Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon: Why China Has the Best (and Worst) Education System in the World

by Yong Zhao

  Shanghai—August 11, 1872. Thirty teenage boys bid tearful good-byes to their families and friends. Cheered by the crowd onshore, their loved ones waving hands as the ship sailed out of port, the boys began their month-long journey to the United States. They were the first of four groups of students sent by the Qing imperial government to study in the United States. Through the Chinese Educational Mission (CEM) program, 120 boys aged eleven through fifteen would study in America for fifteen years. The Chinese government would pay for all of their living and educational expenses, with the expectation that they would return to work for the government. This was one of China's many efforts to acquire Western technology and strengthen itself in the face of Western aggression. The plan was conceived and brought to fruition by Yung Wing, a Yale graduate and the first Chinese to graduate from any Western university. He was convinced that Western education would enlighten, empower, and reenergize his homeland.

  Shanghai—September 7, 1881. A large crowd gathered at the wharf, all eyes on the approaching boat. It docked, and off came the first group of boys who had sailed to America a decade earlier. Now confident young men, they scanned the crowd for their parents, relatives, and friends, but they had no time to find them. Instead of the warm welcome they'd been imagining, they were met by armed guards who swiftly had them carted away in wheelbarrows to an abandoned school building. Along the way, they were jeered and mocked as “foreign devils.” They were kept in the damp, filthy, pest-ridden building for days and forbidden to see their families. Instead of being embraced with open arms by their motherland and entering government to help China become enlightened and powerful, they were interrogated, then assigned to low-level jobs and paid a coolie's wage. In the eyes of their fellow countrymen and the officials who had sent them to the United States, they returned not as heroic patriots but as suspicious traitors who would need to be closely monitored.1

  The boys' early return had not been their decision. A month earlier, the Qing government had cut short their fifteen-year study plan. A few weeks later, the rest of 120 boys came back to China—except for a few who had been expelled from the program, had died, or had escaped being sent back.

  A Grand Experiment

  The boys weren't called home because they had completed their planned study; only three had graduated from college by 1881, and most of the others were still in high school or college. They weren't called back because they couldn't handle living in America. Quite to the contrary; they had quickly adapted to their new living environment, and many quite enjoyed their life in America. They had not failed academically; in fact, all of the boys had excellent academic records and exhibited great potential. Their work was shown at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876 and received high praise—even from President Grant and the First Lady, who made a point of meeting the boys and shaking their hands. The scholars' return wasn't even connected to the anti-Chinese sentiment that was spreading across the United States. The boys had been warmly welcomed by their host families and the media. When Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 in response to rising concerns about the influx of Chinese laborers, the Chinese Educational Mission participants were not affected.

  No, the reason for terminating the program was that these boys were becoming more than what the Qing imperial court had planned for them. While Yung Wing, the Yale graduate who instigated the plan, might have had the idea that they would return with enlightened minds to help rejuvenate the old empire, the government officials and emperor wanted them to learn only military and technical skills. After all, technology seemed the only thing the oldest empire was missing—and the only thing worth learning from the youngest republic. The ancient Chinese civilization had an infinitely superior culture and far more refined ways of living. The Qing officials wanted these boys to stay as far away from the barbaric American culture as possible.

  But the boys did not, could not, stay away from American culture. They were immersed in it. Upon arrival, they were placed in pairs in about sixty families in the New England area, mostly around Hartford, Connecticut. These families had been recruited with the help of Birdsey Grant Northrop, secretary of the Connecticut State Board of Education, who had circulated a letter to churches throughout Connecticut and Massachusetts. The host families were generally well educated, deeply religious, and well respected in their communities. They brought the boys to church and social events and treated them as adoptive children, giving them the same support and discipline they gave their own children. Some of the boys attended public high schools, while others went to private academies, but all were exposed to a Western curriculum and to extracurricular athletics and social events.

  To counter “the seductive influence of foreign learning,” the Chinese government prescribed a course of Chinese studies for the boys.2 During the school year, one hour of each day was devoted to the study of Chinese. Every three months, the boys were required to travel to Hartford, where the mission was headquartered, and spend two weeks taking intensive courses devoted to the memorization and recitation of the classics, Chinese composition, and calligraphy. In summers, they spent six weeks taking these intensive courses in Hartford. On certain days, calculated by the Chinese calendar, the boys were required to participate in rituals designed to remind them of their Chinese identity and impart the rules a Confucian scholar must follow. They were also required to hear the commissioner read Emperor Kangxi's “Sacred Edict” and to perform ceremonial obeisance to the emperor.

