Chapter 8 Section 1 The Revival of Studying in the United States

In the twenty-sixth year of Guangxu (AD 1900), due to the rise of the Boxer Rebellion, Western imperialist powers organized the Eight-Power Allied Forces to invade Beijing under the pretext of protecting the safety of the embassy.On September 7th in the twenty-seventh year of Guangxu (AD 1901), according to the will of Empress Dowager Cixi, Yikuang and Li Hongzhang, on behalf of the Qing government, cooperated with Britain, Russia, the United States, France, Japan, Germany, Italy, Austria, Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands Representatives from 14 countries, including China, Norway, Sweden, and Portugal, signed the "Xin Chou Treaty" in Beijing.This is an unprecedentedly serious enslavement treaty that humiliates the country and has 12 clauses.The treaty stipulates that the Qing government should pay 450 million taels of silver to the countries, and pay it off in 39 years.This is the so-called Gengzi indemnity.Seven years later, on May 25th in the thirty-fourth year of Guangxu (AD 1908), the U.S. Congress passed a bill to return part of the compensation to China out of consideration for its long-term interests in China.On December 28 of the same year, the President of the United States ordered that, except for deducting the amount of actual compensation, the rest should be returned to China. The total amount of the refund was 13,655,492.69 million U.S. dollars, and an additional 2 million U.S. dollars was retained as possible undiscovered compensation. For the use of the 2 million US dollars, it was found that 838,140,360 US dollars should be withheld, and the balance was also returned to China.

For the use of these refunded compensation, China and the United States have drawn up an agreement: (1) Send Chinese students to American colleges and universities for further study, and agree to send a certain number of qualified Chinese youths to the United States every year since 1909. (2) Establish Tsinghua Academy as a preparatory course for Chinese youths to study in various colleges and universities in the United States. (3) In Washington, D.C., set up the Supervising Office of Touring American Students to manage Chinese students studying abroad. Thus, in June of the first year of Xuantong (AD 1909), the Qing government was formally established in Beijing, appointing Zhou Ziqi, Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as the general office, Fan Yuanlian, the doctor of the Ministry of Education, Tang Guoan, the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as the office, and Rong Kui as the supervisor in the United States.From 1909, when the US refund began, to 1911, when Tsinghua School was established, three screening exams were held to select young people who went directly to the US to study. In September 1909, the Academic Affairs Office of Youmei held the first exam. The first exam was for Chinese, English, Chinese history, geography and other subjects. At that time, more than 600 people took the exam, and only 68 were selected; the re-examination was for physics, chemistry, natural history, Algebra, geometry, trigonometry, foreign ancient history, foreign modern history, foreign geography and other subjects, finally admitted 47 young people studying in the United States.Qiu Changyun ranked first in the first exam, and Cheng Yifa ranked first in the re-examination (that is, the final admission).Among the 47 people, Wang Shijie, He Jie, Mei Yiqi and others are all listed here.At that time, the Guihua School of the Qing court had specially requested to send Bingzhi, Woshenbu, Yang Yinqing and other three people to study in the United States with the first batch of students without taking the exam.The first batch of Geng students studying in the United States included 21 students from Jiangsu, nine from Zhejiang, six from Guangdong, three from Hunan, three from Zhili, and one each from Shandong, Anhui, Henan, Hubei, and Fujian.

In July of the second year of Xuantong (AD 1910), the Yumei Academic Affairs Office held the second examination. According to the "Official News of the Ministry of Education" No. 125 in 1910, the subjects tested were: Chinese theory, English theory (composition translation), History (Must have studied general history and special history of Greece, Rome, Britain, and the United States is preferred), Geography (General geography), Mathematics (Must have studied English algebra, plane geometry, plane trigonometry, and have studied advanced Algebra, solid geometry, analytic geometry, etc. are preferred), Gezhi (medium physical chemistry, zoology and botany, physiology), German or French (one of the two must have studied composition translation, and those who have also studied Latin excellent).Moreover, it is stipulated that the above-mentioned subjects, except for Chinese essays and German or French, will all be tested in English, which shows the difficulty of the test.As a result of the test, 70 of the 400 young people who took the test passed the test. Yang Xiren from Shanghai Nanyang Middle School ranked first with an average score of 79.207; Mr. Zhao Yuanren, who later became a famous linguist and composer, ranked second with a score of 73.4. Second, Zhu Kezhen ranked 28th with a score of 63.8, and Hu Shi ranked 55th with a score of 59.075.Regarding this exam, Hu Shi recalled: "The exam for studying in the United States is divided into two parts. The first part is Chinese and English, and those who pass the second part are allowed to test various sciences. I think this topic is not easy to develop, and because I like to read miscellaneous books on weekdays, I wrote a short article about textual research...Unexpectedly, the gentleman who read the papers at that time was also addicted to textual research, so I appreciated this short article and scored 100 points. I scored 60 points in the English test, averaged 80 points in the first test, and took the 10th place. The various sciences in the second test, such as Western history, such as zoology, such as physics, were all prepared by me impromptu, so the test I’m very unhappy. Fortunately, the scores in the first test took advantage of me, so I got 55th in the second test.” This batch of admitted students included 29 students from Jiangsu, 14 from Zhejiang, and 10 from Guangdong. There are three each from Zhili, Anhui, Fujian, and Sichuan, two from Guizhou, and one each from Hunan, Shandong, and Guangxi, and most of them are graduates of church schools or influential new schools.

In July of the third year of Xuantong (AD 1911), the Academic Affairs Office of Youmei held the third examination and admitted 63 students studying in the United States, including Huang Guodong and Zhang Yuanshan.In this way, 183 international students were sent to the United States.As the trend of studying abroad education became popular, the number of government-funded foreign students sent by various provinces gradually increased. For example, in 1903, Governor Duanfang of Huguang sent 10 students from various schools in Hubei to the United States, and sent Shi Zhaoji, who had returned from studying in the United States, as a stationed in the United States, French Student Manager.In addition, Chen Jintao, committee member of Guangdong and Guangxi, Enshou, governor of Shanxi, Shanghai Higher Industrial School of Commerce, Jiangsu, and Northeast China all sent a certain number of students studying in the United States.According to statistics, there were more than 650 Chinese students studying in the United States in 1911, of whom 323 were in universities, 72 in technical schools, 23 in specialized schools, and the rest were in ordinary schools.Beginning in 1909, the Academic Affairs Office of Youmei decided to allocate part of the Geng fund to subsidize self-financed students. The specific conditions are: for self-financed students who are pure in character, excellent in academics and poor in family background, they will be subsidized US$ 480 per year. Yuan, the number of subsidy is 50, and each person can not exceed three times at most.This is a real and powerful impetus to self-funded study in the United States.

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