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Western Establishment or Chinese Sovereignty? The Tientsin Anglo-Chinese College during the Restore Educational Rights Movement, 1924–7

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2019

Marina Xiaojing Wang
Marina Xiaojing Wang*
Affiliation:
Chinese University of Hong Kong
*
*Divinity School of Chung Chi College, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T. Hong Kong. E-Mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

The 1920s were a vital period for the evolution of Christianity in China, during which the Anti-Christian Movement of 1922–7 brought Christianity under serious attack. A new conception of nationalism, influenced by Lenin's theory of imperialism, dramatically changed the way in which Christianity (and especially mission schools) was regarded, from being viewed as a positive factor in China's modernization to being seen as a hated cultural imperialist invasion. The period from 1924 to 1927 featured the demand for the restoration of educational rights, during which the identity of mission schools was used to stir up nationalist hatred. This article takes Tientsin Anglo-Chinese College (TACC) of the London Missionary Society (LMS) as a case study. It examines how the TACC missionary authorities responded to nationalistic sentiments emerging within the college and in society, and how they reacted towards the compulsory registration and consequent abolition of compulsory school religious education. It explores key issues behind the interaction between mission schools and the socio-political context, such as how TACC reconstructed its identity during the process of school registration, and how it negotiated with the Ministry of Education under the tension between two divergent approaches of Christianizing and nationalizing mission schools, a tension which became acute as a consequence of the application of regulations making school religious education and practice optional.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 55: CHURCHES AND EDUCATION , June 2019 , pp. 577 - 592
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2019 

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References

1 Committee of Reference and Counsel of the Foreign Missions Conference of North America, Christian Education in China: A Study made by an Educational Commission representing the Mission Boards and Societies conducting Work in China (New York, 1922), 14.

2 Bays, Daniel H., ‘Foreign Missions and Indigenous Protestant Leaders in China, 1920–1955: Identity and Loyalty in an Age of Powerful Nationalism’, in Stanley, Brian and Low, Alaine, eds, Missions, Nationalism, and the End of Empire, SHCM (Grand Rapids, MI, 2003), 144–64Google Scholar, at 146; Hsia, R. Po-Chia, ‘Christianity and Empire: The Catholic Mission in Late Imperial China’, in Brown, Stewart J., Methuen, Charlotte and Spicer, Andrew, eds, The Church and Empire, SCH 54 (Cambridge, 2018), 208–24Google Scholar, at 223.

3 This article uses the Pinyin system to spell the names of Chinese persons, places and church organizations, but keeps Wade-Giles spellings for those fixed as historical terms, such as Tientsin Anglo-Chinese College.

4 Studies on the topic of Christian schools and Chinese nationalism include Lutz, Jessie Gregory, China and the Christian Colleges, 1850–1950 (New York, 1971)Google Scholar; eadem, Chinese Politics and Christian Missions: The Anti-Christian Movement of 1922–1928 (Notre Dame, IN, 1988); Ka-che, Yip, Religion, Nationalism and Chinese Students: The Anti-Christian Movement of 1922–1927 (Washington DC, 1980)Google Scholar; Bays, Daniel H. and Widmer, Ellen, eds, China's Christian Colleges: Cross-Cultural Connections, 1900–1950 (Stanford, CA, 2009)Google Scholar; 胡衛清 [Hu Weiqing], 普遍主義的挑戰： 近代中國基督教教育研究 (1877–1927) [Pubian Zhuyi de Tiaozhan: Jindai Zhongguo Jidujiao Jiaoyu Yanjiu (1877–1927); The Challenge of Universalism: A Study of Modern Christian Education in China] (Shanghai, 2000); 尹文涓 [Yin Wenjuan], ed., 基督教與中國近代中等教育 [Jidujiao yu Zhongguo Jindai Zhongdeng Jiaoyu; Christianity and Modern Secondary Education in China] (Shanghai, 2007); 徐以驊 [Xu Yihua], 中國基督教教育史論 [Zhongguo Jidujiao Jiaoyu Shilun; A History of Christian Education in China] (Guilin, 2010); 周東華 [Zhou Donghua], 民國浙江基督教教育研究 [Minguo Zhejiang Jidujiao Jiaoyu Yanjiu; A Study of Christian Education in Zhejiang in the Republican Era] (Beijing, 2011).

5 Jonathan Lees, ‘The Tientsin and Peking Missions’, in The China Mission Hand-book, 2 parts in 1 vol. (Taipei, 1973; first publ. 1896), part 2, 18–20, at 20.

