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34 Chapter 2 Tearing Down the Barriers  Any substantial expansion in educational interactions between the United States and China depended very much on government since almost all major barriers were set up by the visible hand. The devastating defeats suffered by China and the serious crisis that emerged in U.S.China diplomatic relations around the turn of twentieth century forced the Qing Court as well as Washington to make some changes in their domestic and foreign policies. While the Qing Court took steps to abolish the traditional Chinese civil service examination system and establish modern schools, Washington began to stop its officials from mistreating Chinese students at American ports and negotiated the return of a large portion of the Boxer Indemnity to China for the education of Chinese youth in the United States. These government actions, all begun in 1905, helped remove or at least lower all the major institutional, legal, and financial barriers to the development of strong educational interactions between the two nations. The unprecedentedly deep government intervention not only paved the road for a drastic expansion of U.S.-China educational exchange, but also brought fundamental changes in its nature and function. Abolishing the Traditional Civil Service Examination System The traditional Chinese civil service examinations had served the state rather effectively in two capacities since the Sui and Tang Dynasties. One was to select qualified candidates for government offices. The other was to provide guidelines for educators and students, who saw passing the examinations and service in the government as their ultimate success. It was through the civil service examinations that the Chinese government was able to make sure that only Confucian classics were taught in school and in appropriate ways. Therefore, no serious reforms could take place in Chinese education until the traditional civil service examination system was changed or terminated. As modern education and new schools were finally seen as the key to its survival, the Qing Court Tearing Down the Barriers 35 decided to abolish the civil service examinations in 1905 so that it could adopt a new and modern educational system in China. With thousands of new schools shooting up all over China and Western learning integrated as part of the new curriculum, there was a desperate need to have more Chinese students trained in foreign countries. As a result, Western educational experience and diplomas replaced traditional examinations and degrees as a new short-cut to successful careers for Chinese students. The rise of modern schools presented the greatest challenge to the Chinese civil service examination system. Although American missionaries were pioneers in introducing modern education to China, the strongest driving force behind revolutionary changes in China’s educational system came from reform -minded Chinese officials and intellectuals. Having suffered humiliating defeats by foreign powers in the nineteenth century, some officials saw the study of Western learning as the only way to enrich the nation and build powerful military forces (fuguo qiangbin). In order to have engineers, technicians, and officers trained to build warships, command a modern army and navy, and establish transportation and communication enterprises, they sent some students abroad and set up a number of modern schools beginning in the 1860s. In addition to Tongwenguan and Jiangnan Zhizaoju, several military academies, such as Naval Academy of the North Sea (Beiyang Shuishi Xuetang) and Tianjin Military Academy (Tianjin Wubei Xuetang), were founded between the late 1870s and the mid-1890s. By the eve of the Sino-Japanese War, there were about twenty-five modern schools run by the Chinese with an enrollment of two thousand.1 However, these early schools were narrowly focused on a few military-related subjects and run like a traditional Chinese academy. Their impact on China’s traditional education or the civil service examination system was minimal. The demand for modern schools and significant reforms in civil service examinations surged after China’s defeat in the war against Japan in 1895. The Japanese victory clearly demonstrated the power of modern science, technology, industry, and education. In order to catch up with Japan, more modern schools were established throughout the nation. In 1896, the Public College of South Sea (Nanyang Gongxue) was established by Sheng Xuanhuai in Shanghai. With American-style textbooks, it was the most comprehensive modern school established by the Chinese.2 In the following two years, fifty-eight modern schools opened their doors in China.3 Zhang Zhidong, one of the highest-ranking Han Chinese officials in...

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