  But the Chinese studies and rituals weren't powerful enough to keep the boys away from American ways of thinking and living. First, the boys took a liking to sports—something a good Confucian scholar would never do. Not only did the Chinese boys enjoy baseball, football, and hockey, but they played them brilliantly. A small group of boys even formed their own baseball team and called it the Orientals. They won a game against an Oakland team right before they returned to China.3

  The boys were also popular at school dances and had no problem finding partners of the opposite sex. Because their braided queues were inconvenient for sports and sometimes cause for ridicule in social settings, most of the boys hid them inside their hats or shirts, and a few brave ones cut them off, a sign of disloyalty in the Qing dynasty. Gradually the boys began to assume a Western identity. When Sze Kin Yung had visiting cards printed, for example, he changed his name to “Sydney C. Shih.” He also participated in church activities, exchanged letters with a female schoolmate, and socialized with other girls. Worst of all, some of the boys converted to Christianity. One student showed reluctance to bow to the Confucian tablet, and another cut off his queue and announced his decision to become Christian in a letter to his father. A few students even formed a group called Chinese Christian Home Mission, hoping to convert the whole of China to Christ.

  The Qing officials were deeply concerned, and often enraged, by these changes in the boys. The most serious offenders were expelled from the mission and ordered to return to China (although some got away and stayed in the United States). But the Chinese government continued to hope that the others would finish their studies and maintain their Chinese heritage.

  In January 1880, the mission's fourth and final commissioner, Woo Tse Tun, published an open letter in the Hartford Daily Courant in which he urged the boys to study hard and never forget their Chinese tradition. Woo reminded the boys of the great sacrifices their government and parents had made to support their study, “the hope of both country and parents being that; for a lifetime you may, on the one hand recompense the state by your services, and on the other that you may bring honor to your ancestor.” Woo urged the boys “not to neglect the rules of etiquette… If you deliberately neglect all the rules of politeness of your native country, on your return home, how can you live in sympathy with your fellow countrymen?” Woo warned the students that “foreign habits should not become so rooted as that you cannot change them.”4 His language was mild, but his choice of a public forum in which to lecture the boys showed
the significance of the issue. And the language he used in his report to the Qing officials was not nearly as mild:

  The boys love American sports just like the Americans. They spend more time on sports than on studying. Moreover they follow the example of the Americans and joined all sorts of secret societies, some of them religious and others political, but all engaged in improper conducts. Thus they show no respect for teachers and do not follow our lectures. Furthermore most of the students have converted to Christianity because of studying Christian sciences or attending Sunday schools. If we let these students stay in America for long they will no doubt lose their love for their motherland. Even if they eventually complete their study and return to China, the boys will be of no particular value to the country. Instead they will bring harm to the society. For the sake of the happiness of China, we should immediately disband the mission and recall all students. If the plan is acted upon one day earlier, it gives China good fortune one day earlier.5

  Yung Wing was sympathetic to the students and had in fact wanted them to become more Westernized. However, he was only the deputy commissioner—and the fact that he was never given the commissioner position showed the Qing government's lack of trust in him, no doubt because of his Westernized identity. Wing's marriage to an American woman gave the government even more cause to be wary. As a result, he had little power, and he wasn't well connected to the Qing court officials. News and reports of the commission's progress came from the more conservative commissioners. And these reports made it almost impossible for the early supporters to defend the mission.

  Furthermore, Yung's application to the State Department to allow the students to be enrolled at the Military Academy in West Point and the Naval Academy in Annapolis had been denied. Therefore, one of the primary goals of sending the boys to the United States—to acquire military skills and technology—could not be accomplished. In addition, the rise in commodity prices led to a request for increased funding, which opened a debate about the program's usefulness.

  Members of the Qing court decided that their investment was not going to result in what they wanted: loyal and obedient technicians. Instead, these boys' education was making them independent thinkers and defiant individuals who could pose a threat to the existing imperial order. Yung Wing rallied support, including a joint petition by Mark Twain, Yale president Noah Porter, and Amherst College president Julius Seelye to the Chinese Bureau of Foreign Affairs, praising the students for their progress and good behavior and strongly urging the Chinese government to let the boys complete their planned study. Even President Ulysses Grant tried to rescue the program by sending a personal appeal to his friend Governor Li Hongzhang, the original supporter of the program in the Qing court. But Governor Li was outranked by Prince Gong, head of the Bureau of Foreign Affairs and uncle of the reigning emperor, who favored terminating the program.

  On June 8, 1881, the students began their journey back to China.

  Wishful Thinking

  The fate of the CEM exemplifies China's journey to modernization and innovation over the last century and a half. At first, the Chinese elites were reluctant to accept any need for change. As Confucian scholars, they believed that China possessed a superior culture, and every rule and principle needed for a great civilization had already been discovered and prescribed by ancient “saints”—Confucius and his followers. China's military defeats and apparent weakness were simply the result of failing to follow these rules and principles. The way to gain strength was to restore the ancient rules and principles, not make innovative changes. “The idealistic picture of this era envisions a genuine conservative effort at a ‘Restoration’ similar to those that had occurred after the founding of the Later Han or after the great mid-Tang rebellion,” write historians John Fairbank and Merle Goldman about China's actions in the 1860s.6

  But the “restoration” failed. A few influential officials in the Qing imperial court began to realize that “the foreigners' domination of China was based on the superiority of their weapons, that it was hopeless to try to drive them out, and that Chinese society therefore faced the greatest crisis since its unification under the First Emperor in 221 B.C.”7 China realized the need to train its people to use Western machinery to strengthen itself against the West. This reasoning led to the Self-Strengthening Movement, a series of programs, including the CEM, to bring in Western technologies and allow a few Chinese to learn Western machinery.

