Figure 1.--Christian missionary societies supported schools and hospitals all over China. These schools intriduced modrn education and the hospitals intoduced modern medicine. Some Chinese boys were brought to America and Britain (perhaps other European countries) where they were educated to go back to China and work as missionaries. We believe this boy about 1870 attended a school in Hartford, Connecticut.

Jesuit missionaries arrived in China at the end of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). They traveled to Beijing (Peking) via Guangzhou (Canton). The best known of these Jesuits was Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) Ricci was a gifted Italian mathematician who arrived in China (1588) and settled in Beijing (1600). Ricci was received at the imperial court where he introduced Western learning. The Jesuit suceess was due in part because of their willingness to accomodate traditional Chinese ancestor worship. Other groups were less successful. The pace of missionary activity in China increased significantly after the First Opium War (1842). The unequal treaties that followed the War provided legal protection for the missionaries and their schools. The mission schools were the foundation for China's modern school system. And the schools played an important role in the modernization of China. As Christian missionaries went to work among the Chinese they founded schools. Here they introduced modern curricula including science and teaching methhods. They also introduced the latest developments in Westerm medicine. These mission schools were viewed with suspicion by traditional Chinese educators. Besides the different curriculum they were the fitst Chinese schools to offer a basic education to not only poor Chinese, but to both boys and girls. Girls until the Republic (1911) were not educated outside the home. By mission schools we are primarily referring to the school missionaries set up in China for Chinese children. There were , however, schools set up in America and Europe to train Chinese missionaries who then returned to China. Than there were American and European children who attended missionary schools. Pearl Buck is surely the most important, but quite a number of these children made important contributions.

Sources

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Created: 12:19 AM 6/15/2008
Last updated: 12:19 AM 6/15/2008