6 When the renovation work was completed in 1898, the college had a museum and several laboratories, as well as a good range of scientific equipment, such as a telescope, telephonic and telegraphic instruments and X-ray apparatus: London, School of Oriental and African Studies Library (hereafter: SOAS), Special Collections, Council for World Mission (hereafter: CWM), China, Personals, Box 11, S. Lavington Hart, ‘Looking Back Seventy-Five Years’; CWM, LMS, North China Reports, Box 3 (1892–7), no. 5809, Arrival no. 8623, S. Lavington Hart, Tientsin, 14 March 1898; ‘The Walford Hart Memorial College’, Chronicle of the London Missionary Society (1898), 209–13.

7 North China Reports, Box 8 (1915–21), The Tientsin Anglo-Chinese College, 1902–1921.

8 For the early history of the Theological Institute in Tianjin and its transformation into TACC, see Marina Xiaojing Wang, ‘The Best Method of selecting and training Native Preachers: A Study on the Evolution of the Theological Institute in Tianjin (1863–1902)’, Sino-Christian Studies: An International Journal of Bible, Theology and Philosophy 23 (2017), 7–40.

9 North China Reports, Box 11 (1932–6), Memorandum on the Work, Policy and Future of the Tientsin Anglo-Chinese College, 1936, 4.

10 In Tianjin, there were Peiyang University, which was established by the government, with 150 students of college grade, the Technological College (300), the Naval Medical College (60), the Law School (150) and Nankai University, with 1,200 students of all grades: North China Reports, Box 9 (1922–7), Newsletter from Dr and Mrs E. J. Stuckey, Tientsin, 1923, 12.

11 張紹祖 [Zhang Shaozu], 天津新學書院簡史 [‘Tianjin Xinxue Shuyuan Jianshi’; ‘A Brief History of TACC’], 天津和平區文史資料選輯 [Tianjin Heping Qu Wenshi Ziliao Xuanji; A Collection of the Historical Sources of the Heping District in Tianjin] 2 (1989), 49–62, at 55, 61–2; 涂培元 [Tu Peiyuan], 天津新學書院的形形色色 [‘Tianjin Xinxue Shuyuan de Xingxingsese’; ‘A History of TACC’], in 文史資料存稿選編 [Wenshi Ziliao Cungao Xuanbian; A Collection of the Available Historical Sources], 26 vols (Beijing, 2002), 23: 477–88, at 479.

12 Foreign Missions Conference, Christian Education in China, 14.

13 North China Reports, Box 9, S. Lavington Hart, Report for the Year 1922, 1–2 (my emphasis).

14 Ibid., Box 10 (1928–31), S. Lavington Hart, Report for the Year 1928, 2.

15 Lutz, Chinese Politics, 281–2; Jonathan T'ien-en Chao, ‘The Chinese Indigenous Church Movement, 1919–1927: A Protestant Response to the Anti-Christian Movement in Modern China’ (PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1986), 170; 張欽士 [Zhang Qinshi], 國內近十年來之宗教思潮 [Guonei Jin Shinian Lai zhi Zongjiao Sichao; Religious Thought Movements in China during the Last Decade] (Beijing, 1927), 193–6.

16 North China Reports, Box 9, A. P. Cullen, Annual Report 1922, 4.

17 Ibid. 6.

18 Ibid. 7.

19 North China Reports, Box 9, S. Lavington Hart, Report for 1924, 1–2.

20 Ibid. 2.

21 Ibid. 3–4.

22 For details of the ‘May Thirtieth Incident’, see Hung-Ting Ku, ‘Urban Mass Movement: The May Thirtieth Movement in Shanghai’, Modern Asian Studies 13 (1979), 197–216.

23 Lutz, Chinese Politics, 160–5, 170–3.

24 North China Reports, Box 9, S. Lavington Hart, Report for 1925, 1; ibid., C. H. B. Longman, Report for 1925, 3–4.

25 Hart, Report for 1925, 2–4; Zhang, ‘Jianshi’, 59–60.

26 Lutz, China and Christian Colleges, 232–3.

27 陳啟天 [Chen Qitian], 新國家主義與中國前途 [‘Xin Guojia Zhuyi yu Zhongguo Qiantu’; ‘New Nationalism and China's Future’], 少年中國 [Shaonian Zhongguo; Young China] 4/9 (1924), 1–13, at 8–9.

28 Lutz, China and Christian Colleges, 232.

29 SOAS, Conference of British Missionary Societies 348, National Christian Council (hereafter: NCC) Annual Report 1925–6, 196–211.

