Timothy Richard's Vision

Education and Reform in China, 1880–1910

Johnson, Hamrin

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781630875428
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Pioneer missionary Timothy Richard served forty-five years in China and became a household name among educated Chinese. Largely forgotten for decades, his amazing life is reintroduced in this most welcome volume. In 1880, Richard first articulated a vision for modern higher education as the basis for overall progress in China. His influence grew, along with high official honors, after 1891 when he became general secretary of the Christian Literature Society and continued as a leader in the Educational Association of China. By the mid-1890s, many Chinese scholars and officials began to embrace his expanding vision and approach to reform.After the 1900 Boxer Uprising, Richard was invited by the Chinese government to represent Protestant missions, advising and mediating the settlement for the losses of life and property, especially heavy in Shanxi. Following his recommendation, which received Imperial approval by June 1901, the province paid a fine, but it was used to found a college of Western learning in its capital city. The Imperial University of Shansi (now Shanxi University), with Chinese and Western Learning Departments, and overseen by Richard and the provincial governor as joint chancellors, was to serve as the model institution in a national system of modern higher education.

1

Reintroducing a Pioneer Missionary

The missionary enterprise in China has received increasing attention in recent decades, both inside and outside China, spurred by the evidence of Christian revival there. Many historians had viewed the missionaries’ efforts solely in terms of cultural imperialism or colonial paternalism. While it is true the missionaries were a product of their own cultures, they did not all consciously seek to transfer their own cultures to the new context of China. Nor did they all seek to gain political advantage in China for their own countries. In fact, many endured great privation and sacrificed much, even their lives, to spreading the Christian gospel. In many situations, where they went “the gospel of good works” followed. They established schools for girls as well as boys; made available hospitals or medical services to all classes; engaged in social redemptive works, particularly for women; and created and distributed all forms of edifying literature in Chinese.

A closer examination of missionary contributions is now being undertaken by Chinese and foreigners alike. More studies are available in English and Chinese on individual missionaries or specific missionary contributions to China, such as educational institutions or technical services. Nevertheless, it remains true in the history of modern China that “Protestant missionaries are still the least studied but most significant actors in the scene.”1

Studies on the educational contributions of the Protestant missionary enterprise in China in particular are increasing, as evidenced by a 2009 volume on China’s Christian colleges.2 Despite the interest in individual missionary schools, there have been far fewer studies in English on the Chinese government educational institutions, even though missionaries and Chinese Christians often played an important role there. Lund’s dissertation on “The Imperial University of Peking” examines its development and impact on China during the last years of the Qing (Ch’ing) dynasty.3 Biggerstaff’s survey of the earliest modern government schools chronicles the efforts made by the Chinese government prior to the Sino-Japanese War (1894–95).4 Chapters on various government educational institutions, including Qinghua (Tsinghua) University in Beijing, can be found included in other books.5

In 1992, Dr. Ruth Hayhoe, an expert on Chinese higher education, affirmed the importance of the query as to why the first modern government university of the twentieth century was located in the remote inland province of Shanxi (Shansi), and what might be its connection with the 1901 higher education reform edicts. She also encouraged further investigations into the key role played by Welsh Baptist missionary Timothy Richard.6

Richard had administered famine relief in the province 1878–80, and remained there for the next seven years.7 He witnessed the terrible suffering of the people as he tried to ease their plight by supplying food and money collected by Christians in China and abroad. He experienced first-hand the difficulties of transport in Shanxi in attempting to bring food to the starving. Often he had to endure resistance or maneuvers by various officials that impeded getting aid to the people. Worse, desperate famine conditions fueled the elite’s animosity toward missionaries as well as grass-roots anti-foreignism, prompting outbreaks of violent religious persecution that halted all Christian work. The root of these challenges he found to be ignorance, superstition, and a lack of basic understanding of the world outside China and its modern scientific principles.