  But accepting the need to learn Western machinery meant just that: the West had superior machinery, but nothing else. Following the attractive but fallacious doctrine of “Chinese learning as the foundation, Western learning as the utility,” China began to purchase weapons and gunboats. But direct importation became costly and inconvenient, so China decided to import the technology it needed to manufacture these machines inside China. To staff the factories and operate the machines, China also imported training by both bringing foreign experts in and sending Chinese overseas.

  All of these efforts were conducted with the understanding that all that China needed to learn from the West was technology—the low-level, technical stuff unworthy of the attention of well-educated Confucian scholars and officials. Western learning was generally looked down on. For example, although hundreds of Western works in science and technology had been translated into Chinese, the Chinese scholars showed little interest in them. As a result, the print runs were small, and the materials barely circulated among Chinese scholars.

  An even more telling example is the uproar surrounding Tong Wen Guan, generally considered the first modern institute of higher learning in China. It was established in 1862, by the same department that administered the CEM, to train interpreters to deal with the many treaties and increased presence of foreigners. The school first offered training in English and then added French, Russian, German, and Japanese. In 1866, Prince Gong suggested the addition of a department to teach Western sciences, which triggered a wave of angry reactions from the conservative elites and bureaucrats. Grand Secretary of the Qing court Wo Ren wrote in a memorial to the throne: “The root of a country is the morals of the people, not technology. Now we begin to seek the branch of technology [instead of the root of moral] and make foreigners our teacher…and force our smartest and best educated to learn from foreigners. Consequently the right is suppressed and the wrong gets to spread. In a few years, all Chinese will follow foreigners.”8

  Yang Tingxi, governor of Zhili Province (today's Hebei Province), even blamed the drought in the summer of 1867 on the establishment of Tong Wen Guan and called it a warning sign from heaven. He suggested immediate dissolution of the institute so as to appease heaven. Because of the negative attitude toward Western knowledge, Tong Wen Guan had great difficult recruiting quality students. The government had to pay students a salary to study there and promise immediate appointment to the official ranks on graduation. In the beginning, Tong Wen Guan had only students who could not achieve success in the keju exams or who desperately needed the money. The CEM had the same problem in recruiting students: no decent families wanted their children to study Western knowledge or learn from Western teachers.

  The Chinese government did not want to acquire Western technology at the expense of cultural stability. The quest for innovation had to proceed with great caution so as to avoid contaminating the minds of the Chinese with Western values, sacrificing the Chinese civilization, and destabilizing the existing order. In all efforts to acquire Western technology, China took the utmost care to separate the technology from its surrounding culture. However, historical evidence suggests that such separation was wishful thinking. It was simply delusional to believe that “Western arms, steamships, science, and technology could somehow be utilized to preserve Confucian values,” observe Fairbank and Goldman. “In retrospect we can see that gunboats and steel mills bring their own philosophy with them.”9

  Purchasing navy fleets from the West did not help China win more wars; the Sino-Japanese wars proved that. In 1894
, China had the best-equipped navy in Asia yet was defeated by Japan, which had technologically inferior ships but had Westernized its political, societal, military, and industrial institutions with the Meiji Restoration, a series of political and social reforms that spanned 1868 to 1912. China had tried to extract Western technology from the culture in which it was embedded, and as a result, the technology failed to make China more powerful, as the Self-Strengthening Movement soon showed. It was also impossible to learn technical skills from the West without learning Western culture, as the CEM had demonstrated.

  Many of China's conservative scholars realized the folly of trying to Westernize by halfway measures. But the West's technology, science, and military power—not to mention the material wealth that technology and science brought—grew even more irresistible as time went on. The West could not simply be ignored nor could its influence be kept out by closing all borders or building a great wall as previous emperors had. Despite opposition from its own scholars, China had to engage with the West in all sorts of ways on its journey toward modernization. In the end, China “was sucked into an inexorable process in which one borrowing led to another,” Fairbank and Goldman reflect, “from machinery to technology, from science to all learning, from acceptance of new ideas to change of institutions, eventually from constitutional reform to republican revolution.”10

  Institutional changes and republican revolution did not settle China's ideological dispute about the West, though. Dramatic as those changes were, they did not alter China's imperial way of thinking. The Republic of China was in no way a Western-style democracy. Yuan Shikai, the second president of the Republic, wanted to turn the country back into an empire just four years after its establishment. The Qing emperor was restored, albeit for only twelve days, in 1917—six years after the founding of the Republic. The Republic was then effectively governed by Chiang Kai-shek, who ruled as an emperor (although he was himself a devoted Christian until his death in 1975). He passed the presidency of a much reduced Republic of China (essentially Taiwan and its neighboring islands) to his son, Chiang Ching-kuo, who ruled until his death in 1988.