Yung Wing (1828 - 1912) and Young Chinese Students in America (1872 - 1881) by Timothy Kao Yung Wing and the Chinese Educational Commission Yung Wing (also known as Rong Hong, 1828-1912) was born to a poor farming family, in the village of Nanping, in Xiangshan County, Guangdong Province, in southern China. When he was seven years old, Yung was sent by his father to a missionary school in the Portuguese colony of Macao, about four miles away, to study English. His father thought Yung "might become one of the advanced interpreters and have a more advantageous position from which to make his way into the business and diplomatic world" (see Yung's Autobiography). In 1841, Yung entered Morrison School, headed by school-master Reverend S.R. Brown (Yale, 1832) from East Windsor, Connecticut. On Jan. 4, 1847, Yung left Guangzhou and came to America with Rev. Brown, arriving in New York City on April 12. 2000 is the 153-year anniversary of Yung's arrival in America. Yung Wing enrolled at the Monson Academy in Monson, Massachusetts. Upon his graduation in the summer of 1850, he entered Yale University. In the summer of 1854, Yung received his B.A. degree and became the first Chinese student to be graduated from an American university. He returned to China in 1855, but was unable to find a good job because he lacked a Chinese degree, essential to enter the Chinese civil service. In 1863, Yung Wing found employment in the service of the powerful Viceroy Tseng Kuo-Fan, and was sent to the United States to purchase machines from Putnam & Co. (Fitchburg, Massachusetts). Those machines contributed to the founding of the Kiang-Nam Arsenal in Shanghai, China's first modern arsenal. In 1868 the Burlingame Treaty was signed between the United States and China. Article VII of the treaty stated: "Chinese subjects shall enjoy all the privileges of the public educational institutions under the control of the government of the United States." Thus, China chose the United States, bypassing England, as the country to which she would send her first group of students for Western studies. Yung's educational plan was formally proposed by Viceroies Tseng Kuo-Fan and Li Hung-Chang in a memorandum submitted to the Chinese court (dated August 18, 1871): A detachment of thirty students should be sent every year for a consecutive four year period. The total number will be 120. Each student shall study for fifteen years and then come back to China. Their age upon return should be no more than thirty years old, the best time to serve their homeland. Above all, the plan expressed considerable military interest: As the young students grow up, those who are qualified should be sent to West Point and the Naval Academy as cadets and midshipmen for their advanced training. The plan provided for a twenty-year training period in the United States. After the plan was approved by the court, four detachments totaling 120 students arrived in the United States between 1872 and 1875. The youngest student was ten years old and the oldest was sixteen; the students averaged twelve years of age. In 1872, the court appointed Chen Lan-Pin, a conservative Confucian with no knowledge of English, to be the first Commissioner of the Chinese Educational Commission in Hartford, Connecticut. Yung was named Deputy Commissioner. They were the first permanent mission China had ever sent abroad. The first detachment of Chinese students left Shanghai on August 11, 1872, and landed in San Francisco on September 12. Ten days later they arrived in New England. The group was led by Commissioner Chen and included two instructors of Chinese classics and one English interpreter. Yung preceeded the first group of students and went on to New Haven, Connecticut. Dr. B.G. Northrop, then Commissioner of Education in Connecticut, advised Yung to distribute the students among New England families, two or three to each family, where they could be cared for and instructed until they were able to enter junior high school. In 1877, the Chinese Educational Commission erected its own building at 352 Collins Street in Hartford, to be used as a center for learning the Chinese classics. The facility provided classrooms and boarding for seventy-five students. Students would gather as a group to listen to the Chinese instructor, who read the Emperor's instructions at regular intervals. The curriculum for Chinese studies included the classics, poetry, calligraphy and composition. To the newly Americanized Chinese students, the Chinese studies soon became a burden, and they referred to the CEC building as "Hell House." The Sino-American Cultural Synthesis From 1872 to 1881, the Chinese students' academic achievements were matched by their victories on the baseball diamond and in the ballroom. Their great "south-paw" pitcher, Liang Tun-Yen, led the "Orientals" to many victories. (He later served as the last Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Qing Dynasty.) For the two consecutive years, 1880 and 1881, that Yale defeated Harvard in the crew races on the Thames River in Groton, Connecticut, a Chinese mission student, Chung Mun-Yew, served as coxswain for the Yale varsity crew. The Chinese students earned popularity in social circles and seemed to adjust to American mores very quickly. The Chinese Educational Commission's stay in America coincided with a great period of scientific and technological innovation. The students witnessed Alexander G. Bell's first telephone (1876), and Thomas Edison's phonograph (1878) and incandescent lamp (1879). The students attended the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, where samples of their homework, on display in the Educational Pavilion, won merit awards from the Board of Jury. Their accomplishments even drew the attention of then-President Ulysses S. Grant, who hosted a special reception for the Chinese students, during which he shook hands with each of them. It is significant, that in 1878, Chen and Yung were appointed as the first Minister and Associate Minister to the United States, respectively, and presented their credentials to then-President Rutherford B. Hayes in the Blue Room of the White House. The two men who directed the CEC, thus, became China's first official diplomatic envoys to the United States. The Withdrawal of the Chinese Educational Commission As a result of several incidents, the CEC was suddenly terminated earlier than scheduled. Several major reasons contributed to this early termination: 1. Confucian Conservatism vs. Liberalism To the old élite, any modernization scheme was viewed with suspicion and regarded as a threat to essential Chinese cultural and political values. Yung Wing was liberal, pragmatic, and respected by the students. He had been baptized a Christian while still at Morrison School and became a naturalized American citizen on October 30, 1852, while a sophomore at Yale University. Later, in 1875, he married Mary Louise Kellogg from East Windsor, Connecticut. The Chinese students also began to adopt western manners. They stopped wearing the long Chinese gown and wore western suits instead. Some had cut off their queues; some converted to Christianity. They dated American girls and danced at parties. Chen Lan-Pin was shocked at the degree of Americanization among the students. He believed that the educational process had resulted in the alienation of the youth from Chinese tradition and created a new élite who would pose a challenge to the Confucian élite. 