repair every day to
the preparatory school, where teachers were provided to continue with
their Chinese studies, and to begin the study of English or to continue
with their English studies, for at least one year before they were to
embark for the United States.
Parents and guardians were required to sign a paper which stated that
without recourse, they were perfectly willing to let their sons or
protégés go abroad to be educated for a period of fifteen years, from
the time they began their studies in the United States until they had
finished, and that during the fifteen years, the government was not to
be responsible for death or for any accident that might happen to any
student.
The government guaranteed to pay all their expenses while they were
being educated. It was to provide every installment with a Chinese
teacher to accompany it to the United States, and to give each
installment of students a suitable outfit. Such were the requirements
and the organization of the student corps.
Immediately upon my return to Shanghai from Nanking after my long
interview with the Viceroy, my first step was to have a preparatory
school established in Shanghai for the accommodation of at least thirty
students, which was the full complement for the first installment. Liu
Kai Sing, who was with the Viceroy for a number of years as his first
secretary in the Department on Memorials, was appointed superintendent
of the preparatory school in Shanghai. In him, I found an able coadjutor
as well as a staunch friend who took a deep interest in the educational
scheme. He it was who prepared all the four installments of students to
come to this country.
Thus the China end of the scheme was set afloat in the summer of 1871.
To make up the full complement of the first installment of students, I
had to take a trip down to Hong Kong to visit the English government
schools to select from them a few bright candidates who had had some
instruction both in English and Chinese studies. As the people in the
northern part of China did not know that such an educational scheme had
been projected by the government, there being no Chinese newspapers
published at that time to spread the news among the people, we had, at
first, few applications for entrance into the preparatory school. All
the applications came from the Canton people, especially from the
district of Heang Shan. This accounts for the fact that nine-tenths of
the one hundred and twenty government students were from the south.
In the winter of 1871, a few months after the preparatory school had
begun operations, China suffered an irreparable loss by the death of
Viceroy Tsang Kwoh Fan, who died in Nanking at the ripe age of
seventy-one years. Had his life been spared even a year longer, he would
have seen the first installment of thirty students started for the
United States,--the first fruit of his own planting. But founders of all
great and good works are not permitted by the nature and order of things
to live beyond their ordained limitations to witness the successful
developments of their own labor in this world; but the consequences of
human action and human character, when once their die is cast, will
reach to eternity. Sufficient for Tsang Kwoh Fan that he had completed
his share in the educational line well. He did a great and glorious work
for China and posterity, and those who were privileged to reap the
benefit of his labor will find ample reason to bless him as China’s
great benefactor. Tsang, as a statesman, a patriot, and as a man,
towered above his contemporaries even as Mount Everest rises above the
surrounding heights of the Himalaya range, forever resting in
undisturbed calmness and crowned with the purity of everlasting snow.
Before he breathed his last, I was told that it was his wish that his
successor and protégé, Li Hung Chang, be requested to take up his mantle
and carry on the work of the Chinese Educational Commission.
Li Hung Chang was of an altogether different make-up from his
distinguished predecessor and patron. He was of an excitable and nervous
temperament, capricious and impulsive, susceptible to flattery and
praise, or, as the Chinese laconically put it, he was fond of wearing
tall hats. His outward manners were brusque, but he was inwardly
kind-hearted. As a statesman he was far inferior to Tsang; as a patriot
and politician, his character could not stand a moment before the
searchlight of cold and impartial history. It was under such a man that
the Chinese Educational Commission was launched forth.
In the latter part of the summer of 1872 the first installment of
Chinese students, thirty in number, were ready to start on the passage
across the Pacific to the United States. In order that they might have
homes to go to on their arrival, it devolved upon me to precede them by
one month, leaving Chin Lan Pin, the two Chinese teachers and their
interpreter to come on a mail later. After reaching New York by the
Baltimore and Ohio, via Washington, I went as far as New Haven on my way
to Springfield, Mass., where I intended to meet the students and other
members of the commission on their way to the East by the Boston and
Albany Railroad. At New Haven, the first person I called upon to
announce my mission was Prof. James Hadley. He was indeed glad to see
me, and was delighted to know that I had come back with such a mission
in my hands. After making my wants known to him, he immediately
recommended me to call upon Mr. B. G. Northrop, which I did. Mr.
Northrop was then Commissioner of Education for Connecticut. I told him
my business and asked his advice. He strongly recommended me to
distribute and locate the students in New England families, either by
twos or fours to each family, where they could be cared for and at the
same time instructed, till they were able to join classes in graded
schools. This advice I followed at once. I went on to Springfield,
Mass., which city I considered was the most central point from which to
distribute the students in New England; for this reason I chose
Springfield for my headquarters. This enabled me to be very near my
friends, Dr. A. S. McClean and his worthy wife, both of whom had been my
steadfast friends since 1854.
But through the advice of Dr. B. G. Northrop and other friends, I made
my permanent headquarters in the city of Hartford, Conn., and for nearly
two years our headquarters were located on Sumner Street. I did not
abandon Springfield, but made it the center of distribution and location
of the students as long as they continued to come over, which was for
three successive years, ending in 1875.
In 1874, Li Hung Chang, at the recommendation of the commission,
authorized me to put up a handsome, substantial building on Collins
Street as the permanent headquarters of the Chinese Educational
Commission in the United States. In January, 1875, we moved into our new
headquarters, which was a large, double three-story house spacious
enough to accommodate the Commissioners, teachers and seventy-five
students at one time. It was provided with a school-room where Chinese
was exclusively taught; a dining room, a double kitchen, dormitories and
bath rooms. The motive which led me to build permanent headquarters of
our own was to have the educational mission as deeply rooted in the
United States as possible, so as not to give the Chinese government any
chance of retrograding in this movement. Such was my proposal, but that
was not God’s disposal as subsequent events plainly proved.