Richard began to think that once Chinese officials understood the “laws of God” operating in nature, they would accept the Christian faith and seek the greatest benefit of their own people. He believed that the key to understanding these laws was education. Thus, during his time in Shanxi, Richard provided educational lectures and scientific demonstrations to the scholars and officials in Taiyuan. Out of his famine experiences and his contacts with these Chinese officials, a vision was birthed for educational reform as the principal means of Chinese “enlightenment,” opening the door for the gospel as well as China’s entry into the modern world.

The substance of Richard’s vision went through several transformations, ultimately becoming one that encompassed all of China and its role in the world. While in Beijing in late 1895, for example, during meetings with several high-ranking officials, he offered suggestions for comprehensive reform in the economy, foreign relations, and policies for guaranteeing religious freedom, as well as recommendations for educational reform, which he viewed as the basis for all the rest. By then, he already envisioned a system of government-supported higher educational institutions located in the provincial capitals offering a curriculum of Western learning—including Christian values, to those scholars who had already achieved certain success on the Confucian education for the civil service. By 1888 this vision had expanded to include a three-tiered system with elementary as well as preparatory education for the higher educational institutions.

Through the years, some Chinese scholars and officials, who had been making their own efforts to effect change in the Confucian civil service examination system—which shaped all levels of education, became increasingly sympathetic to Richard’s vision. Powerful Court reformers finally embraced it and eventually provided the necessary impetus for imperial edicts that ultimately brought about the creation of a system of modern government-supported higher educational institutions.

In 1901, at the Chinese government’s initiative, Richard was invited back to Shanxi to help settle the issue of compensation for damage and loss of life by missionaries and Chinese Christians during the Boxer Uprising the year before. In late May, Richard’s proposed solution resulted in a decision to fund a college of Western learning, which was later combined with a college for Chinese traditional education to become the Imperial University of Shansi (now Shanxi University) in Taiyuan.

This volume will show how Timothy Richard’s work in education—both formal schooling and mass popular education through the media, libraries, and societies—served as the central component of his larger and ever-expanding vision for a modern China. He had one grand passion—the Kingdom of God worked out intellectually, spiritually, and materially, ultimately leading to peace among individuals and nations.

Richard gradually developed his vision for China and the nations as a deep thinker and committed educator, finding his primary niche as a missionary doing Christian literary work, rather than more traditional itinerant evangelism and church planting, or even teaching. Over time, he disseminated his vision through every means available—writings, translations, memoranda of advice to government, personal mentoring and cooperation with Chinese and Westerners, public speaking in China, Britain, and America, and writing thousands of letters. All this while he served in various leadership capacities (1880–1912) in the Educational Association of China, as editor (1890–91) of the reformist newspaper Shi Bao [Shih Pao; The Times], and as General Secretary (1891–1915) of the Society for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge among the Chinese (SDK). The SDK was also known as Christian Literature Society for China (CLS), which became the official name in 1906.8

The chapters following this introduction are ordered chronologically to highlight key phases in Richard’s life. Chapter 2 notes some parallels between Wales and China in the mid-nineteenth century and examines early formative and educational influences in Richard’s life while in Wales. The early emergence in Wales of Richard’s reformist bent, aimed at achieving practical results, became apparent during his first years in China. By the beginning of his first furlough to England in 1885, Richard had already begun to articulate his vision for higher education as a base for comprehensive reforms in his interactions with other missionaries and Chinese officials.

Chapter 3 looks at Richard’s first efforts to secure support from the Baptist Missionary Society (BMS) for his educational project. Failing in this, he returned to China determined to reproduce his vision in others. The remainder of the chapter explores the controversies in Shanxi an...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Note on Romanization
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: Reintroducing a Pioneer Missionary
• Chapter 2: Becoming a Practical Reformer, 1865–85
• Chapter 3: Refining the Reformer, 1885–91
• Chapter 4: Shaping China’s Reform Movements, 1891–1910
• Chapter 5: Fulfilling the Vision
• Chapter 6: Giving Honor Where Honor is Due
• Epilogue
• Afterword
• Author’s Biographical Sketch and Acknowledgments
• Contributors
• Appendix 1: Chronology of Timothy Richard’s Life
• Appendix 2: Compilation of Works in Chinese by Timothy Richard
• Sources of Illustrations
• Bibliography