30 North China Reports, Box 9, S. Lavington Hart, Report for 1926, 7.

31 Ibid. 6.

32 NCC Annual Report 1925–6, 151–2.

33 The court of governors included three times as many Chinese as British, amongst them Yan Huiqing [顏惠慶], ex-premier of the Republic; Liang Ruhao [梁如浩], ex-minister of foreign affairs; Huang Rongliang [黃榮良], formerly minister to New Zealand, Australia and Austria; an ex-chancellor of the exchequer, possibly Zhou Xuexi [周學熙]; and James William Jamieson, the British consul-general; as well as British bank managers and the chairman and members of the British Municipal Council: North China Reports, Box 10, A. P. Cullen, Decennial Review 1920–1930, 17; Tu, ‘Xingxingsese’, 483.

34 North China Reports, Box 9, C. H. B. Longman, Report for 1927, 3; ibid., A. P. Cullen, Report for 1927, 3.

35 Hart, Report for 1928, 1.

36 Ibid. 1.

37 Zhou, Zhejiang Jidujiao Jiaoyu, 82.

38 The ‘Three Principles of the People’, also known as Sanmin Zhuyi (三民主義), refer to the principles of Minzu (nationalism, 民族), Minquan (popular sovereignty / democracy, 民權) and Minsheng (people's livelihood, 民生). These were developed by Sun Yat-sen to express his revolutionary ideas and served as the fundamental doctrines of the GMD: Sun Yat-sen, San Min Chu I: The Three Principles of the People (Shanghai, 1927).

39 Hart, Report for 1928, 1–2.

40 Ibid. 4.

41 Ibid. 4–5; North China Reports, Box 10, A. P. Cullen, Report for 1928, 5; idem, Report for 1929, 2.

42 Zhang, ‘Jianshi’, 51.

43 North China Reports, Box 10, C. H. B. Longman, Report for 1930, 1.

44 Ibid. 2.

45 Tu, ‘Xingxingsese’, 486.

46 Longman, Report for 1930, 2.

47 Cullen, Report for 1929, 5.

48 According to Tu Peiyuan's account of the history of TACC, the dispute between the two occurred when Longman had the minutes of one of the college's board meetings published in The Times. Huang quarrelled with Longman after he discovered that Longman had removed Huang's address to the meeting from the published version. This may have triggered Huang's resignation: Tu, ‘Xingxingsese’, 484.

49 NCC Annual Report 1925–6, 201.

50 Hart, Report for 1925, 2–4.

51 North China Reports, Box 10, A. P. Cullen, Annual Report 1930, 8–9.

52 Hart, Report for 1924, 1–2; idem, Report for 1925, 2–4; North China Reports, Box 10, C. H. B. Longman, Report for 1926, 1–3; ibid., Newsletter from Dr and Mrs E. J. Stuckey, January 1928, 7; Lutz, China and Christian Colleges, 239–49.

53 Hart, Report for 1924, 4–5; Longman, Report for 1925, 6; Hart, Report for 1928, 2.

54 Longman, Report for 1925, 5–6; North China Reports, Box 9, S. Lavington Hart, Report for 1927, 9.

55 Zhang, ‘Jianshi’, 55, 61–2.

56 Tu, ‘Xingxingsese’, 482.

57 Ibid. 478.

58 Cullen, Report for 1927, 4.

59 Yip Ka-che, ‘China and Christianity: Perspectives on Missions, Nationalism, and the State in the Republican Period, 1912–1949’, in Stanley and Low, eds, Missions, 132–43, at 134.

60 Lutz, Chinese Politics, 288.

61 Dunch, Ryan, Fuzhou Protestants and the Making of a Modern China 1857–1927 (New Haven, CT, 2001), 185Google Scholar; Lutz, Chinese Politics, 2–3, 49–50, 57–8. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, instead of granting Chinese delegates’ immediate request for direct restitution of German-leased territory and other rights in Shandong, the Western Allies in general agreed to hand former German interests to Japan. China's failure to regained Shandong and Western powers’ neglect of China's sovereignty led to the outburst of nationwide resentments and sparked student demonstrations in Beijing, known as the May Fourth Movement of 1919. The movement marked the rising tide of modern Chinese nationalism and stimulated Chinese intellectuals to search for China's own way to become a strong nation: Guoqi, Xu, Asia and the Great War: A Shared History (Oxford, 2017), 153–84Google Scholar, ‘China and Japan at Paris: Old Rivalries in a New World’.

62 Lutz, China and Christian Colleges, 514.

63 Bays, ‘Foreign Missions’, 146.

64 Susan Rigdon, ‘National Salvation: Teaching Civic Duty in China's Christian Colleges’, in Bays and Widmer, eds, China's Christian Colleges, 193–217, at 202–6.

65 North China Reports, Box 11, Eric H. Liddell, Report for 1934, 1.

66 By 1952, Christian schools had either been closed down or taken over by local governments. Christian universities ceased to exist both as institutions and as names at the same time, when the government launched a campaign for the institutional reorganization of higher education: Lutz, China and Christian Colleges, 473–84.