Nanyang College was founded by Sheng Xuanhuai on 1896. Previously, he founded Beiyang University Hall, the first university in modern China. As can be seen from the name, Nanyang Public School is the school opposite Beiyang University. Nanyang public school was very famous in that year and was called one of the four major academies in modern times.

Nanyang Quanye College, the predecessor of Xi Jiaotong University and Shanghai Jiaotong University, was established at the end of 1896. Approved by Emperor Guangxu of Qing Dynasty, it was started by Sheng Xuanhuai, Minister of Railway Supervision. Like Beiyang University, it is the earliest university founded by China people in China's modern history, and the first school in China with a complete education system of normal schools, primary schools, middle schools and universities.

Among them, normal school is the earliest new normal school in modern China. Part of the school's funds are donated by businessmen (that is, China Merchants and Telegraph Bureau) and part of them are funded by officials. That's a public school. In the late Qing Dynasty, Shanghai was called Nanyang, so the school was named Nanyang Public School.

19 12, the school was placed under the Ministry of Communications of Beijing National Government and renamed as Shanghai Industrial College of the Ministry of Communications; 192 1 year, when Ye Gongchuo was the chief transportation officer of Beiyang government, the three universities (Shanghai, Beijing and Tang) affiliated to the Ministry of Communications were renamed as Jiaotong University, and the school was named Shanghai School of Jiaotong University.