When asked if he agreed to let women receive education, Li Hongzhang said euphemistically but firmly: "In our Qing Dynasty, girls invited female teachers to provide education at home, and families with financial ability hired female tutors. At present, we have no public girls' schools or institutions of higher education. This is because our customs and habits are different from yours. Maybe we should learn from your education system and introduce something suitable for our national conditions to China. This is really what we need. "
Later, these ideas of Li Hongzhang gradually became a reality. On the land of China, some institutions of higher learning have gradually emerged that are no longer so influenced and restricted by feudal ideas. The "four famous schools in Beiping" are typical.
Peking University and Tsinghua, which are still famous at home and abroad, and Fu Jen Catholic University and yenching university, which have almost disappeared. These four universities are the representatives of China's higher education in the early 20th century and the main force of China's higher education development.
Peking University and Tsinghua are now very familiar to people in China. But Fu Jen Catholic University and yenching university are not so famous. We will feel strange to them, which has a lot to do with their "origin".
Fu Jen Catholic University is a missionary university, which was established in Beijing on February 192 165438. Although the school was originally founded by a Catholic priest in China, the Vatican and the Benedictine Church entrusted the American Benedictine Church to host the school. And the school is ultimately directly under the Vatican.
The American Benedictine Church has been very reluctant to accept this job. However, due to the Vatican's emphasis on the tradition and characteristics of "focusing on preserving ancient culture and developing higher education", they finally established Fu Jen Catholic University.
For St. Vincent's College alone, the increasing operating expenses of Fu Jen Catholic University are "overwhelmed". At the beginning, the school was not large, and there were not many students and faculty, so the funds were relatively abundant. However, during the period from 1928 to 1929, Nanjing National Government promulgated a series of regulations on running private schools, and Fu Jen Catholic University must complete the "filing" with the Ministry of Education of the National Government within the specified time. Results In the preparation stage of filing a case, a student strike broke out in Fu Jen Catholic University.
Although the student movement in Fu Jen Catholic University subsided with the intervention of the Ministry of Education, and the university was not labeled as "oppressing students with the protection of imperialism", Fu Jen Catholic University was questioned by the Ministry of Education that it only set up a college instead of a university and faced the risk of being downgraded.
In order not to be downgraded to a "college", Fu Jen Catholic University had to expand its scale in a short time. Then Saint Vincent College found that they really didn't have enough funds to maintain the daily operation of the whole school. Finally, in 1933, the American Benedictine gave up the burden. Fu Jen Catholic University in Beijing was subsequently taken over by the Feast Society.
When New China was founded, Fu Jen Catholic University, as a missionary university, was "out of place" with China's domestic environment and was in a split state. 1952, most schools merged into Beijing Normal University, except a few departments merged into Peking University. Fu Jen Catholic University disappeared in mainland China. However, in 1960, at the appeal of the alumni of Fu Jen Catholic University, the school was restored in Taiwan Province Province, namely "Fu Jen Catholic University".
There are many similarities between yenching university and Fu Jen Catholic University. It was formed by the merger of Huiwen University and North China United University. Both universities are missionary schools. 19 19, Si Tuleideng, an American missionary who was born in China and spent his childhood, was hired as the first principal after yenching university was founded.
According to the statistics of yenching university, during the period from 1922 to 1936, Si Tuleideng and others raised 20 million yuan in the United States. On about 770 mu of land, "the western suburb of Beiping, the north of Haidian Town and the south of Chengfu Village", people built the Yanda Campus. "All the people who came here praised Yanjing as the most beautiful campus in the world".
After the founding of New China, the departments in yenching university were roughly divided into three parts and merged into Peking University, Tsinghua University and Beijing University of Political Science and Law. The beautiful campus of Yanda University has also become a part of Peking University.
Peking University and Tsinghua, their predecessors were Chinese studies. After the fall of the Qing government, the two universities were successively taken over by the National Government and the New China Government. Although their departments have made great adjustments in the teaching reform of 1952, they have not merged like Yanda and Fu Ren.
Although the once world-famous four universities in Beijing finally "merged" into two. But their spirit of running a school and their contribution to the development of China will never disappear. This may be the reason why Si Tuleideng is willing to fight for it for many years.