many primary and some
higher schools--mainly if not exclusively for the benefit of their
converts. The Protestant missions followed the example of the Roman
Catholics, but a new departure, which has had a wide success, was
initiated by the American Protestant missionary societies in founding
schools--primary and higher--and colleges in which western education
was given equally to all comers, Christian or non-Christian.
Universities and medical schools have also been established by the
missionary societies. They also initiated a movement for the education
of girls and opened special schools for their instruction.

Missionary effort apart, the first step towards western education was
the establishment of two colleges in 1861, one at Peking, the other at
Canton in connexion with the imperial maritime customs. These
institutions were known as T'ung Wen Kwan, and were provided with a
staff of foreign professors and teachers. These colleges were mainly
schools of languages to enable young Chinese to qualify as
interpreters in English, French, &c. Similar schools were established
at Canton, Fuchow and one or two other places, with but indifferent
results. A more promising plan was conceived in 1880, or thereabouts,
by the then viceroy of Nanking, who sent a batch of thirty or forty
students to America to receive a regular training on the understanding
that on their return they would receive official appointments. The
promise was not kept. A report was spread that these students were
becoming too much Americanized. They were hastily recalled, and when
they returned they were left in obscurity. The next step was taken by
the viceroy Chang Chih-tung after the Chino-Japanese War of 1894-95.
The viceroy wrote a book, _China's Only Hope_, which he circulated
throughout the empire, and in which he strongly advocated a reform of
the traditional educational system. His scheme was to make Chinese
learning the foundation on which a western education should be
imparted.[15] The book was one of the factors in the 1898 reform
movement, and Chang Chih-tung's proposals were condemned when that
movement was suppressed. But after the Boxer rising the Peking
government adopted his views, and in 1902 regulations were issued for
the reform of the old system of public instruction. A university on
western lines was established in that year at Peking, the T'ung Wen
Kwan at the ca