2. Chinese reaction to students being baptized Christian In May 1878, the Chinese Students organized the Chinese Christian Home Mission, which they intended to transplant to their native land upon returning home. In 1880, Woo Tsze-Tun became the new Commissioner of the CEC and expressed great displeasure when he discovered that the students were becoming Christians. 3. The military academy disappointment Until 1880, no single Chinese student was admitted into an American military academy, despite several Chinese attempts. China became convinced that the United States had violated the pledge of the Burlingame Treaty by barring her students from the American military academies. 4. The Anti-Chinese moods in America A growing hostility toward Chinese in America resulted from the importation of "coolie" labor for the mines and railroads of the western states. Although then-President Hayes resisted the mood when he vetoed the Chinese Exclusion Act of February 1879, it eventually passed in 1882. These developments offered a pretext for the conservative Confucians who sought to terminate the American educational experiment. On May 12, 1881, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the CEC in a memorandum: Customs and etiquette in the foreign country are vicious and improper. Confucian creed is lacking in all the young students. The best way to solve the problem is to dissolve the Chinese Educational Commission in American immediately. Many eminent Americans, including former President U.S. Grant, President Porter of Yale University, and Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), petitioned the Chinese government not to withdraw the students to no avail. At the time of the recall, only two students had graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University; about sixty students were in other colleges, and the rest in high schools. During August and September of 1881, the young Chinese returned home and the CEC came to an end. On July 23, 1881, the New York Times published an editorial titled "China in the U.S." which stated: The educational scheme which the Chinese government has been trying in this country, for ten years has been, from our point of view, very successful!. . . It is unreasonable to suppose that the bright young men like those educated in the U.S. at the cost of the Chinese government should content themselves with absorbing the principles of engineering, mathematics and other sciences remaining, meanwhile, wholly irresponsive to the political and social influences by which they are surrounded. . . China cannot borrow our learning, our science, and our material forms of industry without importing with them the virus of political rebellion. . . Therefore she will have none of these things. The Contributions of Yung Wing and the CEC Students As the first Chinese graduate of an American university, Yung Wing received from Yale first his B.A. in 1854, and then was conferred an LL.D. in 1876. He played an important role to build Sino-American relations. Without Yung's experience, the CEC would never have been founded in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1877, Yung wrote to Yale's librarian proposing to establish a collection of Chinese books and a professorship for Chinese Language and Literature. Yung began the collection by donating 1,237 volumes of Chinese books. In 1878, Yale appointed Samuel W. Williams as the first professor of Chinese studies. That same year, Yung served as the first Chinese Associate Minister to the United States, finally normalizing Sino-American relations. The achievements of the students of the CEC deserve to be mentioned. They provided China with her first generation of railroad builders, engineers, medical doctors, diplomats, college presidents, and naval admirals Tong Shao-Yi, who studied at Columbia University for two years, was the first Premier of the Republic of China in 1912. Tong Koh-On served as the first President of the famous Tsing Hua College in Beijing in 1911. Chang Hon-Yen graduated from Columbia University Law School, but was at first barred from practice because he was not an American citizen. Due to the argument of his petitions, the New York State Legislature passed a special bill in 1887 to allow him to practice. He was the first Chinese activist for civil rights. Perhaps above others, Chan Tien-Yu's achievements are worthy of record. Chan was eleven years old when he came to Connecticut in 1872. He graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University in 1881, and upon his return to China he dedicated thirty-two years of his life to the design, planning, and construction of China's railroads. One of these railroads, the famous Peking-Kalgan Railway, was built solely by the talent and efforts of Chinese engineers without any foreign assistance. Today, the name of Chan Tien-Yu is synonymous with the spirit of self-sufficiency on both sides of the Taiwan Straits, and represents the drive for modernization of the Chinese people. Since 1847, several hundred thousand Chinese students have been in this country to pursue their college education and return to China to serve their country. What has China learned from these experiences? Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1816: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Aldous Huxley wrote in 1937: "Good education will be fully effective only if there are good social conditions and, among individuals, good beliefs and feelings; but social conditions, and the beliefs and feelings of individuals will not be altogether satisfactory until there is good education." Looking back over Chinese history for the past 150 years, Jefferson's and Huxley's statements resonate with truth. To achieve liberty through education, China learned a valuable, but painful, lesson. Timothy Kao is Professor Emeritus - Economics, at Gateway Community-Technical College and President of Chinese Students Memorial Society in Connecticut