Oberlin College and Oberlin-Shansi Memorial Schools, 1900-1937:A Case Study of Christian Schools in China

• Main Authors: Neng-ChihChen, 陳能治
• Other Authors: Shih-Chi Liu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/2sy733

博士 === 國立成功大學 === 歷史學系碩博士班 === 100 === This study takes the form of a case study with the extensive use of rich raw data of the Oberlin Shansi Memorial Association (OSMA), including minutes of meetings, financial reports, correspondence, publicity materials and bulletins now in the Oberlin College Archives (Oberlin, Ohio, U.S.A.), with the aim of proposing a new research perspective on the educational enterprises of American denominational colleges in Modern China different from the ‘Cultural Imperialism’ viewpoint approach. In the end of 19th century, some graduates of Oberlin's Graduate School of Theology applied to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) to make foreign service as a group, the Oberlin Band, for mission work in China. They set a precedent for American foreign missionary band sent by a single college. The Oberlin China Band was under the auspices of ABCFM and built the Shansi Mission of ABCFM in Shansi (now Shanxi) , China. The whole missionaries of the Shansi Mission, mostly alumni of Oberlin College, and many Chinese converts, were killed in the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. In memory of those martyred in the Boxer Rebellion, the Oberlin Band of Student Volunteers for Foreign Missions established the Oberlin Shansi Memorial Association (OSMA) to support the educational work in connection with the Shansi Mission of ABCFM in Shansi , China. Kung Hsiang-Hsi, who escaped the massacre in 1900 and graduated from Oberlin College in 1906, was invited to return to Taiku (now Taigu) to build the Ming Hsien-Oberlin Shansi Memorial Schools. At first, OSMA was affiliated with ABCFM, conferred the directing governance of the educational work in the field to the Shansi Mission of ABCFM. In the 1910s, in order to get Ming Hsien out of the complicated collisions among the factions of the Shansi Mission, OSMA modified the initial plan of setting a Christian educational system in Shansi to endeavor a college in Taigu , and made co-ordination with ABCFM to spell out the financial and personnel responsibilities for each other. That led Ming Hsien be independent from the control of the missionary societies and became an institution maintained solely by OSMA in Shansi. In the 1920s, in response to the external challenges caused by the rising tide of student nationalism, non-Christian Movement, and the claim for the restoration of education rights by the government in China, Ming Hsien gradually became a co-educational, indigenous, Christian, vocational, and manual high school. During this period, the funds endowed from the Hall Educational Fund let OSMA develop the annual appointments of Oberlin Student Shansi Representatives to teach in Ming Hsien, offer the Shansi Fellowship to faculty of Ming Hsien for study in America, promote women’s educational interests in Ming Hsien, and sponsor Raymond T. Moyer, a former Student Shansi Representative, to study agronomy in America. Raymond T. Moyer returned to Ming Hsien and started the Agriculture Department in 1928, that set clear the educational direction of Ming Hsien to be an agricultural professional school in North China in the 1930s. Ming Hsien was registered with the national government in 1927. While the Christian spirit persisted, the aim of Ming Hsien gradually evolved from evangelism into Christian service to China. In the 1930s. Ming Hsien established the Industrial Department, Work-Study Plan and the Department of Rural Service, which all worked closely with the Agriculture Department. These new developments at Ming Hsien allowed people at Oberlin College to recall the benevolent social service ideals of ‘Oberlin’s namesake’ of Oberlin College and Oberlin Town at the initial stage, and to rediscover the manual spirit of Oberlin College’s motto of ‘Learning and Labor’. The ideals of pacifism, internationalism, and human perfectibility which Pastor John Frederick Oberlin furnished to his parish in Alsace, France in the late 18th century had become the new linkage between OSMA and Ming Hsien. Thus, the evangelism-oriented idea of self-sacrifice of martyrdom originated in Ming Hsien was converted to the betterment of rural people’s life that was the mainstream idea of social Christianity in Oberlin College in the 1920’s. These developments brought to fruition the ideal of Ming Hsien’s motto ‘Learning for Service’. In conclusion, Oberlin College established the Oberlin Shansi Memorial Association in Oberlin, U.S.A. and Ming Hsien in Shansi, China in memory of the men and the women martyred in the Boxer Rebellion. These two organizations, through long-term institutional, organizational, individual interactions, and the unexpected funds contributed by the Hall Estate, developed a parental relationship to form substantive educational contents in between. Before Ming Hsien’s forced move to Szechuan caused by the Japanese invasion in 1937, the conversion of social service into rural reconstruction not only let the educational work in the field gradually match the demands of Chinese society, but also gave the logistic in the home-base in the United States a driving force to keep the continuation of the enterprise during and after WWII. Thus, Ming Hsien is a unique case in Christian schools established by a single American college in Modern China. The unfolding story of Oberlin-in-Shansi is a part of the ‘Oberlin Legacy’ in the history of Oberlin College, and the discourse of ‘cultural imperialism’ of Oberlin-in-Shansi is still fluid depending on the changing external circumstances.